Product safety experts from more than a dozen countries participated in updating Guide 50; the Toy Industry Association’s (TIA) Al Kaufman, senior vice president of technical affairs and representative of the American National Standards Institute, was one of two nominated U.S. experts who helped update the document with the following changes:

·                                 Additional clarification that the Guide is intended for standards developers, but that it can also be used by other stakeholders;

·                                 Expansion of a clause outlining the relationship between child development, behavior and unintentional harm;

·                                 New structure of a clause on hazards and inclusion of new hazards;

·                                 Addition of a new clause dealing with the adequacy of safeguards.

The Guide also covers the many facets of child development (including developmental age compared with chronological age); the importance of applying knowledge of child development to preventing harm; the relevance of the child’s physical, social and sleeping environment; hazards to which children might be exposed during their use of, or interaction with, a product, along with suggestions for addressing those hazards; as well as a checklist for assessing a standard.

“Toy manufacturers and their product development teams will find this Guide to be a useful companion piece to the international (ISO 8124) and U.S. (ASTM F963) toy safety standards, as it provides a deeper analysis of how children are likely to interact with products,” said Kaufman.