Toy companies try to be more inclusive

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Toy companies are working harder to think outside their usual box, offering more-inclusive items like dolls with disabilities, female superhero figures and characters with a range of skin tones.

Many of the products breaking down the barriers started with smaller businesses, but big names like Mattel and Hasbro are getting into the game and offering lots more options this holiday season.

What that means on the shelves is Barbies that have a greater variety of body types, eye colors and facial structures, a Lego mini-figure of a boy who uses a wheelchair, and an American Girl doll with accessories such as a diabetes kit and arm crutches in addition to the hearing aids and service dogs it has offered before. Other items include coding toys, robots and circuit builder sets aimed at both girls and boys.

Jennifer Weitzman, whose 5-year-old daughter Hannah has cochlear implants, has the American Girl doll with hearing aids and a Tinker Bell doll with a cochlear implant that Weitzman bought from a British site called ToyLikeMe.org.

“She lit up when she was given them. She thinks it’s awesome that they have implants just like her,” said Weitzman, of Mount Kisco, New York.

The trend started a few years ago, pushed by parents who didn’t see enough diversity in the toy aisle and were turning to the internet or startups to find items.

Increasingly, the inclusiveness in the toy aisle means dolls with disabilities. Toys R Us has carried an exclusive line since 2013 called Journey Girls, which includes a wheelchair and a crutch set. Its partnership with American Girl to carry the Truly Me collection starting this month will include dolls that also use crutches, diabetes kits and wheelchairs.

While Lego has had larger figures before that use wheelchairs, the mini-figure introduced this year comes as part of the “Fun in the Park” set, mixed in with several figures that don’t.

“The designers were thinking about what might you see in the park in the city,” said Lego spokesman Michael McNally.

Lego mini-figures had been yellow so that children could imagine their own identity for the characters. “We’ve always been about helping kids find themselves,” McNally said. But in 2004, it introduced flesh tones when representing real-life personalities.

Experts say it’s critical for children to play with toys that don’t perpetuate stereotypes about what’s considered beautiful.

Many experts have been closely watching the moves made by Mattel, particularly with its iconic Barbie, whose business has been rebounding amid a makeover after seeing its sales suffer. The nation’s largest toy maker launched the Barbie Fashionista collection last year that offered more skin tones, eye colors and facial structures.

This year, it added three body types – curvy, petite and tall. It said those items have been doing well. Spokeswoman Michelle Chidoni says the company also is looking to add different body shapes to the Barbie career line and the Fairytale doll collection.