tkt8763-01: Missing Lesson in Computer Class: Avoiding Injury (fwd)

["Larry S. Anderson -- NCTP" <lsa1@ra.msstate.edu>]

Wow!  Is this worth pondering...or what???

I think this is a very, very hot issue that some of you could use as a
lauching pad to do some research or writing...and it would capture the
eyes of the world!

Who's up to that challenge?  It could even be a team!  And, of course,
there needs to be a deadline for completion of this project.

Larry S. Anderson, Ed.D.                              LSA1@Ra.MsState.Edu
Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Technology & Education       Voice: (601) 325-2281
Founder, National Center for Technology Planning      Fax: (601) 325-7599
                    Mississippi State University
Chair, Council for Education Technology              State of Mississippi
         My personal home page URL-- http://www2.msstate.edu/~lsa1
                    NCTP web page -- http://www.nctp.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 05:56:58 EST
From: BBracey@aol.com
To: ijukes@bridges.com, lsa1@ra.msstate.edu
Subject: Missing Lesson in Computer Class: Avoiding Injury

Missing Lesson in Computer Class: Avoiding Injury

 By JANE GROSS


  Toddlers practice coloring inside the lines on computer workstations at a
Queens public library, their feet dangling because the chairs are too high.
Fourth graders in Westchester County check stock quotations on the Internet,
arching their necks at mom or dad's computer, to complete a homework
assignment about investing. 

  At a public school in upper Manhattan, students balance keyboards on their
knees because there is no room in front of the monitors. And at an after-
school computer center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, children brush up
on spelling with their arms stretched taut toward the keyboard and their
fingers clenched around the mouse. 

  These boys and girls are the first generation of American children to learn
computing along with colors and ABCs. And they are coming of age at a time
when the nation's elected leaders, from the White House to the local school
board, are calling for a computer on every desk by the turn of the century. 

  But in the rush to bring all the latest technology to every child in the
nation, experts say there have been virtually no efforts to ensure that
children have appropriate equipment and furniture, and proper training in
posture and keyboard technique. 

  While experts said they could not predict the level of future problems among
children, there is wide concern among physicians, physical therapists and
ergonomists that a tide of injuries, mirroring those sustained by adults in
certain professions, is inevitable as young people spend more time on
computers. 

  "It's time somebody paid attention," said Jane M. Healy, an educational
psychologist who spent more than two years watching children working on
computers while she researched a book, "Failure To Connect (Simon & Schuster,
1998). "What I saw, all over the country, was just appalling." 

  There is only the most embryonic research about whether children are
vulnerable to the repetitive stress injuries that have afflicted 20 million
American adults, making such disorders the No. 1 workplace injury in America.
To date, only one study on computer workstations and children has been
published in the United States, in last month's issue of the journal Computers
in the Schools. 

  In that study, a team of researchers from Cornell University observed third,
fourth and fifth graders and found a "striking misfit" between the children
and the equipment and a "marked lack of attention and commitment" to
correcting the problem. 

  As a result, all the children worked with craned necks, hunched shoulders or
flexed wrists. The researchers concluded that at least 4 in 10 were at risk of
serious injury. 

   Relying on such early research, and extrapolating from the well-documented
experience of adults, about two dozen experts interviewed said they believed
that risks to children would multiply as society and schools became more
computerized. 

  They said that with at least 70 percent of America's 30 million elementary
school students already using computers -- at school, at home or both -- many
children could suffer sore wrists, tingling fingers, aching backs or worse if
they failed to practice safe habits. 

  "People think children play with computers, they don't work with computers,"
said Alan Hedge, one of the Cornell researchers. "But there is no reason to
assume that what happened to adults won't happen to children, too." 

  Several designers of software and hardware said they had received no reports
of children injured from computing and did not want to overstate the risks.
While their own observations, part of the development of new products,
suggested that a problem was brewing, they said that only proper research
could determine its extent. 

  "To me this situation cries out for a systematic assessment," said Erik
Strommen, who heads the research and design group for children's products at
Microsoft. "And the simplest thing to do in the meantime is be guided by what
we know about adults." 

  By all accounts, children who have already sought treatment have been
injured playing games, like Nintendo, which require a steady pounding of
controls with thumbs and mesmerize children in awkward postures in front of
television screens for hours. 

  Ergonomists have already observed children, despite their flexible young
bodies, rubbing their hands and shrugging kinks out of their shoulders as they
work at computers. 

  And as educational software evolves, experts said, the programs, too, could
rivet the attention of young people who would otherwise be squirming and thus
naturally protecting themselves from injuries caused, in part, by long
motionless periods in contorted postures. 

  One child entranced by this emerging software is 4-year-old Claudia
Martinez, who craned her head toward the screen one recent afternoon as she
worked at a program called Kendra's Coloring Book at the new $35 million
public library in Flushing, Queens. 

