The Bridge School is an internationally recognized leader in the education of children who use augmentative and alternative communication and has developed unique programs and trained highly skilled professionals in the use of state of the art assistive technology.

Laudable enough, but there’s something on their website of particular interest to GearAbility readers who care for children who use wheelchairs or walkers. The nifty images you see in this post are costumes cleverly adapted to those devices — just in time for Halloween.

In addition to Aladdin (upper left) and the Punk Rock Drummer (to the right), there are instructions for George of the Jungle, a Flower Garden, a Bulldozer and (many) more.

The page is full of helpful suggestions; click on the images for instructions for each costume. There’s also a .pdf handbook available (though registration is required to access the download).

The Bridge School’s Halloween Costume Page

When my husband visited my dad recently, he picked up Oscar and held him in his arms during our entire visit. We didn’t talk about Oscar, but throughout the visit, Paul was quietly animating him: Oscar turned his head here and there, he wiggled his paws occasionally, he scrunched down to settle himself in Paul’s arms. When Oscar wasn’t moving actively, Paul tucked one hand under him so that he appeared to be breathing quietly.

When I returned the following day, my dad picked Oscar up while we were talking. Without giving it any apparent thought at all, my dad began moving Oscar very much the same way Paul had, thoroughly enjoying the company of his little puppy, and, obviously, the memory of the previous day’s visit. By bringing Oscar that much more ‘alive,’ Paul had modeled another, more active, way for Dad to enjoy his ‘pet.’ My dad spends very little time using his hands for anything other than holding books, and occasionally patting Blondie and Oscar — this was a new experience for him, and one that clearly pleased him very much.

For people who no longer have the animals they’ve loved, a pet like Oscar or Blondie can be not only emotionally rewarding and satisfying to the senses, but can also provide opportunities for mental stimulation. Keeping imagination alive is important for all human happiness; having a focus for talking with others encourages conversation in environments, like nursing homes or in long-term care situations, where interaction doesn’t always happen unless there is an appealing natural trigger.

Oscar/Bella makes a great pet wherever the shoe-chewing version isn’t exactly welcome. At 16 inches long, they’re the perfect size to hold in a lap or tuck in an arm while in bed — and not too big to hitchhike along in a wheelchair.

Bella is under $20 (USD) most anywhere you can find Douglas Toys, or at various places on the Internet

She sent along this anecdote, about a situation at

. . . a hospital in Norway a while back. Their electronic nurse call system went out and it was going to take six months to get a new one installed (government owned hospital). The red tape and mess made it news worthy to the local paper…. The MOEN Bell Factory read about it and donated sheep bells for the patients to call the nurse. It worked well since the head nurse was also a sheep farmer and after a while could hear the different bell tones and which patient was ringing.

I was on the right track, it seems. If you want to equip your own sick room (or just own some very cool cowbells), Elisabeth told me that Cowbell.com is offering an online special – a sampler set of four different bells (two and three-fourths of an inch to four inches high). The four inch Torino bell (left) is on special, too — normally only with another purchase. Mention GearAbility if you buy one, and Elisabeth will waive the purchase requirement.

Disclosure: I have no connection to Cowbell.com, and no financial interest in any purchases readers make. But I know a good story when I see one — and a fine bell!

Cowbell.com’s trivia page has other other amusing and enlightening information (do you know how the term “saved by the bell” originated?).

Related: Non-Electric Call Bells

The beauty of it is that you don’t need any prior knowledge to play. You just need to know the names of objects, and to have the ability to answer relatively simple questions. The trickiest of the questions are along the lines of “is it a mammal?” In our experience, even if you don’t know an answer, though, the game goes on just fine.

Ours was the pocket version. Because it was so small and round, I thought my dad might have trouble holding it and using the buttons — and he did, a little. But he was too involved to mind much.

Naturally, we went out and picked up the big screen version so Dad could have it at the nursing home. It’s rectangular and easier to hold, and the buttons are also further apart and simpler to use.

When we first played the game with the family over the holidays, we read the questions out loud and answered them together. It was noisy and a lot of fun, with a lot of laughing. But even when my dad played the game by himself, 20Q seemed almost social — he’s interacting, not just reading the questions. And it’s addictive . . . the day we gave the big screen version to him, he hustled us on our way, and headed back to his room so he could play more! It’s gotten increasingly difficult to get him engaged with new things, so it was a treat to see how he took to this neat little toy.

The game is battery-powered and has several options for answers: yes, no, sometimes, rarely. There’s a backlight on the pocket version to make the text more readable. The big screen version doesn’t have the backlight, but the text is quite clear if you just change the angle when you’re holding it.

