Mattel unveils autistic Barbie
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Mattel has unveiled its first-ever autistic Barbie with stimming hands, a tablet, fidget spinner, and other features.
It’s Barbie ’s world, we just live in it. And that world just keeps getting bigger—this week with Mattel’s announcement of the first-ever autistic Barbie doll, developed with guidance from the nonprofit Autistic Self Advocacy Network ( ASAN ).
Mattel spent 18 months working with an advocacy organization to develop the doll, which includes noise-canceling headphones and a fidget spinner.
Developed over more than 18 months, the doll was created in partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), a nonprofit disability rights organization run by and for autistic people. The doll joins the Barbie Fashionistas line,
The Barbie doll features aspects meant to represent traits of some individuals with autism, according to Mattel. This includes an eye gaze shifted slightly to the side to avoid eye contact; elbow and wrist articulation for stimming, hand flapping and other hand gestures for expressing excitement or processing sensory information.
The doll features a gaze that is shifted slightly to the side, to “[reflect] how some members of the autistic community may avoid direct eye contact.”
Mattel introduces, 67 years after the original article, Autistic Barbie. “The autistic Barbie doll features elbow and wrist articulation, enabling stimming, hand flapping, and other hand gestures that some members of the autistic community use to process sensory information or express excitement,
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Barbie with autism makes her debut, comes with a fidget spinner and sensory-sensitive clothes
Mattel partnered with Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) "to allow more children to see themselves in Barbie"