Linebarger - Screen Media and Language Development in Infants and Toddlers

Screen media and language development in infants and
toddlers: An ecological perspective

Deborah L. Linebarger
*
, Sarah E. Vaala
University of Pennsylvania, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 March 2010
Available online 8 April 2010
Keywords:
Infants
Toddlers
Language development
Screen media
Ecological contexts
a b s t r a c t
The abilities to understand and use language represent two of the
most important developmental competencies that children must
master during the rst 3 years of life. Over the past decade, screen
media content directed at infants and toddlers has dramatically
increased. As a result, infants and toddlers time spent with media
has also notably increased (i.e., 12 h per day). At present, there is
limited empirical knowledge regarding how screen media inu-
ence infants and toddlers language development. In this review,
we contend that infants and toddlers are capable of learning from
screen media. This learning is dependent upon the conuence of
three distinct but interrelated factors: attributes of the child; char-
acteristics of the screen media stimuli; and the varied environmen-
tal contexts surrounding the childs screen media use. To examine
these interrelated factors, we have adopted an ecological frame-
work in which a young childs language skills develop from the
reciprocal transactions between the child and the broader environ-
mental contexts in which a child is situated or operates. Screen
media effects are dependent on the degree to which media content
resembles infants and toddlers real-life experiences including the
use of simple stories and familiar objects or routines. Repeated
exposure also helps infants and toddlers learn both the format
and the content of screen media and can even ameliorate negative
effects associated with viewing particular content. Finally, the
presence of a competent co-viewer appears to boost babies lan-
guage learning from screen media, much like the ways these pro-
cesses facilitate learning in live scenarios.
2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
0273-2297/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.dr.2010.03.006
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dlinebarger@asc.upenn.edu (D.L. Linebarger).
Developmental Review 30 (2010) 176202
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Developmental Review
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ dr
Introduction
The abilities to understand and use language represent two of the most important developmental
competencies that children must master during the rst 3 years of life (Gauvain, 2001; Hart & Risley,
1992, 1995; Hoff, 2006). More generally, developmental competencies are established and nurtured
through infants transactions with multiple persons, objects, events, and other environmental factors
present in their everyday settings (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Carta & Greenwood, 1987; Greenwood, Car-
ta, & Atwater, 1991). Early language development is stimulated by the linguistic input that an infant
hears on a regular basis. The most proximal and inuential of these sources are parents, siblings, other
children and adults living in the immediate household, and the myriad of other environmental sounds
to which infants are exposed. Media stimuli, in turn, encompass the visual, verbal, and visual/verbal
content that can be delivered via multiple devices.
1
This review will examine the relations among in-
fants and toddlers language development and the roles that visual/verbal devices play in that develop-
ment. These visual/verbal devices have been more broadly categorized as screen media.
Childrens developmental trajectories associated with language learning are established early, are
self-sustaining, and are resistant to change (Carey &Gelman, 1991; Farkas &Beron, 2004; Hart &Risley,
1992, 1995, 2003; Newport, 1990; Stanovich, 1986). The language domain during the rst 3 years of life
is also developmentally privileged (i.e., infants and toddlers are extraordinarily good at acquiring lan-
guage; Brown, 1990; Carey & Gelman, 1991; Newport, 1990) and, thus, is uniquely sensitive to the
quantity and quality of the linguistic input heard from both person and object input sources. Early lan-
guage ability, then, has been implicated in the development of multiple academic and social skills dur-
ing preschool, primary school, and beyond. Such skills include later receptive and expressive language,
spelling and writing, literacy skills, general verbal ability, IQ, numeracy, and the prerequisite social
skills needed to facilitate and sustain interaction and communication with others (Bradley, Caldwell,
& Rock, 1988; Schneider & Bryne, 1985; Wachs, 1992; Walker, Greenwood, Hart, & Carta, 1994).
There is considerable evidence that children two and older who watch educational television do
learn media-presented vocabulary and then are able to transfer specic learning to more generalized
language and school readiness gains, stronger narrative abilities, higher academic self concept, and
more leisure book reading when a teenager (Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger, & Wright, 2001;
Linebarger & Piotrowski, 2009; Rice, 1984; Rice, Huston, Truglio, & Wright, 1990; Rice & Woodsmall,
1988; Wright et al., 2001). In these studies, earlier viewing (at age two) more strongly predicts these
outcomes compared with later or concurrent viewing (Wright et al., 2001). With the booming market
for infant- and toddler-directed media products and parents beliefs that these products may confer
some academic advantages to their young children, researchers have shifted their focus to understand-
ing whether and how screen media impact language development for children under two.
In this review, we contend that infants and toddlers are capable of learning from screen media. This
learning is dependent upon the conuence of three distinct but interrelated factors: attributes of the
child; characteristics of the screen media stimuli; and the varied environmental contexts surrounding
thechilds screenmediause. Toexaminetheseinterrelatedfactors, wehaveadoptedanecological frame-
work in which a young childs language skills develop fromthe reciprocal transactions between individ-
ual competencies and the cultural contexts in which a child is situated or operates (Bronfenbrenner,
1979; Gauvain, 2001; Hoff, 2006; Ogbu, 1981; Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978). Social interactions provide
the bridge between a childs burgeoning language skills and the larger set of behaviors and beliefs that
comprise the cultural milieu of that childs everyday experiences (Chen & French, 2008).
We rst describe the presence of screen media in the lives of infants and toddlers. Next, we present a
brief discussion of ecological models as they relate to infants and toddlers media use and language
development. This model is followedbya general overviewof earlylanguagedevelopment witha special
1
Visual-only media stimuli include books, pictures, ashcards, and other print sources. Verbal-only media stimuli include
radios, CD players, and mp3 players like iPods. Visual and verbal combined media stimuli include on-air and previously-recorded
television content (e.g., DVDs, VHS tapes, Comcast DVR devices, TiVo), computers, and other, more hand-held devices such as iPods
or iPhones with small screens, Sony PSP, or Nintendo DS or DSi.
D.L. Linebarger, S.E. Vaala / Developmental Review 30 (2010) 176202 177
emphasis on those language skills that individually co-vary as a function of the amount and quality of
linguistic input. Next, we describe the methods used to study language development and screen media
use with infants and toddlers. That section is followed by a discussion of the extant research organized
around the three interrelated factors thought to inuence learning from screen media. Throughout, we
identify gaps inthe literature as well as offer suggestions for future research. We then conclude withour
assessment of the nature of the relations among language and screen media as well as our recommen-
dations regarding whether or not infants and toddlers should be exposed to screen media content.
Screen media in the lives of infants and toddlers
In recent years, infant- and toddler-directed DVDs/videos have become commonplace in the lives of
young children. The average American 6-month-old infant has at least four DVDs/videos, including such
titles as Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby and Baby Genius (Barr, Lally, Hilliard, Andolina, & Ruskis, 2009). By
18 months of age, the number of DVDs/videos jumps to over seven. Recent surveys indicate that the typ-
ical child under three spends between 80 (i.e., 0 to 1 year olds) and 127 min (i.e., 2 to 3 year olds) of an
average day watching screen media that parents have turned on specically for them as well as 44
52 min looking at books (Rideout & Hamel, 2006). Part of the reason for this level of screen media expo-
sure is likely due to parents beliefs that this type of content can be educational and benecial to their
young childs brain development (Zimmerman, Christakis, & Meltzoff, 2007a). Although many parents
may be using screen media content in an effort to give their child a jump-start on ABCs and 123s (Gar-
rison & Christakis, 2005; Zimmerman et al., 2007a), the actual impact of this exposure on babies is not
yet clear.
Due to this uncertainty, several institutions including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) have argued against the use of screen
media with infants and toddlers. In 1999, the AAP released a policy statement that discouraged par-
ents use of screen media with their children prior to age two and limited exposure thereafter (AAP,
1999; 2001). Their position was based on concerns that television viewing specically would displace
other constructive and more developmentally benecial activities for infants and toddlers including
parentchild interactions (AAP, 2001). The AAPs policy is an especially conservative counter-position
to the benecial claims made by media producers (e.g., delights children by exposing them to early
developing sounds and words that lay the groundwork for future communication. . .; Baby Babble
DVD).
As there is insufcient high-quality empirical research indicating that all screen media exposure is
harmful for babies and toddlers, the recommendation likely stems from a need to protect a population
of children who, because of their developmental status, are deemed especially vulnerable (Potter,
2010). In addition to the perceived vulnerability of infants and toddlers, parents are equally vulnerable
to the numerous educational claims made not only by screen media producers but also by makers of
toys, books, activities, materials, and other items. Parental concerns are further heightened by the
brevity of this developmental period, the prevailing view that birth to 3 years is a critical period of
child development, and the resultant parental need to provide all the right opportunities to their
children.
A good deal of the current emphasis on early childhood stemmed from the convergence of three
factors in the 1990s: brain-related academic research; recommendations put forth by the Carnegie
Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children (1994); and the 1997 White House Summit on
Early Childhood Development and Learning (Puckett, Marshall, & Davis, 1999). There was a general
sense that parents should do everything in their power to secure the knowledge and resources they
need to plan and raise children responsibly (p. 112; Carnegie Task Force, 1994). The recommenda-
tions were initially targeted toward securing more research funding for early childhood; however,
makers of infant and toddler products successfully used these recommendations to create an industry
around parents sense of urgency, even panic, over what young children needed, when they needed it,
and what could happen if they didnt get it (p. 195; Zigler, Finn-Stevenson, & Hall, 2002).
Screen-media-wise, a signicant percentage of parents have reported that educational media are
very important to their childrens intellectual development. Fifty-eight percent of parents believed
178 D.L. Linebarger, S.E. Vaala / Developmental Review 30 (2010) 176202
that educational television was very important; 49% believed that educational videos were very
important; and 43% reported that educational computers games were very important (Rideout,
Vandewater, & Wartella, 2003). Nine percent of parents also reported that educational TV and educa-
tional videos were most important to their childs intellectual development (i.e., compared with 66%
who selected books). In addition to its importance, more parents (i.e., 43%) also believed that elec-
tronic media mostly helped their children learn while 27% reported that it mostly hurt learning
and 21% reported that it did not affect learning positively or negatively (Rideout et al., 2003).
