Fun Freetime: Adaptive Art Program for Kids with Special Needs (Miami)

The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU invites all families, especially children with special needs, to All Kids Included – Arts for All, an  Accessible Arts Experience. The community art-happening is free and open to the public on Saturday, April 4 from 10am – 2pm. The family fun day, led by Zot Artz, opens up a whole new world of inclusive art-making with specially designed attachments for wheelchairs and other art-making adaptive tools created  for children with cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, and other disabilities.

The program helps children develop motor skills, concentration, social interaction and self esteem.  Families will create life-changing, experiential artworks together in playful environments.  



The event is co-sponsored by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and All Kids Included. The Frost Art Museum is located at Florida International University, 10975 S.W. 17 Street (map and directions) and is a cultural destination with a community-focused mission to educate and enlighten that is part of FIU’s Live the Arts program.  


Free Family Fun Day  (Saturday, April 4, 10am-2pm)

At this inclusive and interactive painting and printmaking experience, parents will be able to create and play along with their kids using adaptive art tools created by acclaimed artist and inventor Dwayne Szot.

Mr. Szot has been invited to Miami to facilitate the activities, with his innovative assistive technologies that provide one-of-a-kind creative expression through arts and mobility (such as wheelchairs with attachments for painting on large-scale blank canvases that fill up the entire floor and walls of specially designed rooms).  

Children of all abilities and ages can stamp, draw, and print to make their mark.  It's all play, but they learn, explore and develop skills while having fun together.

All tools and materials for kids to use at the event are free for the day, and include fun experiences such as  the Super Squirt (a switch-activated liquid paintbrush that attaches to wheelchairs and propels paint 10-15 feet in front of the user onto giant murals on the floor and the walls), the Art Roller (enabling kids to roll paint through an enormous field of color), the Pogo Paint Poles, and the Chalk Walk and Roll. (See examples of these adaptive tools here).