Survey on toys used for prosthetic training for children with congenital upper limb deficiencies

Abstract

Using toys in prosthetic training for children with congenital limb deficiency is useful for them to get trained while having fun. We investigated the toys used in training of upper limb prostheses for children in National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities in 2012-2020 to learn what kind of toys were suitable for training. We counted the number of times that the toys were used in the training for 23 children under 3 years old. One hundred thirty types of toys were used in 293 training sessions, and 80％ of them were ready-made. There weren’t many types of toys that were used repeatedly. The toys used frequently had simple functionality, and these were able to be used for children at different developmental stages. Toys that weren’t appropriate for the child’s developmental stage or that limited the manner of use were used less frequently. Some toys had different frequencies of use between boys and girls. It was suggested that ready-made toys are effective for training depending on how they were used. Considering suitability for the developmental stage of the target child and acceptability to many children is important when selecting a toy or giving function for training to a ready-made toy.