 Good afternoon, and welcome to this public meeting of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. Before we begin, I would like to make doubly certain that we are connected to Commissioner Bianco, who is participating by phone. Are you out there, Commissioner Bianco? I'm out here. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we're delighted to have you here. And we're also delighted to have our colleague, Commissioner Kayback. We have one item on the agenda this afternoon, a public briefing on updates recently completed to the age determination guidelines. I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Kalisha Phillips and Jill Hurley from Engineering Sciences Human Factors Division to give today's presentation. The age determination guidelines provide transparency into how CPSC evaluates the characteristics of a consumer product in comparison to the skills, play behaviors, and interests of children in a particular age group when making age grading determinations. And I know it is a massive task that you have. We're also pleased to welcome Dwayne Boniface, who is the Assistant Executive Director of the Commission. Dr. Phillips and Ms. Hurley, thank you for being here this afternoon. You may begin. Thank you for the opportunity to brief you today in the CPSC's age determination guidelines. Today, we will review the role of the age determination guidelines. Excuse me. Can you pull the microphone a little bit closer so we can hear? Thank you. Today, we will review the role of the age determination guidelines as it relates to product safety, a brief history of the guidelines, recent research efforts, an overview of the changes and revisions made to the 2020 guidelines, and plans for future updates. Conducting an age determination and the resulting age label is a process of examining a product's features in comparison to the skills, play behaviors, and interests of children throughout different developmental stages during childhood. The guidelines are a CPSC staff document to perform age determinations. Manufacturers and test laboratories also use the guidelines for developing, marketing, and labeling consumer products, especially children's toys and other articles. The guidelines, while not a regulation, help determine age labeling. Age labeling directly impacts the type and severity of mechanical and chemical tests that children's toys and products must undergo, as well as what warning labels, bans, and other restrictions may apply. Over time, new toys have come onto the market, classic toys have evolved, and children's exposure to various toys have changed. For example, in the category of building blocks, simple blocks for stacking have evolved into a wider variety that includes abstract shapes for nesting to blocks incorporating magnetic features for creating complex 3D structures such as the vehicle shown here. As toys evolve, so must the guidelines. The first version of the guidelines published in 1985 was developed to assist the CPSC staff in performing age determinations to support enforcement of the small parts regulation. In the late 1990s, CPSC contracted a study to conduct research on the topics of play, toys, and developmental behavior of children. This contract also included interviews and focus group studies that examined the purchasing decisions of parents, as well as observational studies of children's interactions with particular toys. These guidelines were published in 2002. Now, Calissa is going to discuss research efforts that went into the publishing of the 2020 guidelines. Good afternoon. Today I will be briefing you on a research collaboration that led to the 2020 age determination guidelines. In 2014, CPSC human factor staff approached researchers within the National Institutes of Health about conducting observations of children's play with toys and making updates to the guidelines. This resulted in a multi-year interagency agreement between CPSC and Dr. Mark Bornstein's Child and Family Research Laboratory within the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, hereafter NICHD. The project was led by Dr. Melissa Richards. NICHD began by surveying the literature on child development, play, and toys. At the project's outset, CPSC staff provided a list of potential toys and other products to NICHD for consideration in their research study. Independently, NICHD finalized the selection and purchase of 150 products, which were spread out across toy categories and hypothesized age groups. To assess age appropriateness, NICHD recruited and observed children of different ages interacting with the products. Participants were 243 healthy, typically developing children balanced for gender and ranging in age from one to eight years. Each child participated in three short observation sessions. One were presented with one out of three randomized products during each session. One was hypothesized as age appropriate, one was for younger children, and one was for older children. Sessions were recorded for later behavioral coding. NICHD developed utilization keys that were unique to each product to conduct behavioral coding of the observations. Different statements were developed to capture whether a child fully utilized a product's features in intended or expected ways for greater than five seconds. Partially utilized features indicating that a child was on their way to using the product as expected and did not utilize the product's features, showing an absence of full or partial utilization. Here's an example of a noise making puzzle similar to the one studied by NICHD. The utilization statement NICHD developed included whether the child could take the pieces out and put them back in the appropriate spots or whether they could take a piece out of the puzzle and put it back in but fail to try to stick the piece back in but fails to or doesn't orient the piece correctly and so it doesn't seat properly. They defined not utilizing as dumping the puzzle over or throwing pieces. Full and partial utilization scores were summed by NICHD to create a single utilization score which facilitated comparisons across age groups. Before starting their data analysis, NICHD established a procedure to compare utilization scores between age groups and arrive at recommended age groups for each of the products. One age group was selected over others whenever it clearly had the highest utilization score. However, if scores were close for two age groups and by that they defined as less than five percentage points, NICHD would go with the younger of the two age groups. For