To begin to understand whether and how screen media inuence infants and toddlers language
development, it is important to understand that not all screen media are the same. In fact, screen med-
ia content is quite diverse ranging from content created for infants and marketed to parents (i.e., in-
fant-directed screen media); to content created and marketed toward preschool or older children (i.e.,
child-directed screen media); and content created and marketed toward adults (i.e., adult-directed
screen media). Most infant-directed screen media (e.g., Baby Einstein, Baby Mozart, Brainy Baby, Baby-
FirstTV) are characterized by frequent scene, character, or object changes, with many perceptually-
(e.g., sound effects, background music; voice-overs) and visually-salient features (e.g., colors; babies;
pictures of objects or animals), and relatively simple or familiar backdrops or sets (e.g., white back-
ground; simulated family room; Goodrich, Pempek, & Calvert, 2009). Content features objects or
events that are thematically- or categorically-related (e.g., household items; instruments; animals)
with little or no narrative.
Child-directed screen media content is any other child-directed content not specically created for
or targeted toward children two and under. Similar to infant-directed content, child-directed content is
also quite variable in format and content. Formats include narratives (e.g., Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur
Train, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Arthur and Friends), expositories (e.g., Zoboomafoo, Zoom, Bill Nye the Sci-
ence Guy) and narrative/expository hybrids (e.g., Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, Barney and Friends).
Adult-directed screen media refers to content created for and targeted toward adults. For the pur-
poses of this review, all adult-directed content has been categorized together. As with infant-, and
child-directed content, the types of adult-directed content are highly variable.
In addition to these three commercially-produced categories, there is a fourth category of screen
media content created by researchers who are experimentally investigating whether and how infants
and toddlers learn language more generally or learn language fromscreen media specically. This con-
tent is typically of low production quality and singularly focused on a specic infant behavior like imi-
tation, object retrieval, emotion understanding, or word learning.
Similar to educationally-labeled child-directed content, the packaging and websites associated
with infant-directed screen media often include claims of educational or developmental benet.
The major difference between infant- and child-directed claims is that the majority of child-directed
claims have been empirically justied (e.g., Anderson et al., 2000; Crawley, Anderson, Wilder, Wil-
liams, & Santomero, 1999; Linebarger, Kosanic, Greenwood, & Doku, 2004; Linebarger, Piotrowski, &
Greenwood, 2010; Uchikoshi, 2005, 2006) while most infant-directed claims have yet to be evaluated.
A recent content analysis of infant-directed screen media indicated that products making explicit lan-
guage-related claims did contain a higher percentage of scenes featuring language content. During
these scenes, language-promoting strategies were used more frequently (e.g., verbal labeling; ques-
tions; Vaala et al., 2009). Still, the utility of these strategies when used in screen media content has
not been determined. For children 2 years and over, effects are driven by media content (e.g., Anderson
et al., 2001; Wright et al., 2001). For babies, it is unknown whether and under what circumstances
content-based models apply. With 61% of babies under two and 88% of 2-year-olds using screen media
on any given day (Rideout & Hamel, 2006), it is vital to understand what the potential impacts of
screen media use on early language development might be.
Examining media and language development through an ecological framework
An ecological approach proposed by Bronfenbrenner (1944, 1979) asserts that a childs individual
development cannot be separated from the immediate social networks in which the child is ensconced
or the larger historical and social factors that impinge on this development (Cairns & Cairns, 2005).
Bronfenbrenner (1944) argued that piecemeal analysis, xed in time and space, of isolated aspects is
insufcient and even misleading, for the elements of social status and structure are interdependent,
organized into complex patterns, and subject both to random and lawful variation (p. 75). The utility
of an ecological approach to media effects was explored by Jordan (2004, 2005) who shifted the focus
of media effects research toward models that simultaneously considered contextual, individual, and
societal forces that shape and are shaped by media. Rather than statistically controlling out these
forces, researchers need to examine how they co-vary with both predictor and outcome to explain ob-
served relations.
Overview of language development
Language development results from a combination of factors arising from both biological and envi-
ronmental sources. An ecological explanation of language development includes, as the major mech-
anisms of change, the quantity and quality of both verbal and nonverbal social interactions (Gauvain,
2001; Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2006; Rogoff, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978). Even before infants produce
their rst recognizable word, they have acquired knowledge of a number of words and can use prelin-
guistic skills to communicate intentionally with another person. As part of this intentionality, infants
observe and participate in a variety of social exchanges as they learn about the functions and forms of
language. Social interactions represent the major source of linguistic assistance needed to ensure that
infants who are both biologically equipped and socially motivated to learn language do so (Bruner,
1977, 1983). Infants whose language partners (usually parents or close caregivers) provide sensitive
and contingent social responses that afford infants with appropriate contextualization of the social ex-
change support infants increasingly sophisticated ways of communicating as well as their overall lan-
guage development (Garton, 1992; Garton & Pratt, 1998; Landry, Smith, & Swank, 2006).
While the home environment plays a crucial role in early language development, evidence suggests
that, with minimal linguistic exposure, many children hit language milestones around the same time
and most children learn to talk (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). For example, young babies can discrimi-
nate among the full range of phonemes across the worlds languages. Between 6- and 12-months, this
ability is lost as babies hone in on their cultures native language (Kuhl et al., 2006; Shonkoff & Phillips,
2000; Werker & Tees, 2004). Across cultures and languages, children speak their rst word between
10- and 15-months. Soon after, they learn that words are comprised of parts, allowing them to
manipulate single words (e.g., cookie becomes cookie-s) and eventually combine single words into
longer phrases and sentences (e.g., my cookies). Around 18- to 22-months, the average child expe-
riences a word-learning explosion, adding an average of nine new words to the language repertoire
daily (Carey, 1978; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000, p. 127). By age three, vocabulary acquisition accelerates
as most preschoolers have begun to master the rules of language use (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).
The robust nature of language development masks a substantial degree of variability in higher-or-
der language skills. This variability, in turn, is responsible for substantial and lasting differences that
pervade most developmental domains, persist over time, and predict both school and later life success
(Hart & Risley, 1995; NICHD Early Childcare Research Network, 2004; Stanovich, 1986; Walker et al.,
1994). Hart and Risley (1995) documented that infants and toddlers heard anywhere between 56 and
793 utterances directed toward them in a given hour. The quantity and nature of words heard in the
home is fairly stable over time and predicts vocabulary size at age three (Hart & Risley, 1995).
Language development does not occur in isolation. Instead, social interactions with others provide
a framework through which young children learn the forms and features of language (Gauvain, 2001;
Hoff, 2006). Interactions, even with preverbal infants and toddlers, provide detailed knowledge about
objects, events, and persons as both actual referents and representations of these referents. Because
social interactions are vital to language acquisition, it is important to determine whether screen media
create a sufcient approximation of a physically-present language partner and, if so, how it functions
as a limited social partner.
Young children spend considerable time with screen media. It is reasonable to expect that onscreen
linguistic input could support language development in ways similar to other linguistic sources. Con-
versely, more time spent with media that does a poor job supporting language could, as argued by the
AAP and others, crowd out time with better language models (e.g., parents; caregivers), leading to def-
icits in vocabulary, expressive language and other skills.
Methodologies used to study relations among screen media use and language development
Experimental and correlational frameworks have been used to investigate screen media use and
language development was infants and toddlers. To better understand how screen media impact lan-
guage development, it is critical that researchers use a variety of methodologies. Experimental manip-
ulations, both short-term and longitudinal studies, establish causality. Correlational studies establish
relations between variables and suggest patterns for further investigation. These studies include cross-
sectional surveys and longitudinal descriptive studies. Multiple approaches linked to multiple out-
comes contribute to an overall picture of how, under what circumstances, and for which children
screen media use matters.
Experimental methodologies
Experimental studies fall under two primary areas: those that use television screens to test general
language acquisition hypotheses and those that examine specic types of learning from single or mul-
tiple exposures to particular researcher-created screen media stimuli. Much of the general language
acquisition literature uses some type of screen media stimuli to determine what and how infants learn
language. In these studies, the focus is not on the screen media device or whether learning occurs as a
result of seeing a particular stimulus onscreen. Instead, a TV screen is used as an apparatus to deliver
the experimental stimuli (e.g., split-screen preferential looking-paradigm; Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek,
Cauley, & Gordon, 1987; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 1996). Many of these studies examine infants ability
to draw simple associations between words and objects or words and actions including nouns, verbs,
prepositions, syntactic structures, and an ability to generalize words to novel exemplars (Hennon
et al., 1999; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 1996; McDonough, Choi, Bowerman, & Mandler, 1998; Naigles,
1998).
Experimental studies specically testing learning from screen media have used a variety of differ-
ent experimental manipulations paradigms to evaluate language learning. Learning is tested by com-
paring screen media exposed infants to unexposed infants, by comparing infants who hear and see
content delivered by a physically-present adult compared with infants who hear and see content
delivered by a televised adult. Outcomes tested by these manipulations include learning of real words
or phonemes (e.g., Kuhl, Tsao, & Liu, 2003; Robb, Richert, & Wartella, 2009), connecting objects or ac-
tions with a novel word (e.g., Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek, Parish-Morris, & Golinkoff, 2009; Scoeld & Wil-
liams, 2009; Scoeld, Williams, & Behrend, 2007; Yuan & Fisher, 2009), or following visual and verbal
attention-directing behaviors (Briganti & Cohen, 2007). The majority of evidence from these experi-
ments suggests what Anderson and Pempek (2005) have coined the video decit; that is, infants
and toddlers do not seem to learn the same information as readily from screen media as from live
situations.
Correlational methodologies
In correlational studies, the associations between childrens time spent viewing television (i.e., all
content; program content categories; or specic programs) and language-related outcomes have been
examined cross-sectionally (Zimmerman & Christakis, 2005; Zimmerman, Christakis, & Meltzoff,
2007b) and longitudinally (e.g., Linebarger & Walker, 2005; Schmidt, Rich, Rifas-Shiman, Oken, & Tav-
eras, 2009). This research parallels research with children two and over. Associations among screen
media exposure and language outcomes for infants and toddlers vary by the structure and content
of programming in the childs overall media diet as well as with the particular language skill measured
(Anderson et al., 2001; Linebarger & Vaala, 2008; Linebarger & Walker, 2005; Wright et al., 2001; Zim-
merman et al., 2007b).
