[blindkid] Board Games for Kids

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Fri Jul 20 04:54:21 UTC 2012


There are quite a few ways to adapt, and you can also buy some things ready to use. Toys-R-Us has tic-tac-toe that appears to be blind-friendly just because of the design (I don't think it was designed for the blind intentionally, but so what, right?). Two possible choices, actually:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2970358
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4070733

You might go to: https://www.maxiaids.com/store/default.asp and search for games. They have quite a few. I would be a little cautions about their chess sets, I was disappointed, returned it and adapted my own, but that was a lot of work too. (Nice braille chess sets are hard to find.) Maxiaids also offers a wide variety of balls for play with bells inside and/or beepers.

Any parts of games that are in print can generally have dymo tape (or other adhesive braille) added for braille text. Simple graphics can be traced with elmer's glue or hot glue to demonstrate the shape. Chutes and ladders come to mind for such an approaach. Same thing with the board portion of any board game. Spinners are already tactile. Raise the dividing lines between colors or numbers, etc. and then add braille or depending on readiness for braille use, if the game uses colors, adapt with textures on the spinners and spaces. Sandpaper for one, corrugated cardboard for the next, corduroy fabric, satin, glued-on rice-- you name it.

Some entire games or game pieces can be bought pre-adapted. Braille dice can be bought pre-made for $3 or $4 a set. There are adapted timers available. I mentioned chess already Braille chess is much like a travel set with pegs to hold pieces on the squares, but the black squares are raised or given a texture. Likewise, white pieces are left alone, black ones have a raised peg or screw on top, or I choose to give our set a texture for black and leave white smooth. My daughter found larger pieces easier to distinguish.

Most of the pre-adapted board games I have seen are more like Monopoly and Scrabble, generally for older kids, I guess. I think chess generally starts for kids more in the 5 or 6 range? Depends on the child, I suppose. Checkers, backgammon... There are some items at the link below such as I have mentioned, plus a tic-tac-toe set which is tactile, though it looks similar to what toys-r-us has.

http://www.visabilitystore.org/browse.cfm/board-games/2,66,13.html

These folks also have adapted games, including some card games like "go fish".

http://www.independentliving.com/products.asp?dept=139

You can adapt card games yourself possibly with a perkins, and definitely with a slate and stylus. I suspect that would work a lot better than dymo tape for those.

Often, you'll find when you buy commercial games, they are adapted versions of standard games, not custom built ones from the ground-up, but I think we all mostly feel like we go with whatever works...

Oh, and I see a few items on ebay as well-- always worth a glance. 

If you really want to adapt yourself, probably look at some of the sites above, then use what they have for a guide to adapt things as you like.

I'm sure many others here have more good ideas too--

Good luck!



On Jul 19, 2012, at 11:52 PM, Sariah Mattinson wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone has had experience adapting a board game for
> their blind kid. I have a three-year-old who will be four soon and wanted
> to get some board games that she might like but figure I will have to adapt
> them somehow to make them more meaningful and fun for her. Has anyone done
> this and if so what board games did you adapt and how did you go about
> doing so? My daughter has no vision or light perception, so anything that
> would rely on any type of vision would probably be out of the question.
> 
> Sariah
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