Mattel launches its first autistic Barbie

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If the keyboard is your main interest you could 3d print one or make one out of model magic. There's probably a similar model somewhere online already and there are plenty of places online that will do the printing.

Hmm.. well okay , If our normal Barbie dolls are not selling fast enough, perhaps lets just start using disabled peeps barbie dolls ? Get more market share !? . Think I will wait for the wheelchair barbie or some such? maybe a quardroplegic barbie? or even better . a the Accident barbie missing a leg or a arm.Amputee Barbie, That might reduce production costs , less plastic? ? ( Its all fun and games till someone gets an Eye poked out)
Partially written tongue in cheek,/ J/k

(...genuine collectors hate me because well... getting them out of packaging is one item lost to the 'real' collectors Not an investor... can be a very toxic world)

I checked the nearby Target today and they didn't have any.

HW collectors are like that too.

I saw this today and figured I'd post about it since it's relevant to this community. I also thought it would be wise to post my thoughts in a reply instead of at the end of the article post. I'm going to be perfectly honest - I don't like it. I don't mean that I don't like doll, on her own the doll is fine. She's cute. Her dress is cute. If she were just another barbie there would be no problem. What I don't like is that she's "autistic barbie". Autism is a spectrum and there's alot of variety between different autistic people, no two are the same, so representing that visually is really difficult. Mattel seems to be relying on stereotypes, that a good amount of their target audience doesn't fit and I feel like that's going to cause more harm than good. There are already so many misconceptions about what autism is "supposed to look like", so a big company using stereotypes to represent the condition on a product is likely to just perpetuate them and make the situation worse. And then there's the target audience to consider - young autistic girls. They want barbie to be relatable to the girls, but with how much variety there is in how autism presents a large number of those girls aren't represented and won't find this barbie relatable. And most children are very impressionable. Seeing the condition represented in their favorite toy in a way that's different from the way it presents in them might cause confusion and lead to wondering things like "am I actually autistic?". And it can cause confusion about them by their neurotypical peers. I don't think this was a good idea from Mattel.

HW = hotwheels?
Had some matchbox/majorette but all were very much play. Came with the territory of growing up in a garage
Customising must be sacrilege to investors... Just opening the box is already pure evil. Imaging playing with a toy... the horror

My take on autistic Barbie is far from universal in autistic communities. A lot of autistic people are truly thrilled about this development, and many don’t care at all. But there are also some autistic people who are deeply concerned about the impact she could have on our real lives. Some autistic people who pride themselves on not fitting any autistic stereotypes, I suspect, don’t like being associated with anyone who is more recognizably autistic or different. I’m not a big fan of the argument wielded by some parents who are angry that the doll doesn’t properly represent the struggles or downsides of autism. Autistic life isn’t easy for any of us, regardless of our support needs, but there is more to all of us than our suffering. And no child should have to be reminded of how hard their lives can be while they’re trying to play.

The most popular argument against autistic Barbie is that branding one specific doll with one specific set of traits and accessibility aids as the autistic one will have too much influence on how people perceive autism. This, the theory goes, could lead to any children who don’t use ear guards or AAC devices going unrecognized or unsupported. This might sound ridiculous to the uninitiated, but pop culture has had a disproportionate impact on our lives. For decades, people who weren’t like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man slipped through the cracks. I was one of them. But it’s not the 1980s anymore, and this toy is unlikely to be anyone’s only example of autism. Girls who don’t look like this Barbie can still relate to another real-life or fictional example, including Julia from Sesame Street. If anything, this Barbie could end up expanding people’s concept of what autism can look like. Outside of Paulo from the animated PBS KIDS series Carl the Collector, we don’t see a lot of AAC users in the media. The majority of autistic representation is also still very white. This specific Barbie isn’t reinforcing a singular presentation of autism that’s already dominant. She’s drawing attention to underserved ones.

Another big anti-autistic Barbie stance is that autism doesn’t have a look at all, therefore any Barbie could be autistic. The concern here seems to be that giving one officially autistic Barbie a visible collection of traits will prevent kids from imagining Barbies—or, by extension, people—who could look or be any other way. I think this comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of autism and children’s creativity. Autism doesn’t have one look and many of our issues can be invisible, at least to those who don’t know what to look for. But some autistic people’s traits and the aids that they use are very visible. They deserve to be part of the world and part of play, too.

Besides, the idea that subsets of people don’t look exactly the same even if there’s one doll that represents some of them is already baked into the Barbie experience, which is inherently built around imagination. Not all doctors look like Doctor Barbie or use the accessories she comes with, but that doesn’t stop children from giving Astronaut Barbie a turn with the scalpel, or computing that both this doll and their uncle can share the same profession. Children have been making their Barbies autistic for as long as autistic kids have been playing with them. I might not have had the words for it as an undiagnosed kid in the 1980s, but that’s exactly what I was doing. (I also used my dolls as makeshift support tools, because I realized that chewing on their feet calmed me down when sounds made my whole body freak out.) I have complete faith that children will continue to do so. I bet some of the other Barbies will start using ear guards and AAC devices, too, just like other Barbies use stethoscopes and roller skates and rhythmic gymnastics equipment in kids’ unbounded imaginary worlds.

The most pertinent criticism I’ve seen of the doll is that a mass-market toy cannot bring about meaningful change for a marginalized population. It is true that a commercial product ultimately intended to generate revenue for a major corporation is no substitute for real-life policies, meaningful accommodations, and other supports that would improve autistic lives in the real world. But, like autistic characters, autistic toys can do their small part to help people see us as part of the world. Children who play with a little pink plastic AAC device are probably going to see their real counterparts and the people who use them as just another part of normal life. They might be less likely to stare at or shun someone flapping if their Barbie does it, too.

Those little steps matter, too. At a time when the U.S. government is trying to paint a very different picture of autistic children who look a lot like autistic Barbie, I’ll take a little autistic-informed corporate exploitation over the alternative. When U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is telling the world that autism “destroys families,” that it’s an “individual tragedy,” I’m glad that there’s a market for a product that represents no such things. And when he talks about all of the things that these kids can never be and will never do, I’m glad there’s a doll that can be anything those children want to imagine instead.