Methodological convergence
As a literature base evolves, scientists attempt to establish convergence across a variety of meth-
odologies as a mechanism to establish the presence or absence of a phenomenon. As part of this pro-
cess, they will examine the conditions under which the phenomenon occurs and the parameters under
which the phenomenon is modied. For example, there is considerable evidence across multiple
methodologies that the language skills of children two and older can be augmented or inhibited by
screen media exposure (e.g., Anderson et al., 2001; Linebarger et al., 2004; Wright et al., 2001). At
present, there is no similar preponderance of evidence that indicates screen media are universally
bad or good for infants and toddlers. Instead, existing evidence suggests that any effects will result
from an interplay among the parameters identied above: child attributes, stimulus characteristics,
and environmental contexts of use.
A second challenge facing researchers who study young children involves managing the tension
among our own views and the need to remain impartial and follow where the research leads (e.g.,
Punch, 2002). Children are generally perceived as vulnerable and in need of protection due to their
limited intellectual and emotional capacities. Infants and toddlers are especially vulnerable (see Cour-
age & Setliff, 2009). Indeed, widespread anxiety about protecting such a vulnerable population makes
us more likely to err on the side of caution until more questions in a particular domain have been an-
swered. This tension is evident across a number of areas including the methodologies selected to study
an issue, the measures used to capture child outcomes, the justication for a particular study, the
framing of the research questions, the focus of the discussion, the willingness to explore multiple fac-
ets of a data set, and even the publicity associated with particular ndings that fails to incorporate
appropriate cautions.
The current debate about screen media use by infants and toddlers has many examples of one or
more of these biases. For instance, scholars with clinical or public health training tend to argue that
any screen media use is inappropriate and potentially harmful for infants and toddlers (e.g., AAP,
1999). Initial research derived from this perspective most often uses aggregate measures of time spent
with media to predict language outcomes with controls for a variety of socio-demographic or parent
child interactional characteristics that could potentially mediate or moderate observed relations (e.g.,
Christakis, 2009; Christakis, Zimmerman, DiGuseppe, & McCarty, 2004; Zimmerman & Christakis,
2005).
These studies have provided initial information about potential relations among screen media use
and a variety of outcomes. Perhaps more importantly, these studies spurred a healthy debate about
screen media exposure and child development in the scientic community, the general public, and
with persons whose positions and inuence can manipulate public policies. Scholars were quick to
dismiss some of these studies on the grounds that they were scientically awed (see Chernin & Line-
barger, 2005, for a review). Unfortunately, the fallout from the publicity was signicant, placing an un-
due burden of guilt on parents and caregivers who were struggling to make choices about the use of
screen media. On the public policy side of this debate, the French government opted to ban programs
targeted directly to children under age three. Frances Minister of Culture and Communication Chris-
tine Albanel issued a cry of alarm about children under three watching baby-targeted programs. The
ruling cites health experts who argue that interaction with others is crucial to early child
development:
Television viewing hurts the development of children under 3 years old and poses a certain number
of risks encouraging passivity, slow language acquisition, over-excitedness, troubles with sleep and
concentrations as well as dependence on screens (Conseil suprieur de laudiovisuel, 2008, p. 2).
To date, the documented relations are less than straightforward and dependent upon a multitude
of factors across the child, the family, and the media.
Reanalysis of data using aggregate media estimates and simple statistical models has yielded sub-
stantially different results when using more complex models and additional covariates. In a recent
reanalysis of the data used by Christakis et al. (2004), Foster and Watkins (2010) found that the
relation between exposure and attention existed, at best, for only 10% of the children in that sample
who watched 7 or more hours per day of television. This non-linear relation was reduced to
non-signicance with the addition of two covariates: mothers achievement level and family income.
This reanalysis is a key illustration of why future studies of screen media exposure and child outcomes
must begin to develop and test more sophisticated models that examine screen media use as one of
many linguistic input sources generated by the everyday contexts in which children participate. Doing
so would help to prevent inaccurate or incomplete representations of the existing research, address
signicant gaps in the integration of effects across multiple levels of a childs experience, and deter-
mine whether, how, and under what circumstances screen media use impacts young children. To cul-
tivate these contextually-based models, researchers should employ ecological frameworks to
simultaneously consider person, process, context, space, and time (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Cairns &
Cairns, 2005; Moen, Elder, & Luscher, 2001).
Understanding what babies are viewing: a content analysis of infant and toddler videos
To shift the direct-effects early media exposure arguments toward more contextually-based mod-
els, we have systematically content-analyzed infant- and child-directed educational content (i.e., edu-
cational as dened by any educational claims associated with each property). Code development
involved a review of research that described how and what conditional parameters supported early
learning by infants and toddlers. Broadly, we developed three separate coding systems to quantify
these parameters: formal features (Goodrich et al., 2009); interactional quality (Fenstermacher
et al., 2009); and language-promoting strategies (Vaala et al., 2009). To generate the sample, only
screen media that made some type of educational claim (e.g., encourages infants and toddlers to
learn the written word naturally at the same time as they are learning the spoken word; Your Baby
Can Read) were eligible for inclusion.
Formal features are comprised of audio and visual production features was organize content and
act as syntactical markers of time, place, or scene (Huston & Wright, 1983; Wright & Huston, 1983).
Visual techniques include cuts, fades, dissolves, and special effects while aural techniques include
sound effects, music, and speech. In addition to these specic production techniques, formal features
are also comprised of the level of character action, the rate of change, and the pacing of content pre-
sentation. We found that infant-directed media are rapidly paced (i.e., 3.1 scene changes, 5.2 char-
acter changes, and 3.1 object changes per minute), contain frequent camera cuts (i.e., 4.9 per minute)
and multiple visual special effects (i.e., 5.1 per minute), and infrequently use reective features like
long camera zooms (i.e., 0.6 per minute). These features place a heavy cognitive burden on infants
limited processing skills. As a result, learning from this type of screen media is likely to be quite
challenging.
Interactional quality was measured by coding the frequency and quality of depicted interactions
between adult and child or child and child characters. Interactions were dened as each instance
when onscreen characters were joined by one or more new characters or when one or more characters
left a scene. The majority of onscreen characters did not interact with one another (i.e., 65% of the
interactions). Adultchild exchanges occurred during 11% of interactions and peer-to-peer exchanges
occurred during 25% of interactions (Fenstermacher et al., 2009). Given that about 1/3rd of the infant-
directed sample made an educational claim related to parentchild interactions or socio-emotional
development (Fenstermacher et al., 2009), these results were surprising. There was also no relation
between these interactional claims and an increased frequency of onscreen high-quality interactions.
It is possible that these interactional claims are related to the live interactions that would be generated
between infants and caregivers as a result of viewing this media (Pempek, Demers, Anderson, & Kirko-
rian, 2007).
The third coding scheme included learning and language-promoting strategies (Vaala et al., 2009).
Scenes were initially tagged for the dominant educational domain (e.g., language, general knowledge,
cognitive, social/emotional, physical/motor, other/unclear). Next, each scene that was assigned an
educational domain content code was coded for specic language-promoting strategies. Strategies in-
cluded labeling (of object/action), onscreen print (with visual/verbal referent), use of questions, for-
eign and sign language, verbalized vocabulary denitions, audience elicitation, establishing joint
attention, and verbal rhyming. The average video contained 23% of scenes with language domain
content. Across these scenes, 62% included at least one language-promoting strategy. Most of these
strategies consisted of lower-order language support like labeling of actions and objects (i.e., 97% of
videos and 42% of scenes) and establishing joint attention (i.e., 93% of videos and 21% of scenes).
The use of more complex language processing and production strategies occurred much less fre-
quently. Questions, audience elicitations, vocabulary denitions, and rhyming were found in fewer
than 10% of scenes (i.e., questions: 55% of videos, 9% of scenes; audience elicitations: 59% of videos
and 7% of scenes; denitions: 43% of videos; 2% of scenes; rhyming: 28% of videos and 3% of scenes).
Finally, videos targeted at infants 6 months and younger made fewer language-related claims and con-
tained signicantly fewer language-promoting strategies than those targeted to infants over 6 months
of age (Vaala et al., 2009, 2010).
The picture of infant-directed screen media content that emerged from these three content analy-
ses is one in which content creators appeared to lack knowledge about how infants and toddlers learn.
Most programs contained high concentrations of formal features. To illustrate, Blues Clues averages 3
cuts per 30-min episode while infant-directed screen media averaged 6 cuts per minute (Goodrich
et al., 2009). A majority of scenes containing two or more characters lacked basic adultchild and
childchild interactions. Embedded language support was mostly simple labeling while higher-order
language processing support was rarely used. Language skills develop from the type and quality of lin-
guistic input used during social exchanges (Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2006). As such, infant-directed
screen media in its current form is poorly designed, insufcient to support language processing, and
developmentally inappropriate. Researchers need to evaluate the efcacy of the characteristics iden-
tied above in order to determine whether and how these structural features impact language
acquisition.
Factors inuencing young childrens language learning from screen media
There is nothing inherently more problematic with screen media when compared to other media
forms (e.g., pictures, books, art; Golomb, 2007). Scholars investigating language learning from other
media forms have documented how child attributes, stimulus characteristics, language skills of inter-
est, and the environmental contexts surrounding media use. There is much less research available for
each of these factors as they relate to learning from screen media.
First, infants and toddlers bring a limited set of experiences and little background knowledge of the
content and format used to deliver that content. These immature competencies put them at a disad-
vantage in learning language from screen media. Second, certain constellations of screen media fea-
tures create situations that, under live language learning circumstances, have supported or
inhibited language learning. These situations include dialogue between characters, the use of explicit
language prompting routines, and the presentation format used to convey content (i.e., narrative,
expository, hybrid). Third, the language skills to be evaluated must co-vary as a function of the amount
and type of linguistic input. Effects are more likely to be detected when this is the case. Fourth, the
environmental context surrounding screen media use can facilitate or inhibit language learning. Fre-
quent and high-quality adultchild interactions facilitate language acquisition while fewer and lower-
quality talk (i.e., prohibitions, negative affect directives) inhibits language development (Hart & Risley,
1995; Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991). Each of these factors, child attributes, lan-
guage skill of interest, stimulus characteristics, and environmental contexts, are reviewed below.
Child attributes inuencing language learning from screen media
As a whole, the literature regarding young childrens language learning from screen media indi-
cates that, as infants age, their ability to comprehend and retain screen media content increases.
