Joe L. Frost is Parker Centennial Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of America's leading experts on play and playgrounds. In addition to having taught child development and early childhood education at Texas and several other universities, he has written or edited fifteen university-level textbooks and more than one…

This article is an open letter of a group of early childhood education (ECE) practitioners to Premier Wen Jiabao. This open letter was written with one goal in mind: to ask Premier Wen's government to take measures to protect young children and support early childhood education. These practitioners have become worried about the many accidents that…

Discusses some of the major causes of accidents in childhood: road trauma, drowning, burns, and poisoning. Also, briefly indicates methods to reduce such accidents. (CM)

Process analysis provides a way to analyze the antecedents, stages of response, and consequences of injury-risk situations. It may aid scientists in conceptualizing these situations and provide additional methods of assessing intervention strategies. Examples of such an assessment system and a discussion of its advantages are presented. (VM)

Describes playgrounds as places where children can take important, exploratory risks (i.e., actively respond to challenges and adventures) within a sheltered environment. Discusses the need for supervision and observation. Suggests ways to make children feel secure about the playground and the risks that can be taken there. (DMM)

This paper deals with managing a crisis in a wilderness situation. The terms "crisis" and "turning point" are used to describe what is more traditionally called an accident. Using these terms introduces the idea that crisis events occur as logical consequences of preceding decisions, errors, or omissions, not as the result of…

Safety guidelines for each phase of a karate practice session are presented to provide an accident-free and safe environment for teaching karate in a physical education or traditional karate training program. (JMF)

A model for comparing risks to resources with exposures to hazards is described and then applied to the physical educator. (JMF)

A case made for hiring experienced athletic trainers to work with coaches in preventing as well as treating injuries. (JD)

Even postage stamps can carry a safety education message. (LH)

Outlines the reasons for a need to know more about water and swimming pool dangers with regards to young children and how to make these water areas more safe. (BB)

Introductory article to this theme issue on child safety indicates that injury from accidents is principal childhood public health problem of the United States and notes it is an epidemic that can be controlled through targeted prevention strategies such as parent education to enhance home and school safety. (SM)

Discusses the way in which safety is measured in commercial terms. Focuses on costs, in time and money, of repair after an accident, the implied value of life such estimates carry, and the necessity to equalize the marginal costs of equivalent benefits. (AEM)

In 1980 recommendations were made to prevent child injuries. They addressed the following topics: (1) motor vehicle safety; (2) home and neighborhood safety; and (3) the development of a national data base from which policy can be formulated. There is evidence that progress has been made since the morbidity and mortality rates for accidents have…

The introductory article to the special issue on pupil transportation summarizes the arguments of opponents and proponents of seat belts in school buses. (MLF)