Playing with dolls enhances social and emotional development, strengthens motor and life skills and stimulates children to express thoughts and emotions. Children want dolls they can relate to, dolls that look like them. For children with severe disabilities and medical conditions, dolls that mirror their life situations are not available in neighborhood toy stores.

ADI Jerusalem teacher Tami Gutman identified the need and decided to do something about it.

Employing her experience as director of ADI’s Sensory Library Program where she accessorizes books with sensory paraphernalia to make stories more comprehensible to children with intellectual developmental delays, Tami decided to create dolls to which residents of ADI could relate. Using regular soft dolls, Tami added feeding tubes, tracheotomy tubes and other medical paraphernalia similar to those used by ADI residents. The new dolls with disabilities were happily received by ADI children who knew from experience that they must handle the dolls gently and be careful not to disconnect tubing.

At ADI Jerusalem, we strive to give our children the best of everything, and if it doesn’t exist, we create it.