As a parent, the early stages of learning about and coming to terms with even the mildest of special needs are extremely difficult and stressful times. One of the greatest frustrations is identifying practical ways to help your child - whilst climbing a very steep learning curve in terms of understanding the problem, including learning about whole new areas of health and education provision which most parents never encounter, there is the overwhelming desire to want to be able to do something practical.

Time is of the essence - early intervention for children with special needs can make a significant difference to the child, and indeed to the family and all concerned. Thus helping parents and carers find and understand what they need can be a real benefit - even when some of the toys are readily available it is often difficult for the non-specialist to know why a particular toy or feature might be helpful. For example the typical "inset” style farmyard puzzle can be extremely difficult for some children, particularly the youngest, to use and develop their fine motor skills, and so simply selecting puzzles with larger knobs enables them to make progress. Sadly most parents like ourselves just don't find these things out until much later, so with the right information and product selection we (SenseToys) should be able to make this advice more readily available.

I set up SenseToys to help people like me find and choose which toys we need, understand how to use them, and why they work - p

ractical information and advice for parents and carers, especially for those learning about and coping with special needs for the first time, based on first hand experience.

SenseToys helps you to make learning fun and rewarding for children with learning difficulties - sometimes even "ordinary” toys can help you produce extraordinary results if you can find them and know how to use them effectively!

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