OBJECTIVES To investigate the bacteria and fungi contaminating toys in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) cots, the colonization rates, and factors that influence them. METHODS A cross-sectional, longitudinal bacteriologic survey of all toys in the cots of infants in an NICU. All the toys in an infant's cot were cultured weekly for 4 weeks. Data were collected on the infant's postnatal age, ...

OBJECTIVE This project was conducted to evaluate the loudness and acoustic parameters of toys designed for children. In addition, we investigated whether occluding the toys' speaker with tape would result in a significant loudness reduction; thereby potentially reducing the risk of noise induced hearing loss. METHODS Twenty-six toys were selected after an initial screening at two national ret...

The project studied videotaped unstructured play sessions between 16 Downs Syndrome (DS) infants (aged 6 months and 12 months) and their mothers, to investigate the relationship between maternal attention-directing strategies and the infants' response to toys. A comparison group consisted of 16 high-risk premature infants matched by mental and motor age. At 6 months, the DS infants spent more t...

OF THESIS THE EFFECTS OF THEMATIC IMPORTANCE ON RECALL OF CHILDREN WITH ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER AND COMPARISON CHILDREN This study examined the recall of televised stories for younger (4-6 years) and older (7-9 years) children with and without ADHD under two different viewing conditions (toys present/toys absent). Each child watched two Rugrats television programs, once with to...

This study examines the relationship between preschool teachers’ gender role traditionality (as measured by the Attitudes Towards Women questionnaire) and how stereotypically teachers rate toys as being appropriate for boys and girls. The female teachers with experience with three to five-year-old children rated fifteen toys on how appropriate they are for boys and girls both from a personal po...

The present study examined effects of video modeling on generalized independent toy play of two boys with autism. Appropriate and repetitive verbal and motor play were measured, and intermeasure relationships were examined. Two single-participant experiments with multiple baselines and withdrawals across toy play were used. One boy was presented with three physically unrelated toys, whereas the...

An evaluation of 28 commercially available toys imported into New Zealand revealed that 21% of these toys do not meet the acoustic criteria in the ISO standard, ISO 8124-1:2009 Safety of Toys, adopted by Australia and New Zealand as AS/NZS ISO 8124.1:2010. While overall the 2010 standard provided a greater level of protection than the earlier 2002 standard, there was one high risk toy category ...

Organotin compounds in polyvinyl chloride toys were determined by GC/MS after ethyl derivatization with sodium tetraethylborate. The samples were 12 balls, 12 soft toys, 10 food toys and 13 face masks for children. Monooctyltin, dioctyltin and trioctyltin compounds were found in all face masks at the levels of 74.8-917 micrograms/g. 474-3,960 micrograms/g and 1.0-213 micrograms/g, respectively....

Health authorities in several European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands have recommended a ban on soft PVC toys, such as teething rings and bath toys. The Spanish government requested action by the European Union (EU) in March, 1998. PVC, or polyvinyl chloride (also known as vinyl), is a common plastic that frequently contains toxic additives. Despite...

In this submission, emerging research challenges of smart toy networking are identified and discussed. We present a ToyBridge middleware platform that was developed to integrate physical-world smart toys with online activities, and a Visible Light Communications ToyTalk platform we developed for simple toy communications. Videos of ToyBridge and ToyTalk showcases accompanying this submission ca...