Three toy dolls and a lemonade stand

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Design Project

If you were to design a set of three dolls (one doll with Asperger, one doll with autism, and one doll with ADHD) which included a lemonade stand, what would the dolls do? Could the trio slowly turn a lemonade stand into a profitable business?

Would such a box of dolls appeal to some persons as a present?

There are so many kinds of dolls from Cabbage Patch to Barb and Ken to Star Wars.

Could there be a market niche for the above trio?

Ideas? Comments?

Why the lemonade stand?

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The lemonade stand is the idea of a small, profitable business run by the trio working together as a team.

Lemonade? Smoothie? Coffee? Yogurt?

http://www.onepagebusinessplan.com/

It could also be Jamba Juice, Starbuck's, The Country's Best Yogurt, and so on.

http://www.ja.org/

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Teamwork

Working together

Serving customers

Store in a shopping mall

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Variations

The team also could work together to build a garage or design/plant a garden/whatever.

No...because they're only dolls.

How would they take orders when they can't hear, or make or serve lemonade without articulated fingers?


They could be mascots, attached to the sign, and help contribute to the sales campaign somehow.

I'm confused. How would you indicate that an inanimate object has autism, ADHD, etc? There are really no "props" for autism like there are with mobility disorders (e.g. wheelchair) or blindness (e.g. white cane). Unless the dolls come with a communication device/PECS cards or "stimmy" toys, I'm not sure how they would be different from any other dolls. I guess I also don't understand the purpose of the lemonade stand angle. Also, wouldn't it be the child making the dolls move and speak, who would have to act out complex interactions based on different neurological disorders while pretending to start a lemonade business? When kids play, they just make up their own stories and games, they don't stick to a script. I think they would just play with the dolls like they would any other dolls.

Am I missing something? Very confused

Can I serve hard lemonade? I would probably use Real Dolls because I'm sure they would garner the most attention. I'd also put them into cages so that they would last awhile...I'm guessing it will be about a decade until I can turn a profit. What kind of stand are we talking about? I just came from The Root Beer Stand, and it's hardly a stand at all.

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Well, one could consider the dolls mascots.

Perhaps the dolls could be used as muppets or puppets in a ten minute act (ten minute puppet theater script) in a puppet theater of some sort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppet

http://www.denverpuppettheater.com/

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(continued brainstorming/idea generation about the project)

Well, the Muppets did have a muppet at one time as I recall which had epilepsy.

Some persons believe that the Cookie Monster muppet has nystagmus (wobby eyes).

The lemonade stand is a prop.

Could the three dolls make, sell, ring up the cash register, serve, and clean up the tables in the lemonade store?

What sort of personalities could the three dolls have?

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Ideally, this stand would be regular lemonade (or vegetables/fruits/smoothies). These dolls could look like Barb and Ken (in a way) but their actions could hint as to Asperger's, Autism, and ADHD. The toy dolls could be stored in doll box.

The three toy dolls would be toy dolls perhaps only 12 inches long.

Good question about profit.

Yes, some businesses can take a decade to turn a profit but usually go out of business before then due to negative cashflow.

The idea of a lemonade stand is simply a prop or an idea about a very simple food business.

Lemonade stand
Root beer stand
Smoothie stand

Oatmeal cookies - chocolate chip cookies stand

The Muppets are operated by professional puppeteers. If any of them have a disability that manifests without props- such as an epileptic seizure- it is because the professional puppeteers make it so. When the Muppets are put back in their boxes, there is no way to tell which one is supposed to have epilepsy. (Unlike a doll that was packaged with a cane or wheelchair. American Girl dolls now have an American Girl who uses a toy wheelchair.)

So LostInSpace's question remains unanswered. You have no way of conveying that a doll has autism (unless you include a little PECS board) or aspergers or adhd. You can write it on the box but what would that mean to the recipient? If a doll comes packaged in a box labeled "Aspergers" or ADHD", how is the recipient supposed to play with it differently. A trained puppeteer could probably convey this with muppets, but a trained puppeteer wouldn't need any sort of special muppet. They would just need training in what the muppet should do to convey this.

