Researcher says some toys are oldies but goodies

NEW YORK

The gift-giving season is almost here but, as any parent knows, the toy-buying season is year-round.

Toys are supposed to be the tools that children use to do their "work" -- although most of us call it "play" -- so of course they need to be surrounded by the latest and greatest gadgets, right?

Maybe, says Marianne Szymanski, founder of Toy Tips, an independent guide that rates toys based on social interaction, intellectual thinking, motor skills and character development.

"We found that toys, in general, do enhance children's skills but the skills that they enhance probably aren't the ones you think," says Szymanski, who has a 1-year-old son.

Szymanski launched the Toy Tips project 10 years ago while she was a psychology student at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis. Marvin Berkowitz, who is now a professor of character education at University of Missouri-St. Louis serves as an adviser for the toy-research project.

"There are so many holiday toy tests in magazines and on TV and by parent groups, but we wanted academic research ... from all demographics and all regions," Szymanski explains.

The products listed on the Toy Tips Web site and Kid Tips magazine are all considered to be better than average ("Think a B-plus or better," Szymanski says). In fact, most of the 30,000 toys that have been tested are simply left of the list.

Testing is conducted through the Toy Research Institute using a consistent methodology, applying empirical methods and constraints typically used in social science research. Psychologists, teachers, occupational therapists, research analysts and, most importantly, thousands of children who are demographically diversified put each toy to the test.

Some of the classic toys that have been tested with a new audience include Sit 'N Spin, Sorry, Uno, Candyland, Lite Brite, Operation and the Easy Bake Oven.

New toys with high scores are the Wok Set with Chopsticks, Glitter Wizard Hat and Power Wheels CAT Tough Loader.

It didn't take much testing to make the first observation, says Szymanski: Almost all of the manufacturers' suggested ages seemed way off. She says their guidelines allow for the different paces at which children develop.

Also, Szymanski notes, today's children begin playing with toys at a younger age than their parents did, and they also stop playing with toys at a younger age. The major switch in a child's leisure-time life used to come in the teen years when friends became more important, but now children in the seventh grade have full after-school lives with sports, organized activities, videogames and the Internet.

"Think of Barbie. When we started testing in 1993, 9- and 10-year-olds were playing with them. Now, kids get their first (Barbie) around age 3," according to Szymanski.

She says the value of playing with Barbie, or any other doll, goes up as children begin having their dolls interact with other dolls because the experience becomes social in addition to encouraging motor skills. (Anyone who has tried to fit one of Barbie's stiletto-heel shoes on her high-arched feet knows about the motor-skills element.)

Board games and sports toys also do well in the social interaction category and they help with sportsmanship, even in its most basic form such as taking turns rolling the dice.

Toys that are labeled for individuals, such as blocks and Legos -- which often boost thinking and motor skills, also can foster some interaction because children are very eager to show off what they've made before they knock down their creations and do it all over again, Szymanski explains.

Parents and their parenting style are far more likely to encourage more introspective play than any toy, she adds. "Parents hand off a videogame and say, 'Go play.' But many of those games could be played with two players."

Clue, which most modern-day parents played when they were young, has new characters and the mansion has been renovated but the murder-mystery board game is still an excellent exercise in deductive reasoning.

Szymanski says all the beeps and blinks that come from the scores of electronic learning aids on the market don't really help or hurt kids. They teach colors, numbers, reading, writing and math -- all the same things children could learn from parents and teachers, she says.

And, she adds, a regular desktop computer packaged with kiddie software is more valuable intellectually and economically than a fake, child-size computer that plays only one game.

The biggest problem with all the plugged-in toys is that they take away from traditional toys, including construction toys that encourage children to use their imagination. She says the same goes for toys that feature licensed characters because creativity is replaced by mimicking traits the youngsters have seen on television.

Character development is where many toys fall short, says Szymanski. Children, however, can boost their self-esteem and learn positive behavioral traits such as kindness, compassion and responsibility when they play with dress-up costumes because they usually develop a full story for the character they create.

With almost any toy, Szymanski and her partners report that girls and boys definitely "play" differently, even when they're playing with the same toys.

"Girls start to play Barbie with their friends around 5 and that trails off at 8 when they start to play more quiet, introspective games. They move away from a lot of 'toys.' Boys are the opposite. Seventh-grade boys will jump at the chance to play with remote control cars," Szymanski says. "Boys also are more aggressive."