I had Becky, Barbie’s disabled friend who came with a cute pink wheelchair, and I loved her. However, I didn’t know about Barbie the sign language teacher! I totally would have got this doll and loved her. What a brilliant idea!
Sign Language Barbie was developed in partnership with the National Center of Deafness at California State University to ensure the doll instructed sign language accurately and was not offensive to deaf people or those hard of hearing. “Equipped with more than 20 sign pictures, Sign Language Barbie teaches children to sign simple words, such as dog, cat, boy and girl,” says Mary Zanette, Director of Marketing at Toys “R” Us Canada. “But, the doll does more than instruct an introductory level of sign language communication, it also enables children, who are not challenged by deafness, to communicate and thus befriend children they might not otherwise have had the opportunity to interact with.”