Children who are 18 months and older evidence the greatest language benets from media sources,
though a few studies have demonstrated language learning among younger infants (e.g., Krcmar,
Grela, & Lin, 2007; Smith & Yu, 2008; Werker, Cohen, Lloyd, Casasola, & Stager, 1998). To process
content from screen presentations, children must possess an understanding of dual representation.
This skill is the knowledge that pictures are not only objects in-and-of-themselves, but also
representations of some other person or object in the real world (Pierroutsakos & Troseth, 2003).
Though some research indicates that this skill may start to emerge near 15- to 19-months (Pierr-
outsakos & Troseth, 2003), it is not fully developed until after a childs 2nd birthday (DeLoache,
1991). Vocabulary learning from screen media may be particularly dependent on knowledge of dual
representation as this skill requires infants to simultaneously represent an object as both its own
entity and a symbol for something else. Once children grasp that an image on the screen represents
a broader referent-category in the real world they should be better able to learn vocabulary and ex-
tend this knowledge to other settings.
As infants and toddlers experiences and competencies grow, their vocabulary and conceptual
knowledge deepens. A more developed knowledge base makes it easier to process content and, as
a result, learn words from screen media. Krcmar and colleagues (2007) found that superior word
learning from televised presentations (i.e., via a speaker and an edited Teletubbies clip) occurred
more frequently among same-age infants who had larger existing vocabularies. Werker, Fennel,
Corcoran, and Stager (2002) also found that younger infants (i.e., 14-months) with larger vocabular-
ies were better able to learn phonetically similar novel words than their same-age peers with smal-
ler vocabularies. Once the ability to learn words is established (i.e., for 17- and 20-month-olds),
vocabulary size no longer discriminates infants word-learning rates. Thus, the role of existing
vocabulary knowledge may vary by the language skill in question, and in some cases, may serve
as a proxy for other fundamental cognitive developments (e.g., understanding of dual
representation).
Infants faced with dynamic stimuli often lack sufcient cognitive capacity to make sense of these
stimuli (Lang, 2000; Valkenburg & Vroone, 2004). As a result features that are more perceptually
salient (e.g., loud noises; visual effects; movement) automatically elicit attention. Attending to less
perceptually salient content requires controlled processing; that is, deliberate attention towards
central content (e.g., to the storyline or educational lesson) that may be less visually or aurally sali-
ent and away from more perceptually-prominent but less informative incidental content. Attention
patterns for children between 6- and 18-months supported this hypothesis (Valkenburg & Vroone,
2004). Infants and toddlers attended most to scenes with salient aural (e.g., applause; laughter; mu-
sic; odd sounds) and visual features (e.g., bright colors; rapid movement; unexpected visual effects)
while toddlers between 19- and 35-months looked longer at scenes with fewer salient features. In
contrast, preschoolers (i.e., P36 months) attended to scenes with fewer salient features and more
central content (e.g., informative dialogue, attention-directing speech; Valkenburg & Vroone,
2004). These attention patterns suggest that learning from screen media is dependent on how clo-
sely the visual and aural features were synched to key educational content. A greater degree of mis-
match results in minimal learning at best (Anderson & Pempek, 2005; Ruff & Rothbart, 1996;
Valkenburg & Vroone, 2004).
The conundrumthen becomes that, in order for very young children to be able to attend to, process,
encode, retrieve, and learn from televised content, they need to accumulate a certain amount of expe-
rience with the structural conventions of screen media more generally (i.e., formal features), the spe-
cic program format delivering the content they are viewing (e.g., narrative, expository), and then the
actual content. There is evidence that older children use the same set of cognitive skills to comprehend
televised messages as they use to comprehend printed messages (Kendeou et al., 2005), and that
screen media exposure can help preschoolers develop their print-related narrative comprehension
and production skills (Linebarger & Piotrowski, 2009). At present, researchers have not specically
investigated whether infants use similar processing skills across screen media and other media forms;
however, DeLoache and colleagues research with pictures and picture books provides the closest
approximation. As described, infants ability to learn from screen media evolves from their ability
to understand dual representation. Two-dimensional representations of objects and events, whether
depicted in a picture, a picture book, or onscreen, are referents of their actual three-dimensional selves
(DeLoache, 1991; DeLoache, Pierroutsakos, & Troseth, 1996; Ganea, Pickard, & DeLoache, 2008; Pierr-
outsakos & Troseth, 2003). The likelihood of transferring processing skills across media forms in-
creases as the iconicity or resemblance between the representation and its referent increases
(Simcock & DeLoache, 2006). More research with infants and toddlers that examines individual differ-
ences in combination with a skills developmental function is urgently needed.
Role of language skill characteristics in language learning from screen media
In addition to child attributes, the available research also indicates that detecting effects depends
on the particular language skill measured. Research has established that certain higher-order language
skills are more susceptible to environmental inuence. These skills include phonetic contrast sensitiv-
ities, vocabulary size, language production (i.e., propensity to communicate with others), morpholog-
ical discriminations (e.g., subtle shift from the present I eat to continuously eating over time), and
event memory (e.g., children who receive less linguistic input talk less often about the nonpresent
that, in turn, affects how well they remember past events).
Kuhl and colleagues tested infants ability to retain sensitivity to phonetic contrasts in a non-native
language (Kuhl et al., 2003). Under 6 months of age, infants are able to discriminate among the pho-
netic units of all languages. The ability to discern all contrasts is gradually lost between 6- and 12-
months of age as infants are socialized into their native language. Nine-month-old American infants
were exposed to live, televised, or audio recordings of Mandarin speakers. Only infants in the live
exposure condition were able to maintain sensitivity to the phonetic units unique to Mandarin despite
considerable exposure in all conditions (i.e., 5 h of exposure over twelve sessions). While phonetic
contrasts were not supported by televised or aurally-recorded input, other research has found that ba-
bies as young as 4 months can identify the correct televised speaker by matching a particular spoken
phoneme to the lip movements of the speaker (Kuhl & Meltzoff, 1982).
In a second paradigm, language researchers use video presentations to teach novel words (e.g.,
blicking) and to determine whether infants and toddlers have learned novel words. In these studies,
longer looks to the accurate video presentation are thought to represent their capacity to learn novel
words and to discriminate denitions for those novel words (Bird & Chapman, 1998; Carey & Bartlett,
1978; Scoeld & Williams, 2009; Scoeld et al., 2007; Smith & Yu, 2008; Werker et al., 1998, 2002).
Werker and colleagues (2002) demonstrated that 17- and 20-month-old babies (but not 14-month-
olds) could learn and discriminate between two phonetically similar novel words (e.g., bih; dih)
following minimal video exposure. Twelve- to 14-month-old infants were able to use accumulated
cues across exposures to pictures with audio pairings to infer multiple word-referent associations
(Smith & Yu, 2008). Fourteen-month-old infants learned novel referents but only when they were
paired with an object that was moving (Werker et al., 1998). These ndings suggest that, given the
right circumstances, children may be able to learn new words from media presentations before their
second birthday.
In another recent experimental study, Krcmar et al. (2007) used four different formats to present no-
vel words to 15- to 24-month-old infants. Using a repeated measures design, words were presented to
eachbabyvia (1) a livespeaker engagedinjoint-referencetotheobject, (2) a livespeaker withdiscrepant
reference, (3) atelevisedspeaker, and(4) acommerciallyproducedinfant-directedprogram(Teletubbies)
with an edited voice-over. Overall, participants were better able to identify the referents they had
learned in the live joint-reference condition and were least successful identifying words from the Tele-
tubbies segment. Children across the age-range were able to learn the words fromthe televised speaker.
Only the older infants (22- to 24-month-olds) were able to demonstrate limited word learning fromthe
Teletubbies segment.
Syntactic bootstrapping among young children is dened as the ability to infer meaning of novel
words and phrases using contextual cues found in syntax. Recently, Yuan and Fisher (2009) introduced
24-month-old children to video-taped two-participant dialogues containing intransitive (e.g., Jane
blicked the baby) or transitive statements (e.g., Jane blicked). Afterwards, the children were shown
video-taped one- and two-participant actions side-by-side while a voiceover asked which video con-
tained the target action (e.g., Find blicking! Wheres blicking?). Toddlers who heard the intransitive
statements looked longer at the two-participant video than those who heard the transitive dialogue.
In similar paradigms, 21- to 25-month-old infants looked longer at videos correctly matching the agent
and object positions they heard in the dialogue (e.g., the duck is gorping the bunny; Gertner, Fisher, &
Eisengart, 2006). In each case the toddlers successfully inferred information about the meaning of the
novel action from the video-taped speakers syntax. In addition to these experimental studies, correla-
tional evidence suggests that general vocabulary size is predicted by exposure to individual programs
and by exposure to different categories of screen media content (Linebarger &Vaala, 2008; Linebarger &
Walker, 2005; Zimmerman et al., 2007b).
Screen medias inuence on morphological skills and event memory skills for children under two
has not been examined. Because morphology contributes to the formation of nuanced understandings
of word meanings, it is likely that effects similar to those found for vocabulary learning would be
found. The ability to remember past events is linked to narrative comprehension and production skills.
There is experimental evidence that repeated exposure to narrative programs (i.e., Clifford the Big Red
Dog, Pinky Dinky Doo) supports preschoolers ability to generate and subsequently retell a story (Line-
barger & Piotrowski, 2009). Correlational evidence indicates that 30-month-olds vocabulary size and
language production skills were positively predicted by cumulative exposure (beginning at 6-months)
to narrative programs (Linebarger & Vaala, 2008; Linebarger & Walker, 2005). Vocabulary size and lan-
guage production skills have been implicated in older childrens narrative skills. Narrative skills, in
turn, are associated with the frequency of talk about the non-present and the ability to recall events
more broadly (Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). The developmental chain of
skills leading from word learning to event memory should be examined in relation to screen media
use. Word learning for children under two and narrative skills for children over two are clearly sup-
ported by screen media. Longitudinal research needs to examine whether screen media support the
development of these skills independent of each other or whether screen media augment or inhibit
these skills across the developmental chain.
