Determining Age Appropriateness of Children's Products and Toys

NCT02544035 | Completed Results

• 2 other identifiers: 99991519615-CH-N196
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 486
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Background: Play during childhood is an important part of healthy development, and children can learn many things when they play. Much of the time that children spend playing is with toys. However, children at different ages need different types of toys to engage in healthy play. Understanding children s play with toys is important to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The CPSC rates toys that are currently available in the United States for children for age appropriateness. NICHD will share the findings of this study with CPSC to aid in their toy rating process. Objective: To categorize traditional and contemporary children s products and toys into age appropriate groups. Eligibility: Healthy children 6 months to 12 years old. Their parents. Design: Participants will be screened with a phone call with the parents. Participants will complete surveys online or on paper, and by phone. These will ask about demographic facts, behavior, thoughts on parenting and toys, and child development. Participants will have 1 study visit. The child will play with toys by himself or herself. Then they will play with their parent. A researcher will observe. The sessions will be videotaped. Children will share their thoughts about the toys by pointing at a smiley face scale. Parents will fill out a short survey. Then can choose to participate in a 1-hour focus group.

Conditions

Healthy Volunteers Only

Keywords

Childhood Growth and Development; Development

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Utilization of Toy

  Children's play with each of the toys was categorized as fully utilized (1) or not fully utilized (0) according to the intended use of each toy

  1 hour play session

Secondary Outcomes (4)

• Played With Toy

  1 hour play session

• Duration of Toy Play

  1 hour play session

• Preference for the Toy - Child-report

  1 hour play session

• Solicits to Parent Involvement

  1 hour play session

Study Arms (8)

36-71 month-old Play Partner

EXPERIMENTAL

36-71 month-olds (1.5-2 year olds)

Other: Play Partner

72-107 month-old Play Partner

EXPERIMENTAL

72-107 month-olds (6-8 year-olds)

Other: Play Partner

12-18 month-old Toy Type

EXPERIMENTAL

12-18 month-olds (1-1.5 year olds)

Other: Type of Toy

19-35 month-old Toy Type

EXPERIMENTAL

19-35 month-olds (1.5-2 year-olds)

Other: Type of Toy

36-71 month-old Toy Type

EXPERIMENTAL

36-71 month-olds (3-5 year-olds)

Other: Type of Toy

72-107 month-old Toy Type

EXPERIMENTAL

72-107 month-olds (6-8 year-olds)

Other: Type of Toy

12-18 month-old Play Partner

EXPERIMENTAL

12-18 month-olds (1-1.5 year olds)

Other: Play Partner

19-35 month-old Play Partner

EXPERIMENTAL

19-35 month-olds (1.5-2 year olds)

Other: Play Partner

Interventions

Type of Toy OTHER

Children will be presented with one of three (counterbalanced) toys targeted for their age group. When presented, each target toy will be paired with two additional toys from the same toy category;

12-18 month-old Toy Type; 19-35 month-old Toy Type; 36-71 month-old Toy Type; 72-107 month-old Toy Type

Play Partner OTHER

Each child will first play alone then play with parent.

12-18 month-old Play Partner; 19-35 month-old Play Partner; 36-71 month-old Play Partner; 72-107 month-old Play Partner

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Months - 12 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may not qualify if:

• Children outside of the 6 month-12 year age range: These years cover early life and are the ages of interest for children s play and are of central significance to the Consumer Product Safety Commission s goals.
• Families not fluent in English: Fluency in English is essential for parents to be able to fill out surveys. Families also need to be fluent in English so that they can comprehend verbal directions given by the experimenter during the testing session. If we included people who were not fluent in English, we would need many additional staff members who speak the multitude of languages of the diverse population of the Washington, D.C metro area to work with participants during the testing session and code the videos after the testing session is complete.
• Children who are sick, not typically developing, born premature (if they are under 24 months of age), blind, or deaf: We must recruit a healthy sample of typically developing children born in a full term pregnancy (if they are under 24 months of age) who are not blind or deaf for this project to remove any potential confounds that atypical conditions may have on children s play. Typically developing children would not have any diagnosed congenital conditions, developmental delay or disability, dyslexia, PDD, ADD, ADHD, or ASD. Including other populations such as deaf or blind children would require a different experimental set up, stimulus toys, and resources (i.e., someone who could convert our surveys to American Sign Language or Braille and could code the videos for the parent child behaviors during those sessions).
• Children who are not adding to the ethnic and racial diversity of the sample: The goal of our study is to recruit a sample of subjects who are racially and ethnically diverse. By making this diverse sample a priority, we hope that our results will be applicable to the diverse populations residing within the United States. To keep with this goal of a diverse and representative sample of children, we may have to exclude some families if we have already reached the quota of families from that particular racial or ethnic group.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): lead

Study Sites (1)

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, United States

Location

Related Publications (3)

• Bornstein MH, Haynes OM, O'Reilly AW, Painter KM. Solitary and collaborative pretense play in early childhood: sources of individual variation in the development of representational competence. Child Dev. 1996 Dec;67(6):2910-29.

  PMID: 9071765 BACKGROUND

• Richards MN, Putnick DL, Bradley LP, Lang KM, Little TD, Suwalsky JTD, Bornstein MH. Children's Utilization of Toys is Moderated by Age-Appropriateness, Toy Category, and Child Age. Appl Dev Sci. 2022;26(1):192-205. doi: 10.1080/10888691.2020.1760868. Epub 2020 May 19.

  PMID: 35110960 RESULT

• Richards MN, Putnick DL, Bornstein MH. Toy Buying Today: Considerations, Information Seeking, and Thoughts about Manufacturer Suggested Age. J Appl Dev Psychol. 2020 May-Jun;68:101134. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2020.101134. Epub 2020 Apr 8.

  PMID: 32405125 RESULT

Results Point of Contact

• Title: Dr. Diane Putnick
• Organization: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

putnickd@mail.nih.gov

301-496-6291

Study Officials

• Diane L Putnick, Ph.D.

  Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Publication Agreements

• PI is Sponsor Employee: Yes

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: NIH
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: September 5, 2015
• First Posted: September 9, 2015
• Study Start: September 5, 2015
• Primary Completion: August 31, 2017
• Study Completion: August 31, 2017
• Last Updated: December 5, 2023
• Results First Posted: December 5, 2023

Record last verified: 2021-04-30

Locations

US (1)