Digital media and children under 3 years of age

A brief tablet-based intervention benefits linguistic and communicative abilities in toddlers and preschoolers

Young children's linguistic and communicative abilities are foundational for their academic achievement and overall well-being. We present the positive outcomes of a brief tablet-based intervention aimed at teaching toddlers and preschoolers new word-object and letter-sound associations. We conducted two experiments, one involving toddlers ( ~ 24 months old, n = 101) and the other with preschoolers ( ~ 42 months old, n = 152). Using a pre-post equivalent group design, we measured the children's improvements in language and communication skills resulting from the intervention. Our results showed that the intervention benefited toddlers' verbal communication and preschoolers' speech comprehension. Additionally, it encouraged vocalizations in preschoolers and enhanced long-term memory for the associations taught in the study for all participants. In summary, our study demonstrates that the use of a ludic tablet-based intervention for teaching new vocabulary and pre-reading skills can improve young children's linguistic and communicative abilities, which are essential for future development.

Longitudinal associations between parents' prosocial behavior and media use and young children's prosocial development: The mediating role of children's media use

Research has found that media is associated with children's prosocial behavior (PB) from an early age, and that parents play a key role in children's media use and behavior. However, few studies explore these relations as early as infancy while also controlling for well-established predictors of PB (e.g., empathic concern). Thus, the present study examined longitudinal associations between parents' PB and media use, and prosocial development during early childhood, mediated by children's own media use. Participants were 519 children (M age at Time 1 = 17.77 months) and parents who participated in three timepoints of an ongoing, longitudinal study. A longitudinal path model suggested that children's media use was still significantly associated with PB 1 year later after accounting for factors such as parents' PB, media use, and empathy. These findings have important implications for the early development of behaviors that serve as a foundation for social and moral development.