Stimulus characteristics inuencing language learning from screen media
Effects attributable to screen media may also arise from characteristics of the structure or content
of the stimuli. With children who are two and older, there are a number of stimulus characteristics
that have been empirically linked to language acquisition from television (Rice, 1983). These features
include the use of predictable program formats, recasts, simple sentences, slow rates of speech, exact
and paraphrased content repetitions, long pauses, pairing of familiar routines with novel vocabulary
or concepts, and visual/verbal redundancy (Rice, 1983; Rice & Haight, 1986). These molecular-level
features are characteristic of broader language learning situations in everyday life. We propose that
when screen media content is presented in ways that closely parallel these situations, language learn-
ing is more likely to occur. These situations include listening in or overhearing language exchanges
between two or more persons, receiving explicit prompts or requests to use language, and delivering
language exchanges with expected social cues and conventions.
Screen media use, in general
Because language learning from screen media content is likely linked to the similarities between
this content and live language learning situations, using aggregate estimates of time spent viewing
screen media will miss critical relations between content and language development. Total time spent
viewing has historically been a poorer predictor of child outcomes when compared to time spent
viewing different categories of content and even individual programs (e.g., Anderson et al., 2001; Line-
barger & Vaala, 2008; Linebarger & Walker, 2005; Wright et al., 2001). In recent years, a number of
studies have used total screen media exposure to predict general cognitive or attentional outcomes
(Christakis et al., 2004; Ruangdaraganon et al., 2009; Schmidt et al., 2009; Zimmerman & Christakis,
2005). After controlling for a variety of socio-demographic variables related to both television use
and child outcomes (e.g., maternal education, parity, marital status, income, breastfeeding duration),
both Ruangdaraganon et al. (2009) and Schmidt et al. (2009) found no relation between total viewing
and cognitive and language outcomes. Zimmerman and Christakis (2005) found that amount of view-
ing before age 3 was associated with slight to modest decits in reading recognition, reading compre-
hension and digit span scores at age 6 and with lower math ability among children below the median
income level. Christakis et al. (2004) found a small negative relation between viewing and attention
problems although a reanalysis of this data indicated no effect (Foster & Watkins, 2010). In a fol-
low-up to this study, Zimmerman and Christakis (2007) classied content into three broad categories:
educational, non-violent entertainment, and violent and found that non-violent entertainment and
violent content predicted attention problems while educational content did not. This set of analyses
once again underscores the critical need to examine how different types of content paired with vari-
able structural features cause or predict different outcomes.
In fact, analyses that use broad categories may also miss important differences associated with par-
ticular structural features and content. In earlier research examining total time, broad content catego-
ries, and individual program titles, the strongest predictors of language outcomes were associated
with individual program titles (Linebarger & Walker, 2005). Interestingly, total time spent viewing
any television content positively predicted the growth rate and acceleration in expressive language
use as well as the 30-month intercept and growth rate for vocabulary size. The hypothesized relations
among broader content categories (i.e., educational, entertainment, violent, adult-directed) and out-
comes did not occur. In fact, only two of the 15 relations included in these two growth models were
signicant. Specically, viewing adult-directed programming positively predicted the growth rate of
expressive language use while child-informational content negatively predicted vocabulary size (Line-
barger & Walker, 2005).
Puzzling over these ndings led us to reconsider what kinds of content were educational for infants
and toddlers and whether the structural features used to present this content might play a more
important role in the success or failure of infants learning from content in comparison to children
2 years and older. We hypothesized that certain features in combination with content would support
screen media learning (e.g., narrative formats, simple stories, explicit prompting routines), while other
features would inhibit learning (e.g., expository formats, loosely themed content, little if any story,
unsophisticated language models; Linebarger & Vaala, 2008; Linebarger & Walker, 2005). As the re-
search base grows in this area, our assertion that program features and content interact to support
or inhibit learning offers a more robust and consistent explanation for the ndings.
Learning through overhearing or listening in
Recently, researchers have investigated why and how infants in cultures with little direct interac-
tion with adults acquire language. In these cultures, infants spend most of their time in the company
of adults who interact with each other but not directly with the infants. It was proposed that infants
learn language in these cultures by observing social exchanges and overhearing adults communicating
with each other. Evidence backing the efcacy of overhearing in language learning exists across three
different but complementary strands of research: (1) experimental studies comparing word learning
through direct engagement with word learning by overhearing two adults speaking; (2) observations
of infants with older siblings; and (3) cross-cultural research documenting that infants in cultures
where direct engagement with adults is rare do acquire language.
Experimentally, infants between 18-months and 30-months have learned object labels equally well
through direct address and overhearing while 18-month-old infants experience some difculty learn-
ing action verbs through overhearing (Akhtar, 2005; Akhtar, Jipson, & Callanan, 2001; Floor & Akhtar,
2006). Observationally, later-born infants correctly use personal pronouns earlier when compared to
rst-born or only infants and toddlers. Researchers argued that later-born infants exposure to per-
sonal pronouns (e.g., you, I, me, mine) that were not directed exclusively to them helped them under-
stand the nature of referential intent (Akhtar, 2004) sooner than their rst-born or only counterparts
(Akhtar, 2004). Hearing parents refer to their older sibling as you and hearing older siblings use I,
me, or mine contributed to later-born infants knowledge that personal pronouns are words used
to reference the addressee and not a unique identier only for them (Oshima-Takane, 1988; Oshima-
Takane, Goodz, & Derevensky, 1996). A similar phenomenon occurs when babies are learning to wave
bye-bye. Initially, many babies wave good-bye by opening and closing their hands with the ngers
facing their own faces rather than the person to whom the baby is waving. With time and experience,
babies learn that waving bye-bye means opening and closing the hand with their ngers facing the
person they are waving to.
The third source of support for the efcacy of overhearing is derived from cross-cultural compar-
isons of language practices. In a number of cultures, adults rarely or never address their infants di-
rectly. Instead, these infants are socialized into their respective cultures as observers of adult
activities and adult-with-adult language exchanges (Crago, Allen, & Hough-Eyamie, 1997; Harkness,
1991; Ochs, 1988, 1997; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Each of these three situations suggests that infants
are primed to learn language (i.e., privileged domain) and that they are able to adapt to and learn from
the specic characteristics of their language learning environments.
Using researcher-developed stimuli, ODoherty et al. (in press) experimentally tested whether 30-
month-old toddlers could learn language by overhearing two adults speaking to each other onscreen.
Toddlers were assigned to one of four conditions: live addressed toward the toddler; televised ad-
dressed toward the toddler; live overheard two confederates speaking; televised overheard two con-
federates speaking. The results indicated that the primary determinant of learning was not the
medium. Instead, the nature of the social cues provided by either the live or the televised agent inu-
enced word learning. Toddlers were equally adept at learning from overhearing in both the live and
the televised conditions while toddlers in the live and televised addressed conditions did not learn
at levels above chance, a nding contrary to Akhtars research (e.g., Akhtar et al., 2001; Floor & Akhtar,
2006).
ODoherty et al. (in press) hypothesized that the key difference between her research and Akhtars
ndings was an absence, at the conclusion of the addressed interaction, of an expected social cue or
convention (i.e., handing the target object to the toddler to manipulate). To test this hypothesis, a fth
condition was added: live addressed with object handling. Toddlers were given the opportunity at the
conclusion of the live addressed interaction to handle the object. With the additional social cue, tod-
dlers word-learning rate in the revised live addressed condition was above chance making this study
consistent with Akhtars studies (Akhtar et al., 2001; Floor & Akhtar, 2006).
Scoeld and Williams (2009) found that toddlers who watched screen media with voice-overs reli-
ably learned novel words from this media (i.e., on 92% of trials) and were able to extend these words to
similar exemplars presented onscreen (i.e., 81% of trials). Although the toddlers in this study were able
to learn from screen media and generalize that learning, they performed at chance levels on a disam-
biguation task presented onscreen. Disambiguation tasks are designed to assess whether toddlers,
when presented with a familiar object and a novel object, attach novel words to novel objects. Chil-
dren under 2 years (i.e., younger than the toddlers in this study) are able to disambiguate during live
interactions. The inability to complete this task when presented via video may indicate an inability to
learn from screen media. We concur with Scoeld and Williams (2009) explanation for this nding:
toddlers inability to disambiguate a novel word is linked to the absence of expected social or contex-
tual cues that are typically present during live interactions. Social cues also helped older toddlers (i.e.,
27-months) distinguish intentional actions from unintentional actions when delivered via voice-overs
on video screens (e.g., pursuing versus wandering; Poulin-Dubois & Forbes, 2002, 2006). In these two
studies, younger toddlers (i.e., 21-months) had difculty using the social cues to learn actions con-
veyed by voice-overs. Instead, they relied on perceptually salient cues to make sense of novel words
and actions. These ndings are likely due to a limited cognitive capacity that interfered with simulta-
neous processing of both the aural and visual content simultaneously. Because their cognitive re-
sources were limited, their attention was guided by perceived salience rather than semantic meaning.
Considering these studies together reinforces our hypothesis that the features used during the
interactions, whether addressed or overheard and whether onscreen or live, play a more important
role than the medium used to deliver the interactions. This interpretation is further supported by
the initial failure to learn from either the live or televised directed address conditions. Adding in
appropriate social and contextual cues to the live addressed condition in ODohertys et al. (in press)
study was enough to satisfy their toddlers social expectations about the interaction and, as a result,
support word learning. The absence of those cues in Scoeld and Williams (2009) study did not impair
initial learning or extension; however, the ability to apply a novel label to a novel object is likely
dependent on particular social cues or conventions that were absent in this study. By 3 years of
age, social cues are not as important in learning new words (Roseberry et al., 2009; Scoeld & Wil-
liams, 2009). The larger implication of this research is that language acquisition can occur regardless
of the source of linguistic input if key social cues and conventions match infants and toddlers expec-
tancies about how an exchange should or will unfold.
The studies above used researcher-developed stimulus videos to test word learning. Within com-
mercially-produced media stimuli, opportunities to learn language from overheard linguistic content
occur when infants and toddlers watch narrative-formatted screen media (e.g. Arthur and Friends).
Narratives present characters whose actions and dialogue tell a story or sequence of events. These ac-
tions and exchanges create a screen media situation that parallels the live overheard linguistic content
described above. There is limited evidence that viewing narratives predicts better language skills. At
30-months, toddlers who viewed narrative-style programs beginning as early as 6 months demon-
strated larger productive vocabularies and communicated more during semi-structured play situa-
tions compared with those who watched minimal to no narrative content (Linebarger & Walker,
2005). In that study, only Arthur and Friends and Clifford the Big Red Dog were included as narratives.
