Farm tractors account for the majority of fatal injuries to youth working in agriculture. Tractors are also an important source of disabling non-fatal trauma and therefore represent a leading occupational priority for childhood injury prevention. It has been hypothesized that many tractor-related injuries occur because youth are assigned tractor jobs that are beyond their physical and cognitive capabilities. While past studies documented physical mismatches between anthropometric characteristics of children and the physical requirements of tractor operation,there is little available scientific evidence in the child development or biomedical literatures with respect to cognition and youth tractor operation.
The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate the cognitive development skills necessary for safe youth tractor operations. The pilot study will be conducted using the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS). The availability of simulator technology for our research proposal will allow us to gather empirical evidence to answer important questions that could not safely be answered using any other methods. The results of this pilot study will assist us in generating a model of cognitive developmental factors relevant for safe tractor operations by youth that can be used and tested in future research, intervention development, and policy applications. The long term goal of this line of research is to prevent youth tractor fatalities and injuries by providing objective, empirical evidence to assist parents, employers, and policymakers on appropriate age parameters for this hazardous agricultural job.