Our Goal: Making the lives of parents, therapists, and educators of children with special needs and developmental delays easier by enabling them to find a wide variety of resources and products in one location.
In June of 2003 our son, Joseph, was born and diagnosed with Down syndrome. We had so much to learn about his disability and have found as the years have passed, that this need to learn is an on-going process as Joseph moves from one stage of development to the next. What we learned early on is that we were unbelievably lucky to have been given such a gift, the value of which cannot be explained in words. Joe has broadened our horizons and led us down paths we would have never explored if not for him!
One day I spent a couple of hours on the internet, researching various items that I needed to get for Joe. I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated at the amount of time that I spent looking for just the right thing for Joe. There are a lot of terrific products out there, but I found that usually I would have to “stumble” across them while surfing the net or hear about them from another parent, teacher or therapist. It was time-consuming to have to go to so many different sites to find what I needed. Speech therapy tools in one place, toys and mealtime in another, potty training, DVDs, and the list goes on. Not to mention the cost of shipping orders from so many stores. Unfortunately, the vast majority of special needs products are not found in mainstream stores.
As our journey continued I realized that the products I was looking for are beneficial for all special needs kids. I thought, “There must be an easier way! Wouldn’t it be great if I could go to one place that offered a wide variety of products and resources?” The more I thought about it, the more excited I became about the potential benefits that we could offer other parents.
As a parent of a child with special needs as well as a B.S. degree in Exercise Science/Athletic Training, I felt I had a unique perspective into what other parents are looking for. We rely heavily on recommendations from parents, teachers, and therapists as these are the people who are using these products. The Special Needs Store allows you to consolidate your purchase from one location, with one shipping cost, and reduces the amount of time you have to spend searching for these items! We are adding more products every month to help ease this burden.
Many of our children are in therapy, but the reality is, this is such a tiny chunk of time in our kid’s life and we need to make our home as educationally “rich” as possible. Each new developmental phase is a whole new set of products and information and it can be very expensive for families. With that in mind, we try to think outside the box in order to give our customers lower cost alternatives that work well for kids with disabilities such as Autism, Down syndrome, Apraxia, Asthma and more, as well as offering many well-known products such as Talk Tools, Signing Time, Kid’s Express Train, The Writing Claw, eReadingPro, and much more. We offer products related to daily living, speech and language, oral motor therapy, special education, physical and occupational therapy, holistic, general health, books, DVDs, augmentative speech devices, visual aid, toys, Asthma and Allergy Friendly, and more!
The Special Needs Store Classified Section is a new addition to our site. We invite you to come take a look at http://www.thespecialneedsstore.com/ - Classifieds. Post an ad, or pass along our information to a business you think would be a good fit for what our customers are looking for. If our customers don’t find what they are looking for in our store, we want them to be able to find it in our classified section. Be sure to check out the Gently Used section – a very inexpensive place for you to resell some of the items that you no longer need!
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Send us your comments, suggestions, and product ideas. Nothing is too small. If you are looking for it, someone else is too!
The Special Needs Store is not only a place for you to find many products to meet your child’s needs, but a place for you to learn, share, and be a part of a community that is dedicated to making the lives of our special kids enriched and brightened!
Warm Regards,
Kelly Savage
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