Do Child Safety Seat Installation Instructions Need to Be Simplified?

Mark V. Wegner
Wisconsin Division of Public Health
Deborah C. Girasek
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Citation: Wegner, Mark V. and Deborah C. Girasek. “Do Child Safety Seat Installation Instructions Need to Be Simplified?” Children, Youth and Environments 13(1), Spring 2003. . Retrieved [date] from http://colorado.edu/journals/cye.

Abstract

The objective of the study was to measure the required reading level of a sample of child safety seat (CSS) installation instructions, and compare readability levels among different prices of CSSs. A CD-ROM containing CSS installation instructions was obtained from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Their readability levels were determined using the SMOG test. The study demonstrated that the readability of instruction sets ranged from the seventh to twelfth grade levels, with an overall SMOG score of 10.34. No significant associations were found to exist between readability and seat prices. The authors thus conclude that CSS instruction manuals are written at a reading level that exceeds the reading skills of most American consumers.

Keywords: child safety, car seats