If we care about school achievement we should monitor toy marketing

With the holiday shopping season officially underway, parents will be surveying which toys to buy, including some that are educational. After all, many toys and games are marketed in this way, with Amazon now having a category of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) toys, designed to educate and excite.

There seems to be little issue taken with educational products for young children, even though parallel claims about the effectiveness of computer brain games for adults have been challenged in a recent report. As a developmental psychologist who studies early learning and language development, I struggle with how much more relaxed we are about marketing products geared towards promoting young minds.

{mosads}Books stores offer learning kits for infants that include flashcards. Electronic infant cell phones, and other infant electronic toys, note on their box what infants can learn from these toys. In my view, there is a generous application of the educational label in the marketing of toys and games, particularly those geared towards infants.

In some cases, these claims are fair. Children’s play with certain types of toys are linked to positive academic outcomes. For example, there is an association between how much children engage with blocks, puzzles, and other types of building toys and stronger spatial skills. Play with particular board games can promote young children’s math skills.

However, in other cases, similar claims actually contradict empirical findings on early cognitive development. For example, there is now evidence to show that, while entertaining, electronic toys can dampen both caregiver and infant communication compared to traditional, non-electronic toys, such as blocks or books. Yet, there seems to be little regulation of these messages.  

To be fair, toy manufacturers do not always promise cognitive gains, as in the case of brain-training games for adults. Yet, there is often an implied message of learning. Let’s be honest. The inclusion of flash cards in infant learning kits suggests, at some level, that this approach offers pedagogical value. The phrasing on some electronic infant toys conjures images of a young child learning to label letters, numbers, and colors through their manipulation of these toys.

Yet, it is not really the toy, nor the child’s manipulation of it, that teaches children to name letters, numbers and colors, as may be interpreted. Rather, it is the opportunity for caregivers to talk about the letters, colors and numbers on the toys that creates the opportunities for children to build their vocabulary.

So, if no claims of guaranteed learning are made on educational toys and products for young children, why should we care that the marketing of some of these products is misleading? Because, when it comes to children, every message counts. There is simply too much at stake to risk misinforming caregivers about how infants and young children learn.

There is already a great disparity in the academic preparedness of some children at school entry. So, perhaps it is worth a push to make sure that toys and other learning products for young children are described in a way that informs rather than misdirects caregivers.

There is a second reason to care about the marketing of toys and products for young children. Last year, the toy industry reported $ 19.48 billion in sales, with an increase of seven percent from the previous year. That’s a lot of toys in, presumably, a lot of homes.

Consider also that the claims on a learning kit or a toy are visible to anyone at a bookstore, a toy store, a website, or even a grocery store. You do not need to purchase an educational product to see the claims on the box. That is a lot of access to the public, especially at this time of year. Now consider the potential impact on caregivers when the messages on the packaging are misleading.

Indeed, the high visibility of toys offers an important opportunity to create a synergy between educational products and programs that strive to ensure the academic success of all children. Toy manufacturers have a unique level of access to families that can be leveraged to help inform caregivers about early learning. I

magine if the packaging of educational toys were to align their message not only to foster fun, but also to bolster positive interactions, encourage discovery through play, and promote other behaviors that have been linked to later school success. Now, that would be a message worth marketing.

Marianella Casasola, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Human Development at Cornell University and a Public Voices Fellow.