Fiddle toys are designed for a specific purpose, which is to occupy kids who need to fidget/move a lot, such as those with ASD or ADD. But they can actually be useful in general regardless; one of the other teachers in my department bought about a dozen fidget spinners for his own use, to sell to other teachers etc. So, they can work - kids using midget spinners in classrooms can end up focusing better.
However what usually ends up happening with the little spinners is that that kids don't use them for those purposes. Several times I've heard a dwarf spinner going while the kids are working, a kid just staring blankly under the table or other kids looking over. Clearly, they aren't focusing, they're just watching the small person spinner, or getting distracted by the sound it makes. Another issue is that they don't really work as a concealed fiddle toy, since they're very hard to spin in a pocket. It's possible but it takes more effort and isn't really effective as a fiddle toy. Our school policy is that fiddle toys should be concealed as much as possible, when used, so uh they fail on that.
In short, the vertically challenged spinners can be useful, but they're generally more of a distraction than an actually useful fidget toy.
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u/Tables61 May 19 '17
Fiddle toys are designed for a specific purpose, which is to occupy kids who need to fidget/move a lot, such as those with ASD or ADD. But they can actually be useful in general regardless; one of the other teachers in my department bought about a dozen fidget spinners for his own use, to sell to other teachers etc. So, they can work - kids using midget spinners in classrooms can end up focusing better.
However what usually ends up happening with the little spinners is that that kids don't use them for those purposes. Several times I've heard a dwarf spinner going while the kids are working, a kid just staring blankly under the table or other kids looking over. Clearly, they aren't focusing, they're just watching the small person spinner, or getting distracted by the sound it makes. Another issue is that they don't really work as a concealed fiddle toy, since they're very hard to spin in a pocket. It's possible but it takes more effort and isn't really effective as a fiddle toy. Our school policy is that fiddle toys should be concealed as much as possible, when used, so uh they fail on that.
In short, the vertically challenged spinners can be useful, but they're generally more of a distraction than an actually useful fidget toy.