(PR.COM)-- Discovery Toys, America's Premier Educational Toy company, based in Livermore, CA announced at their annual convention in July that the company will be partnering with AUTISM SPEAKS to help raise funds, awareness, and to assist parents, caregivers, and teachers in supporting children affected by autism. For 28 years, Discovery Toys has focused on learning through play, delivering countless products specifically designed to maximize learning moments across age groups and skill categories.
The most effective learning environment for any child is one tailored to that child's specific needs at each stage of development. On its latest, most fulfilling and significant project, DT has interfaced with Patricia J. Krantz, Ph.D., who is Executive Director of the famous Princeton Child Development Institute, to articulate how to use Discovery Toy's toys to deliver a rich, sensory, and educational experience by understanding the most commonly shared learning difficultes and matching toys and activities to support tailored learning programs for children with Autism.
This is who to contact to complain -
Discovery Toys
Ila Jean Traudt
785-690-7310
ijtraudt@sunflower.com
www. discoverytoyslink.com/traudt
785-393-5051
The board Autism Speaks links to ("Help Wanted") has been innudated with Discovery Toy ads. This new connection seems to me to be part of their marketing direct to the parents of autistic kids, on the basis that their toys will "help." Cynicism appropriate. I don't think writing will help on this one, but that's my cynicism speaking (ie this time I don't see an organization trying to do something good but being missinformed, I just see a desire to gain entry into a specific market), unless you can convince them more parents (the buyers of the toys) have a negative concept of Autism Speaks than a positive one.
Perhaps an angle of attack (that I'm sure others have already noted) is that Autism Speaks concentrates heavily on external appearances. If you look different, you are "broken"--only bad people look different, after all. The actual person, the human being, doesn't matter to Autism Speaks, so long as appearances are all nice and pretty.
Autism Speaks wants to eradicate autistics and everyone else on the autistic spectrum. I don't want some cures, I want some consideration.
What is Autism Speaks really up to? It's the same as demanding that being black be "cured". After all, is it not primarily genetic to be black? Does not being black often come along with behaviors that mainstream culture finds unusual--different clothing, different music--DIFFERENT WAYS OF COMMUNICATING? Those black people have to be "cured" of their blackness! The physical manifestations can be "cured" with skin lighteners, hair straightening, and even plastic surgery in the most extreme cases. Pre-natal testing could be imposed to detect "excess" blackness. Of course, one would never actually endorse abortion, but parents "should have all options open to them". Conditioning and training can "correct" behaviors, and aversives can even be used in "extreme" cases.
Oh, this makes me really sad...Discovery Toys has always been so good about having diverse kids (in terms of both race and "disability") in their catalogues. It's sad that they would partner with such an anti-diversity organization.
But, how Discovery Toys works is that they have large corporate headquarters, but the people who do the selling are independent contractors. They don't actually work for the company, they are more like distributors. I think, Amy, that the contact information that you posted is for one of the distributors. She would have no control over this decision of the company to partner with Autism Speaks, but I think that we should write to distributors (called "consultants") in our local areas (you can find a consultant in your area by going to http://www. discoverytoysinc.com/contact.html - broken link).
Here is the contact e-mail for the corporate headquarters (I think, based on their website): contactdt @discoverytoys.net (broken link)
Please everyone, send them a quick e-mail, explaining how Autism Speaks does not help autistic people or their families (by not funding education or support groups, employment, etc), and practically condones the killing of autistic children in their sadly inaccurate video, "Autism Every Day." Ask them if this is something they want their corporate image to be associated with.
It is very important to politely let these companies know what they are supporting! I really think that they have no idea the truth about Autism Speaks or what autistic people are really like.
Dogface,
did you know that sickle-cell anaemia, a potentially life-threatening illness, is far more common in the black population than other ethnic groups. By eliminating blackness, you would substantially reduce the number of people with this illness.
Just thought that information would be useful in addition to what you already wrote.