In a new analysis of this dataset, we combined multiple narratives into one viewing category to test
the hypothesis that narrative formats more broadly supported language development (i.e., Arthur and
Friends, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Dragon Tales, Winnie the Pooh, Maisy and Friends, Thomas the Tank En-
gine; Linebarger & Vaala, 2008) and found effects consistent with those reported in Linebarger and
Walker (2005).
If the key aspects of learning from overheard screen media content involve the structure and con-
tent of the stimuli including the use of dialogue and appropriate social cues, then it follows that over-
hearing dialogue that features inappropriate or poor language models and social cues that do not
support understanding may inhibit language learning. There is evidence that using unsophisticated
forms of language is linked to poorer language skills overall (Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymmerman,
& Levine, 2002). Viewing Teletubbies, a program where characters interacted with each other using
baby talk (e.g., babbling, mostly single words), predicted smaller vocabularies and less expressive lan-
guage use during play (Linebarger & Walker, 2005). Experimentally, infants and toddlers were unable
to learn words presented in a Teletubbies clip while interacting with a live person and watching a re-
searcher-developed clip where the onscreen person simulated an interactive exchange with viewers
supported word learning (Krcmar et al., 2007). Future research needs to test for effects at multiple
and younger ages especially because overhearing in live contexts has been tested down to only 18-
month-olds.
Embedded explicit language-prompting routines
Routine language exchanges provide the framework through which language development can oc-
cur. The nature and quality of this development is dependent upon the nature and quality of linguistic
content to which infants and toddlers are exposed. When adults and more competent language users
deliver linguistic content that follows infants leads, engages in a joint-attentional frame around an
object, event, or behavior of shared focus, contingently reinforces infants attempts to communicate
around that shared focus, and models and sustains a conversation across multiple turns, infants
and toddlers language will be more developmentally sophisticated and more richly diverse (Hoff,
2006). Conversely, when adults and other language users use more directive statements (e.g., put your
shoes on, sit down) and prohibitions (e.g., stop that, shut up), infants and toddlers will communicate
less frequently and, by age three, will have vocabularies that are half the size of their peers whose par-
ents engage in language-promoting talk more frequently (Hart & Risley, 1995). Both supportive and
inhibitive language-promoting strategies not only predict vocabulary at 3 years, they also predict
school achievement during elementary school in the same ways (Walker et al., 1994).
Screen media have been able to incorporate supportive linguistic forms that mimic these explicit
prompting routines (Brown, 2000, p. 225). According to Brown, explicit prompting routines occur
when children are told what to say. We have expanded this denition to include not only specic
direction regarding what to say but also multiple prompted exchanges that sustain a conversation
across multiple turns. While screen media technology constraints limit a characters true ability to
interactively communicate with a viewer, onscreen characters can simulate interactivity by speaking
directly into the camera as if to engage in a live or face-to-face interaction. Simulated interactivity
via explicit prompting routines entails asking the viewer a question, encouraging the viewer to engage
in verbal or nonverbal actions, pausing to give the viewer an opportunity to respond, and providing
feedback and praise that is generally afrmative and modestly contingent (e.g., in Dora the Explorer,
Dora asks viewers which part of the story they liked the most, then she pauses to give viewers a
chance to respond, and then follows up by saying I liked that part, too).
Recent experimental studies have causally linked the use of explicit prompting routines embedded
in both researcher-developed and commercially produced content to multiple indices of information
processing and content learning including greater levels of attention to a target object (Briganti & Co-
hen, 2007; Cleveland & Striano, 2008), more successful object retrieval attempts (Troseth, Saylor, &
Archer, 2006), and increased learning of specic target words (Krcmar et al., 2007). In each study, suc-
cessful processing of linguistic content was strengthened via repetitive and extended use of language-
prompting routines. The absence of these routines predicted less word learning and a greater inability
to retrieve a hidden object (Krcmar et al., 2007; ODoherty et al., in press; Troseth, 2003; Troseth et al.,
2006).
In one longitudinal descriptive study, parents who reported that their infants watched screen con-
tent loaded with multiple explicit prompting routines (i.e., Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer) also reported
larger vocabularies for their infants. In a separate assessment of their expressive language use while
playing conducted by our project staff, infants who spent more time between 6 and 30 months watch-
ing these programs used more language and more sophisticated language (i.e., single and multiple
word utterances) while playing (Linebarger & Walker, 2005).
Most childrens programs use relatively few explicit prompting routines, programs like Blues Clues,
Super Why, and Dora the Explorer feature curricula built around these routines as key learning devices.
Similar to live language exchanges, screen media content containing explicit prompting routines are
better able to structure the viewing experience, direct attention to relevant or central content, and
encourage infants and toddlers to become more actively involved with that content. Each of these
components contributes additively to infants processing of screen media content. Future research
should focus on identifying the essential linguistic devices that support language acquisition as well
as those that may interfere with or overwhelm an infants or toddlers processing of content.
Expository and expository/narrative hybrids and language learning
Expository or information programs represent another macro-genre that inuences whether and
how infants and toddlers process screen content. The programs in this genre are formed by linking to-
gether multiple vignettes that range from little- to loosely-connected around a particular topic, con-
cept, or category (e.g., horses, animals who swim). Programs representative of the traditional
expository format include infant-directed videos like Baby Einstein, Eebees Adventures, and Brainy Baby.
Narrative/expository hybrids also use multiple vignettes to deliver episode content. The main dif-
ference between a hybrid and a traditional expository format is that the hybrid connects vignettes the-
matically as well as sequentially. Individual vignettes are tied to the overall episode theme while the
vignettes as a whole are linked together through a series of sequentially-related of events. Programs
representative of the hybrid format include Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and Barney and Friends.
Traditional expositories and hybrids are fairly heterogeneous in structural composition and linguistic
cues that are dependent upon the underlying purpose or goal of the presented content (Duke & Kays,
1998; Linebarger & Piotrowski, 2009). Both composition and cues are derived from the overall purpose
of a particular program: comparisons and contrasts, cause and effect, problems and solutions, numer-
ical and chronological sequencing, detailed descriptions of multiple exemplars (see Duke (2003), for a
discussion of expository purposes and subsequent structural features).
Research examining the impacts associated with these expository format types is mixed. Experi-
mentally, Robb et al. (2009) found that infants did not demonstrate evidence of productive or recep-
tive word learning after viewing an infant-directed expository program for 6 weeks (i.e., Baby
Wordsworth). Learning effects, in contrast, were found by Vandewater (2010). In this study, infants
viewed the same infant-directed expository video repeatedly for 16-weeks (i.e., Brainy Braby). When
compared with Robb et al. (2009), babies in the Vandewater study experienced nearly three times the
exposure as those infants in Robb et al. (2009). In Vandewaters study, parents completed both con-
tent-specic and normative assessments of expressive and receptive language knowledge. After the
intervention viewing period concluded, post-test assessments determined that infants viewing Brainy
Baby knew 1.3 more DVD-specic words and that word learning skills arising from viewing the stim-
ulus transferred to gains of 4.9 more words on the normative assessment when compared with infants
who did not view the DVD.
As with the experimental studies, the correlational studies are also mixed. In a cross-sectional
phone survey, parents were asked to report how much time their infants and toddlers spent watching
six different content types. From these surveys, Zimmerman and colleagues (2007b) reported that
watching baby videos predicted signicant decrements in vocabulary size for infants between 8-
and 16-months. Linebarger and Vaala (2008) reported that infants who watched infant-directed
expository content equivalent to the Zimmerman et al. (2007b) denition of baby videos used lan-
guage while playing less frequently than those who did not watch these DVDs. In contrast to Zimmer-
man et al. (2007b), vocabulary size was larger for infants whose parents indicated that they watched
this content type.
Methodologies used in studies of relations between media use and outcomes are predicated on the
ability to collect accurate and detailed information about both the level of exposure and the identi-
cation of particular content categories. In the Zimmerman et al. (2007b) study, researchers provided
parents with exemplars for each of six different content categories. Then, parents were asked to cat-
egorize their infants and toddlers viewing habits into one of six categories based on the provided
exemplars. Only one exemplar was provided to parents for the baby videos category (i.e., Baby Ein-
stein). Parent report is subject to multiple biases; however, parents must be used to gather this type of
information involving children this young. Because parent report is fraught with reporting errors,
researchers need to be especially vigilant in reducing bias where possible. In the Zimmerman et al.
(2007b) study, content categorization by parents even when they were given exemplars to assist in
this categorization is one such area. In samples of middle- to upper-middle income educated parents,
there is a tendency to over-report activities thought to be educational or supportive of their childs
development (Hofferth, 2006). Many parents believe that screen media labeled educational play an
important role in their childrens educational development (Garrison & Christakis, 2005). Given the
use of parent report in both categorizing screen media content and identifying vocabulary knowledge,
the ndings in this study are tentative at best. Future research should correct these methodological
problems and continue to examine whether and how watching infant-directed expository content
inuences development.
In addition to the methodological corrections suggested above, there are other explanations that
may help to reconcile the differences between the two studies. We have found that infants need multi-
ple and extended exposure to screen media content. This extended exposure provides them with time
to understand the format that, once learned, allows them to more fully comprehend the content. In
our study, watching on-air Sesame Street negatively predicted language outcomes while repeatedly
watching the same episodes of Sesame Street on a video or DVD positively predicted these same lan-
guage outcomes. Next, Zimmerman and colleagues (2007b) viewing reected one point in time with
effects only found for infants between 8 months and 16 months of age. The lack of signicance for in-
fants who were 17 months or older suggests that the impact of baby video viewing on language may
be transitory. Our sample includes nine waves of time diary content collected between 6 months and
30 months of age, providing an opportunity to model a more complete picture of screen media expo-
sure than is possible in cross-sectional survey research.
In addition to the processing challenges suggested above, infants who spend more time watching
these types of programs may spend less time interacting with their parents. As noted previously, par-
ents believe that infant-directed media are educationally important and able to support their babies
brain development (Christakis, 2009; Garrison & Christakis, 2005). Research also indicates that infants
and toddlers pay high levels of attention to these DVDs (Barr, Zack, Muentener, & Garcia, 2008). Par-
ents who believe their infants understand and enjoy watching the content and who also perceive the
DVDs as educational may feel more condent in letting their infants watch the content repeatedly and
alone. In all four studies discussed above, it is not clear how infants are viewing the DVDs or whether
the modest gains found by Vandewater (2010) were due to infants learning on their own or learning
through some type of parent-mediated communication while viewing.
