School break times provide a daily opportunity for children to be active; however, research indicates this time is underutilized. Reasons for low children's playground activity levels have primarily focused on physical barriers. This research aimed to contribute to physical environmental findings affecting children's playground physical activity levels by identifying additional variables throug...

BACKGROUND Low levels of physical activity are characteristic in preschoolers. To effectively promote physical activity, it is necessary to understand factors that influence young children's physical activity. The present study aimed to investigate how physical activity levels are influenced by environmental factors during recess in preschool. METHODS Preschool playground observations and ped...

OBJECTIVES To review playground injury statistics over a five year period in order to develop an awareness of how and where children in the United States are being injured. METHODS All data are based on the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) for playground related injuries during 1990-4. The surveillance data includes inju...

BACKGROUND Playground injuries are fairly common and can require hospitalization and or surgery. Previous research has suggested that compliance with guidelines or standards can reduce the incidence of such injuries, and that poorer children are at increased risk of playground injuries. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the association between playground injury and school...

INTRODUCTION Despite the establishment of playground safety standards, playground-related injuries are still a significant cause of extremity fractures in Singapore. This prospective study evaluates the dimensions and characteristics of our playgrounds, and their effect on fracture severity in an Asian population. We aim to correlate various playground risk factors with severity of the fracture...

Recycled tires continue to be used in the construction of rubberized playground surfaces in California. To function as an effective means of reducing the incidence of serious head injury when children fall in the playground, these surfaces should meet standards for impact attenuation, as cited in the California Code of Regulations (sections 6570065750). This study was conducted to determine whe...

Functional analyses that were conducted in two settings (playground and classroom) indicated that problem behavior was sensitive to adult attention on the playground and tangible items in the classroom. Attention- and tangible-based interventions were designed based on the results from each of the assessment environments and were compared. The attention-based intervention was more effective on ...

This paper introduces an approach on how versatile, dynamic and adaptive playgrounds can be developed using multi-agent systems (MAS), artificial intelligence (AI) and Playware technology. By modelling the children and the Playware playground into a MAS, knowledge about the children’s favourite playing behaviour can be acquired. Experiments with children were conduced in order to record their p...

The Programmers’ Playground is a software library and run-time system for creating distributed multimedia applications from collections of reusable software modules. This paper presents the design and implementation of EUPHORIA, Playground’s user interface management system. Implemented as a Playground module, EUPHORIA allows end-users to create direct manipulation graphical user interfaces (GU...