by Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Talking kitchens and vanities.
Musical jump ropes and potty seats. Blusterous miniature leaf blowers and vacuum
cleaners—almost as loud as the real things.
Today's toy world is a noisy
one. Hardly an aisle in the toy store is free of items that don't talk, beep,
burp, laugh or boom. So far, puzzles, crayons and many dolls and action figures
have managed to escape the sound effects, although this year even the 40-year-old
G.I. Joe shouts commands at the press of a button.
As the clatter grows, consumer
groups and health professionals are voicing concerns that some of these toys are
too loud and could damage a child's hearing. "Parents may think that noise
is a problem they need not worry about until their child reaches the teenage years,"
says a statement from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. "Not
so. Some toys are so loud that they can cause hearing damage in children."
The group says toys that
pose a danger include not just cap guns, but talking dolls, vehicles with horns
and sirens, walkie talkies, musical instruments, household toys like vacuum
cleaners and toys with cranks.
In its annual toy safety survey,
the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund this month cited
six toys that it considered "dangerously loud." The study's author,
Lindsey Johnson, said she found the toys while cruising the aisles of a toy store.
"It's very easy to find incredibly loud toys out there. In some cases, I
could actually hear the toy all across the store."
The Sight & Hearing
Association, a Minnesota-based nonprofit group, tested 22 toys in its seventh
annual survey and found five it considered too loud, including three picture
books whose play-along buttons emitted sounds or songs above 100 decibels at
the speaker—the equivalent of a chain saw or pneumatic drill.
When the association first
started its survey, guns were the loudest toys, according to spokeswoman Julee
Sylvester. "Now three books top my list; that is very surprising. . . .
It's definitely okay for toys to make sounds, but my point is they don't need
to be this loud."
A similar study by the Canadian
consumer group Option Consommateurs (Consumer Option) found 25 of 40 toys, including
a cell phone intended for infants, noisy enough to cause hearing damage.
The Toy Industry Association,
which represents the manufacturers, disputes these findings. In a written statement,
the association said it "wants to go on record stating that NO toys intended
for children have been found to be dangerous based on their sound level."
"Rather, what makes
people call a toy 'too noisy' is a matter of opinion and personal preference—just
as some people prefer soft, classical music to loud rock music," the statement
says. The industry also questioned the accuracy of the testing methods.
The number of talking toys
has exploded in the past decade as technology has made it cheaper and easier to
install noises, voices and speakers. At the same time, toymakers say a number
of studies have shown that children are more engaged and learn more if play involves
several senses, including sight and sound.
For today's kids, sound
is a necessity, said toy industry consultant Chris Byrne. "They live in
a word where the car and microwave talk," so they expect that in toys as
well.
Even so, the industry last
year agreed to a voluntary standard to limit noise for several different kinds
of toys, mostly because of pressure from consumer groups, said Joan Lawrence,
the Toy Industry Association's vice president for standards and regulatory affairs.
"We didn't have any data, but we decided to at least curb the level."
According to the new standards,
which take effect next year, hand-held, tabletop and crib toys can be no louder
than 90 decibels when measured 25 centimeters (about 10 inches) from the source.
That's equivalent to the sound of a lawnmower or baby crying, toy industry officials
say. For toys intended to be played with closer to the ear, the standard is
70 decibels at the same distance. That's about the noise level of a vacuum cleaner.
Plenty of toys are not covered
by these standards: whistles, drums and bells, where the sound level is determined
by the users, tape and CD players, TVs and other electronic devices and squeeze
toys. "We couldn't come up with repeatable, reliable test method"
for measuring noise from these items, though the industry is continuing to work
on that, Lawrence said.
Meanwhile, "there are
so many things in a normal home environment that are louder" than the toys,
she said.
Industry officials say the
toys cited as too noisy by the consumer groups meet or only slightly exceed
the standard until they are tested right at the sound source. That's what concerns
Sylvester and Johnson, who say many young children play with their toys much
closer to their ears than the industry acknowledges in its standards.
One of the toys cited by
U.S. PIRG was Fisher Price's Learn Through Music, designed to teach preschoolers
basic numbers and colors. The toy tested at 92 decibels 25 centimeters away
from the speaker and at 110 within 1 centimeter.
Laurie Oravec, a spokeswoman
for Mattel Inc.'s Fisher-Price, said it's likely that U.S. PIRG tested the toy
in the "Try Me" mode, which is set up for parents to test in the store
and is deliberately set loud so it can be heard over ambient noise. When the
toy is operational at home, it is not that loud and there is a volume control,
Oravec said. The company has never had a complaint that it's too loud, but "we've
had complaints that the toy is not loud enough," Oravec said.
