Lighthouse Toys has been asked to help parents and teachers find toys to help children and adults with FASD learn through play. A parent wrote:

“Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is brain damage which should be supported as an irreparable brain injury and is one of the most severe of neurodevelopmental conditions; children, teens and adults with FASD can have complex sensory, behavioural and intellectual challenges alongside common co-occuring conditions including Autism, ADHD, Tourettes, Sensory Processing Needs… to name just a few of the 328 possible co-morbid conditions.

“Those with FASD have a unique set of strengths and gifts…. the FASD community call this ‘FASD Superpowers‘ …… where when tuned into can be supported & scaffolded which demonstrate their unlimited hyperfocus & potential. Some common personal and skill areas include being caring, articulate, friendly, musical, artistic, creative, practical, athletic, a love of animals and nature.”

The resources in our FASD section have been carefully selected to help the sensory & developmental needs of children, young people and adults with FASD. Some of the toys have been tested and reviewed by families who have children with FASD and these reviews have added to the blog posts.

All children are unique and we hope you find toys and resources that your child will love. We believe that play is a vitally important way to learn for all ages. As George Bernard Shaw said “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

Families from FASD Hub South West have tested and reviewed the Scrunchems Sausage Dog and Scrunchems Diddy Squishy Kitties.

Pop in your bag rating: scores at the highest level of 10 out of 10!

Great for hospital visits, car journeys, shopping queues, Christmas stocking fillers or just times when regulation is needed!

“I have bought several to put in different places in the house, great for before and after meal times. I make sure one travels with my daughter to School where I give it to the teaching assistant to bring out when things are a little fizzy in class or when in a queue”

“We bought the 3 pack of kitties and now they have sausage dog friends!”

Sensory needs: We have used for warming up hands ready to write, ready to eat food and when feeling like I need to bite my nails….. excellent!

Challenge for fine motor movement: “These are strong enough to test the biggest of children in my house….teens!! They are squeezable, pullable and utterly adorable…. Really great way to warm the fingers up without it being too obvious”

“A work-out for fingers where strength or hypermobility is a challenge”.

Would you recommend: 8 year old James says: ‘A massive YES!”

Angel age 12: “I call them my pets, I have got the kitties and now they have sausage dog friends, they are a good fidget toy as well as help exercise in a nice way my bendy fingers’

Jenny age 7 : “Sparkly, sparkly, mine light up if I shine a torch through them”

‘FASD Superhero’ rating: 10 out of 10!

At Lighthouse Toys we love the Scrunchems range of sensory toys and keep a variety in stock. Find them here.

“Wow & Wow!”

We played it with my 86 year old Mum, me (56!), my grandchild 4 (Autism & ADHD), and children 11, 13 with FASD, Autism & ADHD …. they all loved it!

Cognitive workout: We loved this game, is genuinely suitable for all functioning ages as there are good options for all abilities…. sensory challenges (you have to ‘feel’ the texture of a card), guess the odd one out, find the maze winner, work out simple problems, coordinate finger & action (this was funny as it quite tricky for adults!), shapes of lego bricks, frequency cards etc, etc

Visually Impaired / Sensory Needs: Scored very highly as is inclusive and great for visually impaired as you can close your eyes and feel the texture of some of the cards… harder than you would think for those not visually impaired & great fun! 

Executive Functioning: very good for solving a problem but not out of their reach where it is easy enough to find an answer and have a sense of achievement. Positive reinforcement.

Therapy rating: A great therapeutic tool to support cognitive and executive functioning with reasoning. A lovely attachment friendly tool as lots of social interaction but can also be played with one child or adult. 

Would you recommend?: “Yes I would, it’s a fun game. I like all the different cards where you have to think a bit to find an answer. Its very funny to watch my Mum feel the card where she realised this was not her superpower… but it was mine! Arthur age 12” 

“Wow & wow” El age 4

“Great, I liked the maze game” Edward age 11

FASD Superpower rating: Thumbs up! 9 out of 10

Find out about Cortex Challenge Kids here.

A review by a family from the FASD Hub South West.

Pop in your bag rating: scores 10 out of 10!

Great for hospital visits, car journeys or times when regulation is needed!

Challenge for fine motor movement: This presents a great work-out for fingers that need strengthening, you exercise dexterity in moving the shapes around to find the pattern…. it is not easy and presents challenge which my children liked. 

Cognitive workout: We liked the skills level cards that come with Coggy where the purpose if to work through the levels to build brain power. Easy is not easy for my 11 & 12 year old with FASD… but it did hold their concentration for a long time (which gets my parent vote every time!!).

Executive Functioning: A really good way to find a solution by comparing the pattern shapes to the cards, would work very well for scaffolding sequencing and particularly good for those who have Autism with FASD. This took a few attempts to tune into but was an absolute winner when my son started working out how to use it. 

Colour Blind: It is double sided where my child is colour blind so there is an option to do things in the black and white if colours are hard to differentiate. This scores highly with me as very few toys or therapeutic tools have the ability to do this… excellent! 

Would you recommend: 12 year old Arthur says ‘Yes definitely, it’s a good fidget toy as well as to strengthen your fingers…. and brain!’

FASD Superpower rating: A whopping 9 out of 10!

Find out more about Coggy here.

Lighthouse Toys have just launched an affiliate programme. It all started when a charity approached us and said that they liked the way Lighthouse Toys categorised toys that could be helpful for children with special educational needs. The charity asked if she could raise money for themselves by recommending toys that would scaffold and support children and young people they worked with.

Combining our expertise a selection of toys has been chosen and the FASD category was created. It is constantly growing and some families from the charity are testing and reviewing the toys and resources.

Would your charity or school benefit from money raised via an affiliate programme with Lighthouse Toys? If you are interested and want to know more please contact us at [email protected]. Our affiliate programme terms and conditions are here.

Lighthouse Toys is a small family business that opened in May 2004 on the High Street of Histon, Cambridge. We moved to online only in September 2019.

We are an educational toy shop with strong personal backgrounds in STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) and special educational needs. We passionately believe that children learn through play. Sam worked as a teacher in a special school (trained as science specialist in primary age) and Tim was an engineer in product development. As a family we started home educating our children just after the shop opened.