Implications of video chat use for young children's learning and social-emotional development: Learning words, taking turns, and fostering familial relationships

Parents of young children use video chat differently than other screen media, paralleling expert recommendations (e.g., American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, 2016), which suggest that video chat, unlike other screen media, is acceptable for use by children under 18 months. Video chat is unique among screen media in that it permits contingent (time-sensitive and content-sensitive) social interactions. Contingent social interactions take place between a child and a partner (dyadic), with objects (triadic), and with multiple others (multi-party configurations), which critically underpin development in multiple domains. First, we review how contingent social interaction may underlie video chat's advantages in two domains: for learning (specifically learning new words) and for social-emotional development (specifically taking turns and fostering familial relationships). Second, we describe constraints on video chat use and how using chat with an active adult (co-viewing) may mitigate some of its limitations. Finally, we suggest future research directions that will clarify the potential advantages and impediments to the use of video chat by young children. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Learning Cognitive Biology > Social Development.

Virtual auscultation course via video chat in times of COVID-19 improves cardiac auscultation skills compared to literature self-study in third-year medical students: a prospective randomized controlled cross-over study

BACKGROUND

Cardiac auscultation is a core clinical skill taught in medical school. Due to contact restrictions during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, interaction with patients was very limited. Therefore, a peer-to-peer virtual case-based auscultation course via video conference was established.

METHODS

A randomized controlled cross-over study was conducted to evaluate whether participation in a virtual auscultation course could improve heart auscultation skills in 3^rd-year medical students. A total of sixty medical students were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group after informed consent was obtained. Due to no-shows, 55 students participated. Depending on allocation, students attended three ninety-minute courses in intervals of one week in a different order: a virtual case-based auscultation course held via video chat, literature self-study, and an on-site course using a high-fidelity auscultation simulator (SAM II). The study's primary endpoint was the performance of the two groups at the simulator after participating in the virtual auscultation course or literature self-study. To evaluate their auscultation skills, students participated in five assessments using the same six pathologies: stenosis and regurgitation of the aortic and mitral valve, ventricular septal defect, and patent ductus arteriosus. Moreover, participants rated their satisfaction with each course and provided a self-assessment of competence.

RESULTS

Compared to literature self-study, participation in the virtual auscultation course led to a significantly improved description of heart murmurs at the auscultation simulator with regard to the presence in systole and diastole, low- and high-pitched sounds, and volume dynamics. There was no significant difference between the groups in diagnostic accuracy and identification of the point of maximal intensity. After the virtual course, students showed higher satisfaction rates and a higher increase in self-assessed competence compared to participants who engaged in literature self-study.

CONCLUSIONS

For the first time, this study demonstrates that a case-based virtual auscultation course can improve aspects of cardiac auscultation skills on a simulator. This may facilitate the further acquisition of an essential clinical skill, even when contact restrictions will be lifted.

Telecollaboration in gerontology service learning: Addressing isolation & loneliness in a pandemic

Social isolation and loneliness present significant challenges for the mental and physical health of older adults. Social distancing, mask wearing, and other precautions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic add to these challenges. This article details a telecollaborative service-learning project to engage older adults online and provide applied experiences for students. From March through October 2020, 54 students from Social Work (Master, Bachelor), the College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM; DO), and Occupational Therapy (Master) provided telephone support and Zoom™ based programming for older adults affiliated with the University of New England. Creative offerings were piloted weekly and debriefed on Friday afternoons in the spring, leading to more structured 8-week schedules in summer and fall. Peer-to-peer support took place between older adults with experience in video meetings and those willing to learn. Bidirectional and intergenerational benefits were noted as older adults and students navigated the exigencies of the pandemic and learned important lessons with and from each other to advance knowledge and improve quality of life.

Frequency of contact with friends and relatives via internet and psychosocial factors in middle-aged and older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from the German Ageing Survey

OBJECTIVES

Previous studies have examined the association between frequency of contact with friends and relatives via internet and psychosocial factors (in terms of loneliness, life satisfaction and depressive symptoms). However, far less is known about such a link during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly based on nationally representative samples. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine this association among middle-aged/older adults.