So basically all that happens here is you write "autism" "aspergers" and "adhd" on the boxes and assume that this makes it so- that it somehopw affects how the recipient plays with the dolls.

I don't see how you would do anything but write those words on the boxes and I don't see what writing those words would accomplish in terms of play. Maybe it would make a child feel more included if the doll had ADHD too. But writing it on the box (and what else would you do) doesn't seem to accomplish much.

If we're imagining they're 'real', they'd spend too much time falling out to turn a profit or they wouldn't notice an NT helping himself from the till or stealing the stock from round the back.

They wouldn't be street-wise enough.

As far as the concept of autistic/neuro-diverse dolls goes I find the idea unappealing. And where would it end - you'd have to have dolls for every different personality disorder; every disagnosis in the DSM-IV and what about the ones with multiple diagnoses??

Autism isn't something that can be portrayed visually in a non-cliched, appealing fashion in my opinion - it's strengths lie in the non-visual; in the brain itself.

Last edited by aeon555 on 09 Aug 2010, 5:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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If one looks at a photograph of most persons with Asperger, Autism, or ADHD, one often cannot tell from the photo any of the persons photographed have those neurological challenges.

So...introducing the idea of stereotypes to puppets

Could the Asperger's puppet wear glasses so the puppet looks like a math geek serving the lemonade?

Could the Autism puppet be holding a toy called a top which might suggest the person with autism will spin around in a circle once or twice before serving the lemonade?

Could the ADHD puppet have a medicine box labeled "Ritalin" and then put a Ritalin tablet in its mouth before serving the lemonade?

The above are only stereotypes and likely not the best stereotypes possible.

What would the Sims do?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims

There have been Hollywood movies made which last ninety minutes which tells stories involving persons with neurological challenges.

So would it be possible to invent a ten minute puppet theater sketch involving a lemonade stand with three puppets representing Asperger, Autism, and ADHD - even if each of the three puppets only told two jokes each over a ten minute puppet theater gig?

Of course, none of the toy puppets are real and all of the personalities come from the puppeteers (human beings moving the puppets and mouthing their character's lines).

Perhaps a gifted puppeteer could do all three roles but the simplest might be three different persons each being one puppet only.

Words

Brainstorming
Script Writing
Think Tank

I'm confused. What's the purpose of the dolls and their stand? Are they meant to be played with by children?

My son is AS and he had a lemonade stand earlier this summer. He didn't make a profit, because the weather had turned colder and he only had three customers. He had a bit of a meltdown, then did some market research by giving people free samples of the lemonade and orangeade we'd (ok, I'd) made and asking which they preferred.

I beg to differ concerning this assertion. I would say there is usually some tell-tale sign or other of neurological difference. I have observed that many peole with AS have one eye not totally aligned. I had this as a child but my eye corrected itself. I think the eye thing correlates with the level of learning disability ie the more pronounced it is the more LD a person is. There's definitely a general 'autistic look' as well; a kind of unexpressive 'wooden' look to the features.

Also if it's not noticeable, how come NT's pick up on it immediately??

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Temple Grandin was the topic of a big movie made about autism.

Autism is a big topic.

Movie director Steven Spielberg has read at least one of Grandin's books about autism. That's big.

Spielberg directed Jaws, Close Encounters, E-T and many big name movies.

So maybe the Autism doll in the lemonade stand needs to stopby a crunch box/cattle box or sit in a crunch chair (artist's museum version) to relax awhile prior to or after serving the lemonade?

http://www.hbo.com/movies/temple-grandin/index.html

Maybe the Autism doll at the lemonade store could be named Temple Grandin?

Last edited by pgd on 09 Aug 2010, 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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This is only an idea brainstorming session.

So, it seems that a Barbie doll or a Shirley Temple doll is ok (politically correct) but something like a Temple Grandin doll (politically incorrect) is not?

http://www.hbo.com/movies/temple-grandin/index.html

A Barbie doll is ok, a Shirley Temple doll is ok, but an Asperger doll or an ADHD doll is not?