"MaryJo", vinyl doll kit representing Toddler with Down syndrome

Celebrating Down Syndrome World Day on March 21
Features of MaryJo
MaryJo has features that resemble a toddler with Down syndrome. MaryJo has the typically present characteristic of these children with the extra chromosome: A flattened face, especially the bridge of the nose - Small head and ears - Almond-shaped eyes that slant up - Atypically shaped ears​ -  A tongue that tends to stick out of the mouth - A single line across the palm of the hand (palmar crease) - Small pinky fingers that sometimes curve toward the thumb - Poor muscle tone or loose joints, added skin folds - Shorter in height and stunted growth - Respiartory problems causing mouth-breathing and cracked lips
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Mary and John Langdon Down
Mary Crellin married Langdon Down two years after his appointment to Earlswood, the first establishment in England designed specifically for people with intellectual disabilities. Although such institutions were a far cry from what we might recognise as a good option today, they were a vast improvement on the workhouses and asylums that preceded them. For the next forty years, beginning with their marriage in 1860 until her death in 1901, Mary Langdon Down worked - unpaid and seldom recognised - to improve the lives of people with what we now call Down syndrome.
To begin with, she worked in the schoolroom, educating those whom the wider world had deemed ‘uneducable’. She also played a key role in the developments Langdon Down is now celebrated for, such as the banning of harsh corporal punishments, the provision of activities, training, and access to the arts. We don’t know much about what the ‘entertainments’ facilitated by Mary and John might have been like, but we do know that Mary wrote sections of concerts, and facilitated the creative expression of staff and patients alike. According to David Wright, the author of Downs: the history of a disability, Mary “played a central role in the smooth operation of the Earlswood Asylum” and “was often seen counselling mothers of children who had recently been admitted”.
www.upsidedowns.co.nz
This purchase includes: 
Vinyl doll parts: head and limbs
Full limbs 
22mm eye size
Certificate of Authenticity 
You will need:
21" cloth body
 
Full Kit Price: $109