Proposed Wheaton playground to appeal to kids with developmental challenges

As a parent of a 10-year-old son on the autism spectrum, Dan Wagner navigates what he calls a toolbox, brimming with ways to help his son interact with other kids and the world around him.

Along with a team of therapists, Wagner first started using brushes and swings designed to adapt his son, John, to stimuli shortly after the boy’s diagnosis.

Some of those efforts clearly are paying off. Now a third-grade student at Wheaton’s Madison Elementary School, John regularly plays golf at the Cantigny Youth Links, putting and driving through nine holes every week.

But his dad is always looking for other tools to help his son, and that’s why he’s among those supporting plans to build a sensory playground to provide a social environment for kids with autism and other developmental disorders.

“You basically need to bombard your child constantly by exposing them to different things,” Wagner said.

He recently attended a meeting that brought together a group of agencies and nonprofit organizations, working to bring the sensory playground to a parcel Wheaton Park District is leasing from the DuPage Forest Preserve District on the corner of Navistar Drive and Naperville Road.

“It’s incredibly user-friendly,” Wagner said of the initial design plans presented at the meeting.

The public-private team of agencies in the Sensory Garden Playground Initiative — including the park district, forest preserve district, Kiwanis Club of Wheaton and the Western DuPage Special Recreation Association — plans to fund the estimated $2 million project through donations and grants.

That’s a price tag more than four times the cost of building a standard playground, said Mike Benard, executive director of the Wheaton Park District.

“We’re shooting pretty high as far as playgrounds are concerned,” he said.

Birth of an idea

As a member of the Kiwanis Club of Wheaton, Cindy Keck was hunting for a way to celebrate the club’s 60th anniversary in 2011.

As a developmental therapist, the Winfield woman recognized a demand for recreational areas tailored to kids with developmental disorders.

Children with autism commonly experience sensory difficulties. However, it’s unclear whether kids with sensory problems have an “actual disorder” with the sensory pathways of the brain or whether the problems are because of an underlying developmental disorder, according to a recent recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

As part of the guidelines, the AAP cautioned pediatricians to discuss the “limited” research on sensory-based therapy with families.

Still, Keck said that kids with sensory problems aren’t at ease with a playground bordered with noisy traffic, beneath a bright sun or exposed to other sorts of external stimuli. They can react, Keck explained, by running away, pushing and shoving.

A sensory playground, Keck thought, would align with the club’s mission of “serving the children of the world.”

Plus, she said, it would allow kids with sensory needs to explore distinct areas where they can retreat and regulate the extent of stimulation.

“The playground is designed for recreation and play,” Keck said. “It’s not designed to be therapeutic.”

The design

In October, the project got a major boost after organizers won a national essay contest that awarded a prize of $50,000 in design services from Shane’s Inspiration, a Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based nonprofit group, and $100,000 in playground equipment from Landscape Structures Inc., a Delano, Minn.-based manufacturing company.

Shane’s initial design is based on a racehorse theme, playing off the nearby Danada Equestrian Center.

Under the conceptual plans, separate areas would offer a host of unique sensory experiences. There are plans for a sound garden, fragrance garden and a musical area with drums, chimes and bells. A rock-climbing area would boost upper-body and core muscles. Two playgrounds areas would be geared toward kids ages 2 to 5 and 5 to 12, respectively.

Keck also stressed that the design is inclusive.

“It’s going to be the coolest playground for every child,” she said.

Keck said the team of agencies is welcoming design suggestions and hopes to start construction in the fall. She envisions a tree house and a poured surface area for wheelchair basketball, field hockey football and other sports.

“We’re still learning,” Keck said. “Years from now there will be things that other people have thought of that make it even better. This is very much innovative.”

Creating a program

The Western DuPage Special Recreation Association will develop events like scheduled play time at the playground, Executive Director Sandy Gbur said.

WDSRA provides services for adults and children in the Bloomingdale, Carol Stream, Glen Ellyn, Naperville, Roselle, Warrenville, West Chicago, Wheaton and Winfield park districts.

The nonprofit group also offers a program with hands-on activities for schools, businesses or community groups designed to raise awareness and demonstrate the daily experience of physical challenges. As part of the program, officials from WDRSA explain autism, vision and hearing loss and developmental delays to students.

Gbur wants that awareness program to expand to the sensory playground, where kids with special needs and kids without could play together. Taunts or teasing occur at any playground, but Gbur hopes it’s an environment where kids ask each other questions.

“I’m excited that maybe we’ll change some attitudes,” she said.

Besides developing programs for the site, WDSRA has held focus groups to gauge parent feedback for the design, Gbur said.

She expects the playground will become a regional destination — with access to public transportation, tucked away from nearby I-88 and full of trees that shade kids with sensitivity to light.

The design also boasts what Gbur calls “imaginative play,” enabling kids to survey those distinct areas at their own pace.

“It’s purely to their imagination of what they do in that space,” Gbur said. “That makes it fun and exciting.”

Wagner praised the agencies working to create a recreational space for kids like his son John — a space “for kids just to be kids.”

“He’s going to have a blast,” Wagner said.

For donation information, visit dupagesensoryplay.org.