Although its not clear whether infant-directed expository content best represented by titles such
as Brainy Baby, Baby Einstein, or Your Baby Can Read can support or suppress language development,
there is evidence that child-directed expository content and expository/narrative hybrids are linked
to lower language scores. The lack of a clear or simple storyline, the unfamiliar structural features used
to present content, and the greater volume of information contained in expository programs (see
Linebarger & Piotrowski, in press, for a content analysis) overwhelmed infants and toddlers limited
attentional resources and cognitive capacity, making it difcult to simultaneously interpret the form
and content of an expository program. Knowledge acquisition occurs as the result of the formation of a
representational hierarchy of content linking information between lower-level sensory and perceptual
features to higher-order cognitive and language development (Aslin & Fiser, 2005). Due to the percep-
tual overload caused by the volume of information presented in expository and hybrid programs, the
representation of the lower-level sensory and perceptual features is poorly accomplished and incom-
plete. Consequently, any linkages between the lower-level features and the higher-order cognitive or
language processes is impaired.
Social experiences that mediate relations among language and screen media use
Both direct and indirect social experiences shape the ways that infants and toddlers language
development unfolds by providing a frame through which language exchanges occur. In addition to
the role that screen media features play in language learning, certain external factors surrounding
an infants screen media use can also inuence language acquisition directly and indirectly. Direct ef-
fects occur through prolonged or repetitive exposure to the same content and adults use of teaching
strategies to facilitate infant comprehension (e.g., co-viewing). Indirect effects arise from the quantity
and quality of adultchild interactions surrounding screen media use.
Repetition
Babies learn through repetition and consistency. They will practice over and over until they master
a new task, comprehend new content, gure out how a new toy works, or respond to and eventually
initiate interactions with important persons in their environment (e.g., parent, caregiver, sibling, peer).
Repetition is a central feature of infants and toddlers daily social and language interactions. These
repetitive interactions contribute to infants nonverbal understanding of the content and context of
the interactions (e.g., diapering, feeding; Akhtar, 2004) by providing a bridge to language learning.
By engaging in repetitive routines and social exchanges with a partner, infants develop generalized
expectancies regarding how these exchanges should unfold and how they should interpret a conver-
sational partners efforts to frame and sustain the interactions (Brown, 2000). Once generalized expec-
tancies are in place, their consistent and predictable nature guide infants actions allowing them to
redirect their limited attentional resources away from the events taking place during the exchange
and more toward the linguistic input used during the exchange (Akhtar, 2004; Grossmann, Gliga,
Johnson, & Mareschal, 2009).
Repetitive exposure to a televised models verbalizations enhanced infant performance across sev-
eral experimental contexts including imitation (Barr, Muentener, Garcia, Fujimoto, & Chavez, 2007;
Barr & Wyss, 2008), problem solving (Richert, 2007), and word learning (Barr & Wyss, 2008; Krcmar
et al., 2007; Richert & Smith, 2008; Vandewater, 2010). Barr and Wyss (2008) found that repeated no-
vel verbal labels (e.g., meewa; thornby), both from parents in a live setting and from adult voice-
overs embedded in screen media, aided 24-month-olds later imitative behaviors (i.e., observed via vi-
deo presentation). In another study, 20-month-old children were able to learn words and imitate a
problem-solving task featured in an infant-directed DVD that they viewed repetitively in their homes
(i.e., up to ve times per week over 4 weeks) while 13-month-old infants had difculty imitating the
problem-solving task and were unable to learn DVD-specic words (Richert & Smith, 2008; Robb et al.,
2009). Infants participating in another study who watched an infant-directed DVD over 16 weeks
beginning when they were 8-months-old did demonstrate a modest increase in DVD-specic word
learning at 15-months-old (Vandewater, 2010).
Longitudinal research has also examined the role of repetitive exposure in language acquisition.
There is a sizeable body of evidence that preschoolers benet from repetitive exposure to screen con-
tent including comprehension gains and greater interaction with onscreen characters and content de-
spite reductions in visual attention to the screen (e.g., Crawley et al., 1999). To examine repetition, we
recoded program titles with both on-air and DVD content (i.e., Sesame Street, Barney and Friends). Our
earlier research linked expository viewing to less language use at 30-months while playing (i.e., Ses-
ame Street viewers) and smaller vocabularies (i.e., Barney and Friends; Linebarger & Walker, 2005).
Relations between on-air content and language outcomes remained negative while DVD content pos-
itively predicted language outcomes. Both programs are expository in nature and contain a large vol-
ume of information. Infants who were repetitive viewers of these programs received enough exposure
to overcome processing difculties associated with an unfamiliar format. Once format processing was
close to automatic, infants were able to learn the featured content and generalize that content to gains
in language use while playing and vocabulary size.
Because babies have very little background knowledge and experience with screen media, repeat
exposure becomes crucial for any learning or language acquisition to occur. The ability to learn from
screen media then results from the development of expectancies regarding how screen media content
is structured generally as well as how specic content is conveyed through standard presentation for-
mats. Infants and toddlers must develop a way to understand and mentally represent screen content
more generally before they can learn specic content featured in these media and repetitive exposure
aids in this process.
Co-viewing
The presence and behavior of competent others (e.g., parents, siblings, caregivers, onscreen charac-
ters) while viewing screen media may impact whether and what infants and toddlers are able to learn
from that content. Adults co-view educational screen media (i.e., 43%) with their infants and toddlers
more frequently than non-educational programs (i.e., 21%; Mendelsohn et al., 2008). There is evidence
of enhanced learning when adults co-viewed with children or when onscreen characters used similar
co-viewing learning strategies within the program (i.e., questions, personalized interactions, and
reections; Tamborini & Zillman, 1985) for older children (i.e., 3 years or older; Friedrich & Stein,
1975; Salomon, 1977; Tamborini & Zillman, 1985; Watkins, Calvert, Huston-Stein, & Wright, 1980).
Lemish and Rice (1986) conducted an observational study of toddlers viewing television with their
caregivers to examine whether televised stimuli could provide enough linguistic support for language
development as well as describe the process of or routine around viewing in a childs home. Interac-
tions were classied along four dimensions for both child and caregiver: designations, questions, re-
sponses to adult (or child) bids, and descriptive talk. While experimental studies suggest that a
potential video decit exists (Anderson & Pempek, 2005), Lemish and Rice (1986) have provided valu-
able information regarding what is happening when toddlers and their parents use screen media to-
gether. One of the key features of this study is that it uses a socio-cultural or ecological framework in
which to embed adultchild interactions as well as describe and understand how these interactional
processes might inuence language acquisition. Very young children do engage in communicative
acts, both verbal and nonverbal, with screen content and with a parent. As discussed earlier, language
development evolves fromthe routine social exchanges that adults and children engage in on a regular
basis. The descriptions of sustained and complex interactions around program content indicate that
children and adults can engage in joint attention with screen media as the shared object of focus.
Recent research conrms these earlier ndings. Specically, Barr and colleagues examined infant
looking time, infant interactional patterns, and deferred imitation as a function of adult mediation
in two situations: an adult co-viewer who was physically present with a child or an adult voice-over
paired with a screen media stimulus (Barr & Wyss, 2008; Barr, Zack, Garcia, & Muentener, 2008). In the
adult co-viewer context, infants whose parents who used more questions, labels, and descriptive talk
while viewing looked longer and viewed more interactively (i.e., vocalizations directed toward the
DVD; verbal responses to the DVD or in response to parent questions; pointing; infant play dened
as dancing or clapping) than infants whose parents did fewer of these behaviors. Active co-viewing
by a physically-present competent other or by an onscreen character may be a particularly valuable
strategy because it functions as a scaffold for comprehension, retention, and later transfer of informa-
tion learned while viewing (Barr, Zack, et al., 2008). Roseberry and colleagues (2009) tested whether
toddlers (i.e., 30-months to 42-months) could learn verbs from video stimuli when toddlers watched
the screen media with a live actor who co-viewed with the toddlers and offered instruction in between
short video sequences (i.e., there was no simultaneous sequences with both video content and the live
actor providing linguistic input). Toddlers younger than 36 months were unable to learn from video
alone or from video that included onscreen co-viewers only. The video content in this study was com-
mercially-produced (i.e., Sesame Beginnings) and more complex than typical researcher-developed
stimuli; therefore, the amount of information, both aural and visual, may have made it too challenging
or complex during the video only test as well as during the video plus video co-viewer segments
whereas the live co-viewers may have unintentionally provided social cues or other contextual infor-
mation that helped the toddlers learn the target verbs.
Quantity of adultchild interactions
The most important and most effective way for infants and toddlers to learn about the world
around them is through interactions with important others in their environments (Gauvain, 2001;
Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2006). Two studies have examined the quantity of adultchild interactions
and child outcomes. The rst study used a within-subjects experimental design to test whether and
how adultchild interactions differed in the presence and absence of a television on in the background
(Kirkorian, Pempek, Murphy, Schmidt, & Anderson, 2009). Infants aged 12-, 24-, and 36-months en-
tered a room similar to a playroom or family room (i.e., armchair, coffee table with magazines and
newspapers, age-appropriate toys, television). Parents were instructed to do whatever they would
normally do at home during free play (i.e., play with their children, read a newspaper, or watch
TV). For 30 min of the visit, the television was on in the background and for the other 30 min, it
was off (counter-balanced across participants). In general, parents of 12-month-olds interacted much
less with their infants than parents of 24- or 36-month olds. When the television was on, the average
number of adultchild interactions decreased from 68% of the time to 54% of the time. The age-related
differences in parental responsiveness are likely a function of the more immature interactional capa-
bilities of a 12-month-old compared with the older children. Specically, 12-month-olds engaged in
verbal and nonverbal behavior about 14% of the time when the TV was off and 18% of the time the
TV was on while older children engaged in verbal and nonverbal behavior about 51% of the time that
the TV was on and 63% of the time the TV was off. Because there was no age by television status inter-
action, it is likely that 12-month-olds were just generally less communicative than their older peers.
Parents were also less responsive to child bids when the TV was on in the background, declining from
87% when the TV was off to 79% when it was on. There were no differences in child responsiveness by
TV status (i.e., 48% when the TV was off; 45% when the TV was on). Overall, with the TV on in the back-
ground, most categories of parent interaction occurred less frequently than when the TV was off.