  Her mother watched proudly, saying she was unconcerned by the girl's awkward
pose, but disappointed that she was limited to 20 minutes during busy hours.
Ruth Herzberg, the branch manager, boasted about the computer skills Claudia
was learning, taking no note of her poor posture. 

  "Look at how her attention's not diverted at all," Ms. Herzberg said.
"Usually a child that age is not good at concentrating." 

  Parents and educators are not willfully ignoring the health risks of poor
computing habits, experts say. It is more that they are preoccupied with the
educational opportunities of the burgeoning technology. 

  That attitude is widespread even among those who are teaching children
computer skills and installing equipment in schools. 

  At Score, an Upper West Side after-school computer center, there are
adjustable chairs, but nobody adjusts them, even for toddlers. "I never
thought of it," said Jaime Rissin, one of the peppy young instructors who
reward each completed lesson with a high-five. 

  At Dow's Lane Elementary School in suburban Irvington, N.Y., where the Board
of Education recently embarked on a $1 million-a-year technology initiative,
every classroom is to be equipped with high-speed T-1 telecommunications
lines, digital cameras and color scanners. But children still work at the
computers in old-fashioned library chairs at one-size-fits-all tables. 

  "It never dawned on me," said Don Beverly, the district's technology
director, "and that's the gut truth. But we will look at that in the future,
before it gets to be a liability issue." 

  Even when guidance is offered, it is sometimes rebuffed. Karen Jacobs,
president of the American Occupational Therapy Association, taught classes in
"healthy computing" at her daughter's middle school in a Boston suburb,
showing 600 children how to stretch, take frequent breaks and make their
workstations more comfortable by sitting on dictionaries, stuffing gym shorts
to cushion the smalls of their backs and using their backpacks as footrests. 

  But when she sent fliers to parents offering free consultations on modifying
home workstations, she got no responses. "Parents are more concerned with how
fast they can get on the Internet, whether they have the right math games,"
she said. 

  Ms. Jacobs recommends makeshift solutions that do not necessarily include
fancy equipment, which is financially out of reach of many families and school
districts. In New York City, for example, where school buildings are literally
crumbling, adjustable desks and chairs are not high on anybody's agenda. 

  "We are into very basic stuff," said Philip Russo, a spokesman for the Board
of Education. "Safe, warm and dry -- that's the mantra." 

  But experts said that some basic ergonomic training would be a cost-
efficient intervention with children that might prevent injuries as they moved
on to college and jobs. School officials interviewed agreed that such training
would be a good idea. But they remain focused on teaching both staff members
and students how to use the programs on their new computers. 

  The Irvington teachers, for example, are offered seminars in desktop
publishing and PowerPoint presentations, but none in ergonomic training.
Likewise, the students, 75 percent of whom are also online at home, are taught
to search the Internet for documents from the Colonial era and to e-mail
scientists at the Bronx Zoo, but not to stretch and to rest. 

  There are a few small efforts to teach safe computing to children. On the
Web site of the American Occupational Therapy Association, parents can
download screen-savers with safety instructions. And the Garnett Foundation in
Burlingame, Calif., which runs programs to interest girls in technology
careers, distributes mouse pads with illustrations of good computer posture. 

  There are also specialty products, including touch-screens to avoid mice or
joysticks, large track balls for little hands and software that reminds users
to take a break. 

  But experts say that ergonomic training and specialized equipment are half
measures without follow-up at home by parents. 

  Ms. Jacobs' 30-minute classes at the Andover West Middle School, for
example, bore only temporary fruit, according to her 12-year-old daughter,
Ariel. "For a little while they were doing the things my mom taught them, and
then they forgot about it," Ariel said. 

  The biggest difference parents can make, experts say, is in limiting the
hours children spend on computers. In some households, children boot up before
breakfast and again at 3 p.m., remaining online until bedtime. In other
households, computer time is rationed along with television, which has been
documented as having adverse effects on children. 

  And the range of parental approaches is just as wide among ergonomists. 

  Robin Gillespie, an ergonomic consultant and graduate student at New York
University, permits no computing at home for her 6-year-old son and cringes at
the notion that children are playing Legos on the screen instead of on the
living room rug. 

  "I'm not an actual Luddite," Ms. Gillespie said. "But my gut feeling is kids
don't need to use computers to be smart." 

  By contrast, Ms. Jacobs' 14-year-old son, Josh, is a computer junkie. On
school days, he is online for about three hours, and on weekends the monitor
never goes dark. He gossips with friends on America Online. He surfs the Net.
He downloads games. 

  But Josh is confident that he is not hurting himself because he has a
cordless keyboard that allows him to roam while he types, rather than sit
motionless in a chair. "I can walk around while I'm typing and lie in bed so
my back and neck don't hurt," he said. "My mom thinks it's great." 

  Well, maybe. "Did he say he does it in bed a lot?" Ms. Jacobs asked. "I'll
have to watch him more closely." 

  


Monday, March 15, 1999
<A HREF="aol://4344:104.nytcopy.6445375.574106743">Copyright 1999 The New York
Times</A>

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