LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set

Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

My 4-year-old daugh­ter is a for­mer micro­pre­emie and as a result, she is pro­foundly delayed, non-verbal/non-sign, and has autis­tic traits and sen­sory inte­gra­tion dys­func­tion (SID/DSI). She func­tions at about a 15-month old level. She got this toy for her birth­day and it is AMAZING!!! She is iden­ti­fy­ing letters…if I say, “where’s the K?” she’ll put the K mag­net in the toy. Since she has autis­tic traits, she likes rep­e­ti­tion, and this is the per­fect thing! She is even start­ing to say some let­ter sounds like, “mmm, mmm, mmm”. She has MANY Leap Frog toys, and this is another great one to add to the list!! My daugh­ter licks *every­thing* in sight, includ­ing the let­ter mag­nets of this toy, and it has not affected the abil­ity of this toy to work.*** Note to parents/friends of Autistic/SID/DSI kids — My daugh­ter “stims” on sev­eral of her toys, but this one doesn’t cause her to do it as bad. She some­times likes to push the but­ton of the toy with­out a let­ter tile to hear it go “blingy, bling”, and some­times will push the let­ter tile/magnet repeat­edly at the begin­ning of the song so it goes, “A/A/A/A…A says/A says…but like I said, not as bad as with other audi­tory toys. ***I do find that I have the “A says ah and A says ayy” song in my head a lot. There are two vol­ume set­tings and an off switch. How­ever, even on the low set­ting this toy is awfully loud. We put clear pack­ing tape over the speaker and that helped a lot. The ABC song and the let­ter sounds song are the ones you will find on other Leap Frog toys and the Leap Frog videos. This is good if you want reinforcement…which my daugh­ter needs.The mag­nets are nice and strong. If they come off the fridge, they aren’t too bad to step on either ! …unlike the “tra­di­tional” letter/number magnets.The toy is very mul­ti­sen­sory — kines­thetic, audi­tory, visual (color/letter), and tac­tile. Kudos to Leap Frog for another great edu­ca­tional toy!My 6 year-old also likes to help his sis­ter with this toy. He loves to arrange the let­ters for her and quiz her. Then he likes to spell words and teach them to her. The vow­els are red and the con­so­nants are yel­low or blue. So I ask my daugh­ter to find let­ters based on cer­tain col­ors to increase the edu­ca­tional value. Unfor­tu­nately, her name has two l’s and two e’s, so we can’t spell her name with the letters.