The text is surprisingly large — it scrolls, and you can slow it down or speed it up on either version. We were able to set the big screen version so that Dad had no trouble reading the questions, even though he’s not at all used to electronic games.

For the right nursing home or assisted living resident, this could be a fine independent activity. Anyone confined to bed or inactivity (however temporarily) could do worse than while away the boring hours tussling with this ‘intelligent’ little device. It could also be just the thing when conversation lags during hours spent in waiting rooms, or when hospital visits threaten to become stultifying.

Beware — it’s very competitive, and you’ll really need to stump it. Dad loves knowing that he might get the upper hand . . . next time! Even when you can’t win, it’s amazing and amusing to be awed by this clever little box.

Recommended for ages 8 and up. Available just about everywhere you find toys (except around Christmas time, when we couldn’t find it locally at all), and at Amazon.com (which sold out at Christmas). The pocket version is available in a slew of languages, but you may have to order online to get those.

U Silly Goose carries it online, and has a nice succinct description of it. Prepare to share — the weight limit is 220 lbs. on a flat surface, 120 lbs on a rough surface — weight, not age, is the only limitation here!

There’s a video of PlasmaCars in action on the PlasmaCar homepage, and a link to a Discovery Channel physicist explaining centrifigal force and how it works. You can read many glowing customer comments on the site, too, but comments aren’t moderated and there’s a ton of spam, too, some of it not exactly family-friendly.

The idea, of course, is to strength muscles and develop full potential, but a big plus is that this is therapy that can be done at home — and it’s meant to be entertaining. Motivation is everything in all kinds of therapy, and play-as-therapy is one good hook.

No reviews from kids yet . . . but the concept is very exciting. And strange — can’t you hear it now? “OK, kiddo, get that nose out of your book and over to that video console . . .”

Nowadays this device would probably fail the CPSC’s choking tube faster than a lima bean, but if you want noisy shoes, you need look no further than the Pipsqueakers website for a tracking system for parents whose ears are better than their eyes.

Pipsqueakers suggests that their shoes may also motivate tykes who are reluctant to walk or step. Some styles can be modified to help reduce toe walking by placing the squeaker so that a heel strike is necessary to make it sound.

Pipsqueakers won’t do much for shoelaces, but that’s why Velcro was invented.

Choke Tube Tester from Kaplan Toys

Douglas also has a large offering of the curly ‘kohair’ pets. I admit I’m not crazy about them (I like my animals to look very much like the real thing), but even I realize that the kohair fabric is extra soft.

This wasn’t the best solution, though, since I couldn’t find one that was fat enough when stretched to hold the paper as well as I liked, and I worried that the rubber band was under so much tension (and was so likely to break) that it could potentially injure him if it snapped unexpectedly.

Years ago, colorful elastic webbing (used mostly for belts, sometimes for waistbands in gathered skirts) was available at fabric stores. I couldn’t find that — colorful belting is now mostly made of nylon, non-stretchy, webbing — but I did find sturdy, one-inch wide black woven elastic. It’s a little thicker than plain elastic, and has a softer feel as well as a more gentle stretch.

I wrapped the elastic snugly around Dad’s table, overlapped the ends by an inch, and stitched all around the edges of the overlap. (No sewing expertise required — this isn’t art, it just needs to hold securely.) The trick turned out to be making sure it wrapped tightly enough around the table — I was a little too conservative at first.

The new band is inobtrusive, but does a great job of holding paper, a notebook, coloring books, writing implements, a magazine, etc. in place. Pages can be turned (even one-handedly) without tossing whatever’s being looked-at onto the floor.

If you have pre-shrunk the elastic, the bands can be washed and dried; with several on hand, there will always be a clean one to use. These woven elastics don’t store as much energy as standard elastic; if a band were to separate, it’s unlikely that it would do any harm. A winner on all fronts!

Total cost for one: under $2.00.

It’s a simple idea: tie the shoelaces, then wrap a bit of velcro around the knot. To release, just pull the shoelace end (deflating, as it were, the knot), and slip the laces out of the velcro tube. It looks as if there may be small grabbers on one side of the velcro wrap — if that’s the case, unwrapping the velcro is also an option.

One advantage of this solution is its low-profile. In black, the wrap would be hardly noticable on a pair of men’s dress shoes; ditto for the white on a pair of standard athletic shoes. On the other hand, it’s also available in bright colors for those who love flamboyant feet.

See Lace Wraps on the website’s ‘Inventor’ page. If you bookmark it, change the name — the web developer has unfortunately named it “About the Inventor” which means you’ll never be able to remember what you bookmarked.

See also:

Locking Shoelaces