OTHER TOOLS: high-tech toys & gadgets

High-Tech Toys & Gadgets

It seems as if new digital toys and gadgets are being developed on a daily basis. Sophisticated, highly interactive robots costing upwards of $3,000 are available as toys for young children. A range of other high-tech toys designed for learning academic and social skills, such as the VTech-V.Smile Learning System, the Leapster Learning Game System, and the Fisher Price Smart Cycle, are popular toys in 2008. Toymakers have developed age-appropriate digital technologies for children such as digital cameras, memory games, and digital dolls and stuffed animals.

Other hand-held toys, such as WebKinz, electronic pets such as Tamagotchi Virtual Pets, and small hand-held electronic games are widely available. Some of the most popular children’s toys, such as WebKinz, are simply vehicles to online virtual worlds for children. LearningWorks for Kids guides and playbooks provide strategies that assist children in identifying their use of executive skills (detect) and help parents then to get their children to think about their use of executive functions with the technologies (reflect) and in the real world (connect).

Specific technologies that are useful for supporting, practicing, and developing executive-functioning skills include:
Electronic learning games
Electronic pets
Hand-held games and technologies