the puzzle, NICHD identified 36 to 71 months as the age group with the highest utilization score. However, because the score for 19 to 35 months was within five percentage points of 36 to 71 months, NICHD selected the younger age group. When making updates to the 2020 guidelines, NICHD addressed this product under puzzles two years. To summarize, NICHD studied 150 products, 42 of which were control samples. One product produced insufficient data for NICHD to recommend an age group. In total, NICHD generated age recommendations for 107 different products. NICHD made additions and changes to the 2002 guidelines based on their age recommendations. They found that 12 products were already addressed within appropriate age groups in the 2002 guidelines, leaving 95 products to address within the new guidelines. The vast majority of products were new to the market or ones that had not been addressed previously. Few changes have been made to existing content in the 2002 guidelines. In December of 2017, NICHD submitted to CPSC a research document containing an annotated bibliography, a summary of their research methodology, tabulation sheets including age recommendations for each of the toys, as well as a theoretical paper on the age appropriateness of toys. And two, draft age determination guidelines containing proposed additions and changes that reflected their age recommendations. The interagency agreement with NICHD concluded on March 1st, 2018. Seeking public input on the publicly available NICHD draft documents, CPSC staff published a federal register notice in March 2018. This comment period remained open for a total of four months, 90 days with a 30-day extension. CPSC staff spent the remainder of the project reconciling public comments and finalizing the 2020 guidelines. CPSC received nine public comments on the NICHD draft documents. Comments were received from three trade associations, two test labs, two unaffiliated individuals, one manufacturer, and one product safety consultant. In our approach, CPSC staff aimed to be as responsive as possible to both the general and product specific comments that were received by the public when finalizing the 2020 guidelines. Multiple public comments mentioned the need for independent validation of NICHD's research methodology for determining age appropriateness. In response, CPSC human factor staff performed age determinations on the products NICHD studied. Staff used the 2002 age determination guidelines and also took into consideration the following evaluation criteria, including manufacturer's stated intent, such as an age label if it was reasonable, advertising promotion and marketing for the product, and whether the product is commonly recognized as being intended for a specific age group. The above pie chart represents the 95 toys and products for which NICHD provided age recommendations. CPSC staff agreed with the NICHD recommended age group for 83 products, which translates to 87% agreement between NICHD and CPSC. However, there were 12 products for which NICHD and CPSC disagreed on the age group. For these 12 products, staff found that the utilization keys did not completely capture the target age range in question. To address this, CPSC staff conducted additional online research taking into consideration manufacturer age labels, marketing of similar products and public comments. Now I'm going to be speaking about the new 2020 guidelines. I'm going to give you a brief overview. Based on public comments that were received, CPSC staff revised the title of the age determination guidelines, or the complete title, from referencing toys to now referencing consumer products. We made this change to acknowledge that the guidelines are not only used for age-grading toys, but also for determining an appropriate age group for children's products, as well as evaluating the appeal of general use products to children. CPSC staff added a new introduction section to the front of the 2020 guidelines summarizing the relation between age determinations and product safety, how the guidelines fit into conducting age determinations, and a description of major revisions that were made to the 2020 guidelines. CPSC staff also added a new background section describing the laws and regulations that have been passed since 2002. In addition to maintaining carryover material from 2002 on the small parts regulation, use and abuse testing and age labeling and determinations. The section now describes the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, along with descriptions of the now mandatory ASTM F963 toy standard and relevant reference material for evaluating children's toys, children's products, and child care articles. Additionally, staff added pertinent terminology and definitions, along with a reference table to consolidate useful reference information for conducting age determinations. CPSC staff added a user guide section to orient users to the content and organization of the 2020 guidelines. Staff added a description of NICHD and CPSC staff's research collaboration to this history, to a history subsection within the user guide. Staff retained carryover material from the 2002 guidelines on the organization of the document and the existing material has been updated to reflect any organizational changes in the new document. For the Children's Basic Abilities and Preferences section, NICHD removed specific product references to keep the focus on child development in various domains such as cognitive, motor, social, emotional domains. NICHD also replaced the terms infant and toddler with children throughout to ensure the terminology matched age groups within the guidelines. NICHD added a play category called technology play, grouping together audio visual equipment, smart toys and educational software and computer and video games subcategories from the 2002 guidelines. NICHD also thoroughly updated the entire technology play category to bring the content up to date by referencing existing research on children's play with technology. For example, the play category now addresses how a child can swipe a screen to change content that is being displayed. NICHD also added a three to five year section in Mirror's Mobiles manipulatives to capture sensory products for older preschoolers such as, for example, wet texture moldable sand and 12 to 18 and 19 to 23 month age groups under sports equipment to address replica sports equipment for these ages. NICHD also renamed construction play as building play and learning toys as learning products. This table displays some