DEVELOPMENTAL BENEFITS OF Playgrounds, THE

Childhood Education, Fall 2004 by Frost, Joe L, Brown, Pei-San, Sutterby, John A, Thornton, Candra D

ACEI is pleased to announce the publication of The Developmental Benefits of Playgrounds, by Joe L. Frost, Pei-San Brown, John A. Sutterby, and Candra D. Thornton. We have reproduced the Introduction from this new publication below:

The University of Texas play and play environments research project started in 1974 with the construction of a community-built playground in Lockhart, Texas, followed by a second at Redeemer Lutheran School in Austin, Texas. This endeavor led to the development of university graduate and undergraduate courses on children's play and play environments and identification of research sites for dissertation and sponsored research. While several private and public schools graciously volunteered their children and playgrounds for research, over the years Redeemer School, the first research site, continued to cooperate with the University of Texas to the present time and was the site for the recent research reported in this book.

The first book featuring early research from the University of Texas play and play environments research project, When Children Play (Frost & Sunderlin, 1985), also was published by the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI). This book contained 47 papers from the 1983 International Conference of Play and Play Environments held at the University of Texas in Austin. This conference, sponsored by 14 professional organizations, was attended by more than 500 professionals from 12 countries, and featured 120 presentations. In 1996, ACEI published Playground Injuries and Litigation (Frost & Sweeney), perhaps the most detailed case studies of playground injuries available. The studies were based on 190 detailed analyses of children's injuries gleaned from extensive litigation-related data, including answers to interrogatories; responses to requests for production; depositions; personal interviews; police reports; hospital records; design, installation, supervision, and maintenance records; and on-site inspection of injury sites.

In publishing The Developmental Benefits of Playgrounds, ACEI is extending the knowledge base about appropriate playground materials, equipment, and use patterns. The initial chapter focuses on the importance of play, with special attention to contemporary research by neuroscientists that reveals, through the aid of high-tech brain imaging techniques, concrete support for the centuries-old contention of noted philosophers and other academicians that play is critical to children's healthy development. This conclusion, seemingly obvious, has yet to be adopted by many who influence children's opportunities and environments for play. Later chapters identify developmental sequences for children's motor behaviors during their play on several types of playground equipment. Chapter 1 sets the stage for placing these sequences in developmental context by reviewing patterns and stages of play behaviors across the age spans: infant, toddler, preschool, and school age. A primary focus throughout the book is considering individual levels of physical, social, and cognitive development, rather than chronological age, when making decisions about children's play and playgrounds. Although not discussed in this book, play also carries profound therapeutic benefits for all children, especially those who are traumatized, abused, and/or stressed.

During the last decade of the 20th century, disturbing concerns emerged about the health and fitness of American children, and a growing number of studies are addressing these issues. The contemporary decline in children's physical fitness and the rapidly growing incidence of childhood obesity and related diseases are prompting a new look at the role of active outdoor play in enhancing children's development, fitness, and health. The growing proportion of time spent in sedentary activity compared to active play, the substitution of indoor technology play for outdoor play, the overemphasis on high-stakes testing, and the deletion of recess and physical education in many schools are among the factors discussed in Chapter 2 that are depriving children of free, outdoor, spontaneous play.

A major emphasis of the present book is on the functions and developmental benefits of playground equipment, focusing on heights (Chapter 3), overhead apparatus (Chapter 4), climbers (Chapter 5), and swings (Chapter 6). Manufactured playground equipment in the United States initially evolved as society's antidote for children playing in the hazardous streets, alleys, and vacant lots of major cities. Country children, having few such perceived problems, continued for many decades to enjoy playing in the wild spaces of the countryside. The early play equipment, featuring extreme heights, massive rotating mechanisms, hard surfaces, and little maintenance, quickly resulted in a growing pattern of injuries to children. Eventually, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC, 1997) published two handbooks on public playground safety; later, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM, 1993) published a playground safety standard. The two documents are very similar in their recommendations.