Each year more than 200,000 children nationwide receive emergency-room treatment for playground injuries and about 15 of those accidents are fatal, according to Seymour Gold, a professor of environmental planning who helped draft playground safety legislation for the state of California in 1990. He offers this 10-point safety checklist to assess public and home play equipment:

* Loose-fill materials, such as wood chips, mulch, sand or pea gravel should be 12 inches deep to cushion falls. Studies indicate most playground injuries result from falls.

* Pieces of play equipment should be far enough apart that the "fall zone" is free of obstacles.

* Platforms should be no more than seven feet high for school-age children and three feet for preschoolers.

* Swings should be at least 24 inches apart and 30 inches from the nearest support structure.

* Elevated surfaces should have guardrails or protective barriers to prevent falls.

* Check for head entrapment hazards. Openings that are between three and a half inches and nine inches present a head-entrapment hazard because they are large enough to permit a child's body to slip through but too small for the head.

* Check for entanglement hazards, such as open "S" hooks, on which children may catch clothing or anything else around the neck.

* Check for dangerous hardware protrusions or projections, or hardware that appears loose or worn.

* Check for exposed moving parts that might pinch or crush a child.

* Check for exposed footing or environmental obstacles such as rocks or roots that might cause a child to trip or sustain other injuries.