METHODS/DESIGN

Data were taken from the short survey of the German Ageing Survey (June/July 2020, 3134 individuals in the analytical sample). The De Jong Gierveld scale was used to quantify loneliness, the Satisfaction with Life Scale was used to quantify life satisfaction and the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression was used to quantify depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Regressions showed that-compared to daily users-less frequent users of the internet for contact with friends and relatives reported increased loneliness, lower life satisfaction and more depressive symptoms. With regard to covariates, better psychosocial factors were associated with medium education (compared to low education), living with partner in the same household (compared to singles), better self-rated health, and favourable COVID-19 factors (in terms of decreased feeling that the Corona crisis is a threat for oneself, not having an infection with the coronavirus and an increased feeling that you can influence an infection with the coronavirus yourself).

CONCLUSIONS

Data suggest that individuals with a high frequency of contact with friends and relatives via internet reported better psychosocial factors. Future research in other cultural settings are required.

Children's language abilities predict success in remote communication contexts

Remote communicative contexts are part of everyday social, familial, and academic interactions for the modern child. We investigated the ability of second-graders to engage in remote discourse, and we determined whether language ability, theory of mind, and shy temperament predicted their success. Fifty 7-to-9-year-old monolingual English speakers with a wide range of language abilities participated in standardized testing and an expository discourse task in which they taught two adults to solve the Tower of London, one in an audiovisual condition to simulate video chat and a second in an audio-only condition to simulate phone communication. The discourse was scored with a rubric of 15 items deemed relevant to the explanation. Children included 27% to 87% of the items, with more items communicated via gesture than spoken word in both conditions. Gesture scores and spoken scores were highly correlated. Children specified more rubric items overall in the audio condition and more rubric items in the spoken modality when in the audio condition than the audiovisual condition. Performance in both conditions was positively associated with scores on independent measures of language ability. There was no relationship between performance and theory of mind, shy temperament, ability to solve the Tower of London, age, or sex. We conclude that 7-to-9-year-olds adjust the modality and content of their message to suit their remote partner's needs, but their success in remote discourse contexts varies significantly from individual to individual. Children with below-average language skills are at risk for functional impairments in remote communication.

Virtual auscultation course for medical students via video chat in times of COVID-19

Introduction: Auscultation skills are among the basic techniques to be learned in medical school. Such skills are achieved through supervised examination of patients often supported by simulator-based learning. The emergence of COVID-19 has disrupted and continues to hinder hands-on on-site medical training on a global scale. Project description: An effective virtual auscultation course was established in times of contact restrictions due to COVID-19 at the Medical Faculty of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. The interactive case-based webinar was designed to improve listening techniques, description and interpretation of auscultation findings in an off-site context. Clinical cases with pre-recorded auscultation sounds and additional case-based diagnostics were presented. The course focused on common heart murmurs including aortic and mitral valve stenosis and regurgitation as well as congenital heart defects (ventricular septal defect and patent ductus arteriosus). Results: The course was well received by the students and assessed as being useful and instructive. Assessment of learning effects, such as detection of pathological findings before and after training, is ongoing as part of a subsequent trial. Conclusion: Virtual interactive learning using a sound simulation lesson with clinical case presentations via video chat can well be used as a supplement to practical auscultation training. This learning format could also play a useful role in the curriculum of medical studies once contact restrictions are revoked.

Preschoolers Benefit Equally From Video Chat, Pseudo-Contingent Video, and Live Book Reading: Implications for Storytime During the Coronavirus Pandemic and Beyond

