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Apr 12, 2007 10:38 pm US/Eastern
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Are Your Child's Loud Toys Damaging To The Ears?
by Dr. Mallika Marshall
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Any parent with young kids at home will tell you today's toys are too loud! While the sounds may be annoying to adults those obnoxious playthings could actually pose a danger to your kids.
Bright lights, bright colors and noise, noise, noise. Kids love their toys and for many the louder the better, but what may seem like a simple annoyance could actually pose a danger to little ears.
"Younger ears seem to be more susceptible than older ears," said Dr. Ron Eavey of Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary.
Eavey says many parents don't realize that repeated exposure to noisy toys could contribute to hearing loss down the road.
"It's all cumulative," he said. "The noisier the environment, the more likely the hearing would go down and it would be permanent."
Kids don't experience a hearing loss right away. Eavey compares it to sun exposure. You don't get skin cancer from one sunburn, but over time too much sun can cause serious damage.
The same is true for exposure to noisy toys and other loud sounds.
We wanted to find out just how loud toys can be so we had cross-spectrum labs of Springfield do some tests for us.
Eighty-five decibels is considered safe for toys.
Most of the electronic toys measured below that safety threshold, but some had short bursts of noise that peaked in the low 90s.
The real surprise came with some of simple toys.
The pop gun and the maracas measured over 100 decibels.
We took the toys to a playgroup in Winchester and shared our results with the moms.
Eavey says there's no need to load the toys into the trash just limit playtime to give the little ears a rest.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)