Christakis et al. (2009) reported similar results when counting the number of adult, child, and tele-
vised vocalizations (i.e., any sounds or words spoken by an adult, the target child, or a television in the
background). During episodes when the television was on, the frequency of adult- and infant-gener-
ated vocalizations was lower than times throughout the day when the television was off. The
researchers speculated that infants and toddlers living in families who allowed them to view televi-
sion more frequently or families who left the television on in the background even when no one
was watching would hear less overall adult talk and would engage in fewer adultchild interactions
that are critical to language acquisition.
Quality of adultchild interactions
The presence of media may also affect the quality of interactions between caregivers and young
children. In an experimental study, Kirkorian and colleagues (2009) found that two-thirds of parents
had shorter interactions (i.e., fewer turns) with their 12- and 24-month-old children when the televi-
sion was on in the background versus when it was turned off. Ambient noise, particularly noise that
contains speech, elicits an automatic orienting response and draws on cognitive resources (Baker &
Holding, 1993; Kirkorian et al., 2009). Thus, adult-directed background television likely distracts
adults attention away from a young child, interfering with sustained social interactions between them
and their children.
In a more recent report, Kirkorian and colleagues (2009) found that when the television was on,
parents were less likely to engage in active object play (i.e., actively involved physically or verbally
in reciprocal toy play with the child), compared with passive play (e.g., putting out a hand to accept a
toy from the child or verbally responding without looking at the child or engaging actively), or inter-
acting without an object (Kirkorian et al., 2009). These ndings indicate that television not only re-
duces the amount of interaction between an adult and child, but also the quality of interactions
when they do occur. Kirkorian and colleagues (2009) suggest that these effects operate largely through
distracting the adult caregiver. In their study, parents were allowed to choose the television program
to be aired in the room from a variety of adult programming options. Questions remain about whether
parental engagement with their children might change if the programcontained infant- or child-direc-
ted content or if their behavior would be different outside of the novel setting of the laboratory. These
studies suggest that adult-directed television in the background undermines the quantity, complexity
and length of adult-child social interaction. To the extent that young children depend on direct social
interaction to aid in language development, much background television in the home may be
detrimental.
Aggregate and adult-directed exposure to screen media: the case against background exposure
About 40% of children three and under live in homes where at least one of the television sets is on
for all or most of the day (Rideout et al., 2003). This type of exposure, referred to as background tele-
vision (Anderson & Pempek, 2005), has been suggested to function as a disruption to cognitive devel-
opment and other higher-order cognitive skills, causing infants and toddlers to orient to the screen
repeatedly when screen content contains perceptually salient cues (e.g., music, loud noises, sound ef-
fects, peculiar voices; Calvert, Huston, Watkins, & Wright, 1982). In a series of experimental studies,
researchers manipulated the presence or absence of background television and found that when the
television was on, the length and complexity of 12-, 24-, and 36-month old childrens play was dis-
rupted (Schmidt, Pempek, Kirkorian, Frankeneld & Anderson, 2008) and the quantity and quality
of adultchild interactions were reduced (Kirkorian et al., 2009). Zimmerman and colleagues (2009)
reported in a cross-sectional study that the number of conversational turns declined by .51 for every
hour of television on each day. It was not possible in this study to determine whether the television
content was directed toward the child or toward the adult nor was it possible to determine the quality
of the televised content or the quality of adult interaction.
In previous research involving parents and their infants, the quality of adultchild interactions was
crucial to infant and toddler language development (Hart & Risley, 1995; Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow,
2005). Without indicators of quality or type and because clear differences between foreground and
background television exposure and between high-quality and low-quality interactions exist, it is dif-
cult to determine how these aggregate estimates (e.g., Zimmerman et al., 2009) t into the extant
research. Further, while television exposure predicts modestly fewer conversational turns, its effect
on child language scores disappears when conversational turns and adult word counts are included
in the model. This pattern of results suggests that television negatively affects parents conversational
turns by displacing time that could be spent interacting with their children or by reducing the quality
of talk directed at their children. Further, parents general talkativeness mediated the relation between
screen media use and language acquisition.
Television viewing is still the dominant activity that adults do when at home. In fact, it is the only
activity that has not declined in use as time spent on the internet has increased (Golvin et al., 2009). It
would be easy to conclude that household use of television displaces adult talk directed to the child
(Christakis et al., 2009). Another plausible explanation is linked to parents general responsiveness
and overall interactional style. If television was unavailable, it is likely that another activity would
take its place, becoming the default activity (e.g., internet use). A number of previous displacement
studies with older children and adults indicates that the introduction of a new medium most often
displaces time with functionally equivalent media or activities (e.g., Himmelweit, Oppenheim, &
Vince, 1958; Kaynay & Yelsma, 2000); that is, the new medium replaces time normally spent in a prior
activity serving the same functions. . .as the new medium (Kaynay & Yelsma, 2000, p. 217). Televi-
sion use may dominate overall time use in the home; however, it is unlikely that it displaces parental
tendencies or a willingness to interact with their children. Parental responsiveness and interactional
style are quite stable and fairly consistent over time. Parents who interact infrequently with their
children continue this pattern over time just as parents who engage in frequent interactions maintain
a higher level of interaction over time (Hart & Risley, 1992). While television use predicts conversa-
tional turns, it is likely that use is a proxy for a general parenting style rather than a specic activity
that causes parents to avoid interactions with their children.
There is much to be explored with regard to the ways in which television relates to the quantity
and quality of interactions in the home. Researchers must examine media use across all members
of the household and disentangle the complicated relations between the home environment, parental
talkativeness, quality of that talkativeness, and use of screen media by the parent and the child. Just as
screen media manifests its effects on children primarily through the content to which they are ex-
posed, the relation between adult communication and child outcome is more complicated than the
aggregate amount of talk. For instance, Hart and Risley (1995) did nd that more talk was related
to bigger vocabularies at age three; however, they also found that the quality of that increased talk
was substantively different and vital to language development.
Conclusion and future research
Media use is pervasive in the lives of American infants and toddlers. Despite its prevalence, the
body of research examining its impact is relatively small. Our review suggests that screen media do
inuence infants and toddlers language development. The nature and degree of inuence is not
straightforward; instead, effects are dependent on a number of factors. Screen media that resembles
infants and toddlers real-life experiences are better suited to support learning and language develop-
ment (e.g., socially contingent; simple story structures; routines or objects familiar to infants and tod-
dlers). Repeated exposure also helps infants and toddlers learn both the format and the content of
screen media and can even ameliorate negative effects associated with viewing particular content
(e.g., Sesame Street or Barney and Friends; Linebarger & Vaala, 2008; Linebarger & Walker, 2005). Final-
ly, the presence of a competent co-viewer appears to boost babies language learning from screen
media, much like the ways these processes facilitate learning in live scenarios (Barr & Wyss, 2008).
The existing research suggests that early screen media use may function similarly to early linguistic
input. In a longitudinal study of childrens media use beginning at age two and continuing until age
ve, viewing of child-directed educational content at age two had initial and lasting effects on multi-
ple indices of school readiness while similar content viewed at age four or later was unrelated to
school readiness scores at age seven (Wright et al., 2001). The authors of that study argued that
sweeping condemnations [of television] ignore the obvious fact that television contains an enormous
variety of forms and content (p. 1347).
In order to examine specic mechanisms or aspects of babies learning from televised sources,
many experimental researchers have utilized simple stimuli created for the purpose of their study.
This careful control of content comes at the expense of external applicability. Specically, these simple
videos, often devoid of fancy formal features and multiple simultaneous streams of information, do
not resemble the commercially-produced screen media that infants and toddlers watch in their
homes. Though we have found that young children can learn from television, signicantly less is
known about what they actually do learn from non-manipulated viewing in the home. Early indica-
tions suggest that content, presentation format, and repetition are linked to larger vocabularies and
more language use while playing in certain instances (Linebarger & Vaala, 2008; Linebarger & Walker,
2005) and smaller vocabularies in other instances (Zimmerman et al., 2007b). Clearly, the eld and
young children will benet from more and higher-quality research in this domain.
Final thoughts
In circumstances where the amount of high-quality research is small and the number of questions
and concerns large, it can be easy or tempting to identify or report effects consistent with a particular
interpretation at the expense of other ndings that contradict this interpretation. As reviewed above,
the relations among screen media use and language development are dependent on the conuence
among child attributes, stimulus characteristics, and environmental contexts, ndings remarkably
similar to research involving children who are two and older (e.g., Anderson et al., 2001; Wright et al.,
2001). The primary difference between babies and older children likely lies in how complex the com-
bination of structure and content in screen media is and whether attributes of the child (e.g., experi-
ence) or characteristics of the childs environment (e.g., adult co-viewing) mitigate this complexity. As
with previous societal concerns that place the blame of declining achievement and increasing behav-
ioral difculties on media more broadly, we argue that it would be substantially more productive to
move beyond simplistic views of screen media (e.g., aggregating together all media exposure into one
total estimate of media use) and instead focus more on conducting high-quality, scientically-rigorous
research to determine whether, how, and under what circumstances infants and toddlers can benet
from screen media as well as which content and features are less helpful and even harmful in this
regard.
Acknowledgments
Portions of the reviewed research were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Re-
search in Child Development in Tampa, Fl, April 2003 and in Atlanta, GA, April 2005 as well as at
the 2nd International Conference on Early Childhood Education, Arnhem, Netherlands. Funding for
the research conducted in our lab was provided by two different US Department of Education
(DOE) Grants (H324D980066 to Dale Walker at the University of Kansas; H029D60040 to Deborah
L. Linebarger) and a third US DOE cooperative agreement (U295A050003 to Deborah Linebarger).
Please note, these contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the US DOE and you should
not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
We thank the faculty, staff and students who have facilitated the research that informed this re-
view or provided earlier feedback on this manuscript including (in alphabetical order) Rachel Barr,
Kathryn Bigelow, Sandra Calvert, Sue Fenstermacher, Kara Garrity, Laura Gibson, Sanna Harjusola-
Webb, Stacie Kirk, Matt Lapierre, Katie McMenamin, Daniela Rodriques, Cathleen Small, Jessica Taylor
Piotrowski, Deborah Wainwright, Dale Walker. Thanks are also extended to those who participated in
these studies including teachers, families, and children.
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Screen media and language development in infants and

toddlers: An ecological perspective

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