examples of products that have been added to the 2020 guidelines. For example, in exploration and practice play, Mirror's Mobiles manipulatives under three to five years, bubble guns have been added. Under building play interlocking building materials 36 to 71 months, you will now find a number of number of toys with innovative coupling mechanisms including internal magnets and suction cups. In response to public comments, CPSC recently awarded a new contract to a new research organization to assess age appropriateness of 55 products including 10 smart toys and nine additional toy categories. For example, some of these categories were miniature figurines and pedal list bicycles. All of the 55 products, all of the nine product categories were recommended for study within the public comments that were received. To assess age appropriateness, this contractor has been conducting online research looking at marketing of similar products, consumer reviews, and online videos to generate age recommendations for each of the products. For the smart toys only, the contractor is assessing potential physical hazards that a child may encounter when interacting with these toys. CPSC staff plans to incorporate their age recommendations from the current research into the guidelines at a future date. To conclude, I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to the 2020 guidelines update including the NICHD research team, our colleagues at CPSC, stakeholders who provided public comments, and the families who volunteered for NICHD's research study. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much for the presentation. We'll go through a round of questions with each commissioner having 10 minutes and we may have additional rounds. First of all, I can't thank you enough for all the work that you do. When you look at the age guidelines, you realize what a massive undertaking this is. You're the folks that toil in obscurity in the best sense of the word, but I think it's terrific that we have you here today so that we can publicly acknowledge the wonderful work that you've done, the incredible impact that you have among our stakeholders, and I think really the gratitude that the stakeholders have for such a professional work that you do. I think we all know that children, kids are most vulnerable consumers, they're involuntary risk takers. The commission always walks the extra mile to protect kids, and I will just say I will sleep better tonight knowing that you are out there protecting our children in a way that is so important to the mission of the agency. So I have a couple of questions. You talked about new toys and you talked about old toys that have evolved. Have children evolved as well so that things that we would have applied one test years ago because of differences in development or differences in technology that children are actually different in the way you test them? That is a great question, and unfortunately that was not in the scope of this particular study. However, NICHD researchers did survey the literature on child development, and they made updates to the children's basic abilities and preferences section. In terms of things that I know that have changed with children. Some are heavier, we know that. There's more obesity, there's more media use, and the time use patterns are very different. Children have a lot less free time, but that's an excellent question and something we plan to delve into, and actually CPSC has a current contract right now to look at strength capabilities of children in various age groups, and that will also contribute to our knowledge base. So now this is my dumb question of the afternoon. When I was looking at slide 12 and I saw there were 42 control samples, what is a control sample? How do you decide that something is a control sample? A control sample in the NICHD study were products that were only tested in one age group. Oh, okay. So they weren't able to compare utilization scores between groups so they didn't feel like it was appropriate to conclude. And also I did note that there were just 12 of the instances in which NICHD differed from CPSC staff. Did we reconcile that and also was there a pattern where we disagreed? We wanted to be more stringent, or they wanted to be more stringent, or was it just a mix bag? If you recall. It was a mix bag. There were some products that were labeled for younger than the age that NICHD recommended. And part of the concern there was that they only tested children as young as 12 months. So some of them were products for babies. So we thought it was reasonable to place those in age groups younger than 12 months. That was some of them. And then for other ones, we went older. And you're quite correct to point out that the scope of the work that you're doing with the guidelines has changed, in particular with the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. All of a sudden we have this definition of children's product and one of the products and one of the things that we were directed to do in assessing what's a children's product was specifically enumerated in the statute to look at CPSC's age guidelines. So that's a big change. And also the incorporation of F9, why am I blanking on it? The ASTM standard, F963. Sorry, I just had a brain melt. And so the scope of the work that you do and the importance of it has really been exaggerated. I honestly don't have additional questions. But again, I do want to commend you for a really excellent presentation and for the massive amount of work that has gone into this. Commissioner Kaye, your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't actually have any questions. I just want to thank staff as well for the great work. Thank you very much. Thank you. I've just been past the note and I understand that Commissioner Biacco does not have any questions. So let's turn to commission. I don't. Oh, I'm sorry, you're there. I'm still here. I just I don't have any questions. Okay, well, thank you for that. And I will now turn to Commissioner Feldman to see if he has any questions. I have no questions. Thank you very much. Well, we may be wrapping this up a lot earlier than I had imagined because this is again, this is such a massive undertaking. But please don't let the fact that we don't have questions mean that we don't take you seriously. The fact is you've done such a good job with this work that I think we're all in awe of the the excellent work that's been done. So again, our greatest congratulations and thanks for a job well done. That ends this meeting.