During the unprecedented coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, virtual education activities have become more prevalent than ever. One activity that many families have incorporated into their routines while at home is virtual storytime, with teachers, grandparents, and other remote adults reading books to children over video chat. The current study asks how dialogic reading over video chat compares to more traditional forms of book reading in promoting story comprehension and vocabulary learning. Fifty-eight 4-year-olds (M age = 52.7, SD = 4.04, 31 girls) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (Video chat, Live, and Prerecorded). Across conditions, children were read the same narrative storybook by a female experimenter who used the same 10 scripted dialogic reading prompts during book reading. In the Video chat (n = 21) and Live conditions (n = 18), the experimenter gave the scripted prompts and interacted naturally and contingently, responding in a timely, relevant manner to children's behaviors. In the Prerecorded condition (n = 19), children viewed a video of an experimenter reading the book. The Prerecorded condition was pseudo-contingent; the reader posed questions and paused for a set period of time as if to wait for a child's response. After reading, children completed measures of vocabulary and comprehension. Results revealed no differences between conditions across six different outcome measures, suggesting that children comprehended and learned from the story similarly across book formats. Further, children in the three experimental conditions scored significantly higher on measures than children in a fourth condition (control) who had never read the book, confirming that children learned from the three different book formats. However, children were more responsive to the prompts in the Live and Video chat conditions than the Prerecorded condition, suggesting that children recognized that these interactions were contingent with their responses, a feature that was lacking in the Prerecorded condition. Results indicate that children can comprehend books over video chat, suggesting that this technology is a viable option for reading to children, especially during the current pandemic.

Let's Chat: On-Screen Social Responsiveness Is Not Sufficient to Support Toddlers' Word Learning From Video

Joint engagement with a speaker is one cue children may use to establish that an interaction is relevant to them and worthy of attention. People on pre-recorded video cannot engage contingently with a viewer in shared experiences, possibly leading to deficits in learning from video relative to learning from responsive face-to-face encounters. One hundred and thirty two toddlers (24 and 30 months old) were offered referential social cues disambiguating a novel word's meaning in one of four conditions: responsive live (a speaker was present and engaged with children); unresponsive video (a speaker on video looked at the camera and smiled at scripted times); unresponsive live (although present, the speaker behaved as she did on the unresponsive video), and responsive video (a speaker on closed-circuit video engaged with children, as in video chat). Children of both ages reliably learned the word in the responsive live condition, and older children (30 months) learned in the unresponsive live condition. Neither group learned in the responsive or unresponsive video conditions. The results show that the addition of communicative social cues to the video presentation via video chat was not sufficient to support learning in this case. Rather, toddlers' transfer and generalization of words presented on video chat may depend on other contextual factors, such as co-viewers who scaffold their learning. Live, responsive video as implemented in this and prior studies is compared, with implications for the use of video chat via the Internet with young children.

A Test of Concept Study of At-Home, Self-Administered HIV Testing With Web-Based Peer Counseling Via Video Chat for Men Who Have Sex With Men

Background

Men who have sex with men (MSM), particularly MSM who identify as African-American or Black (BMSM), are the sociodemographic group that is most heavily burdened by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic in the United States. To meet national HIV testing goals, there must be a greater emphasis on novel ways to promote and deliver HIV testing to MSM. Obstacles to standard, clinic-based HIV testing include concerns about stigmatization or recognition at in-person testing sites, as well as the inability to access a testing site due to logistical barriers.

Objective

This study examined the feasibility of self-administered, at-home HIV testing with Web-based peer counseling to MSM by using an interactive video chatting method. The aims of this study were to (1) determine whether individuals would participate in at-home HIV testing with video chat–based test counseling with a peer counselor, (2) address logistical barriers to HIV testing that individuals who report risk for HIV transmission may experience, and (3) reduce anticipated HIV stigma, a primary psychosocial barrier to HIV testing.  

Methods

In response to the gap in HIV testing, a pilot study was developed and implemented via mailed, at-home HIV test kits, accompanied by HIV counseling with a peer counselor via video chat. A total of 20 MSM were enrolled in this test of concept study, 80% of whom identified as BMSM.

Results

All participants reported that at-home HIV testing with a peer counseling via video chat was a satisfying experience. The majority of participants (13/18, 72%) said they would prefer for their next HIV testing and counseling experience to be at home with Web-based video chat peer counseling, as opposed to testing in an office or clinic setting. Participants were less likely to report logistical and emotional barriers to HIV testing at the 6-week and 3-month follow-ups.

Conclusions

The results of this study suggest that self-administered HIV testing with Web-based peer counseling is feasible and that MSM find it to be a satisfactory means by which they can access their test results. This study can serve as a general guideline for future, larger-scale studies of Web-based HIV test counseling for MSM.