Characteristics of media use and linguistic trajectories during early childhood

如今的幼儿平均每天使用2小时以上的媒体，有些孩子使用的时间更长。媒体使用对幼儿的影响引起了相当大的社会关注。然而，随着时间的推移，我们对媒体如何影响儿童的语言发展知之甚少。媒体的使用可能会对语言发展产生负面影响，因为它取代了其他重要的活动，比如共同阅读书籍以及与父母和同龄人的互动。这是一个至关重要的研究领域，因为早期的语言技能对以后的学术成就至关重要。这项研究跟踪了3到5岁的儿童，考察他们的媒体使用和语言技能。除了儿童使用多少媒体外，数据收集还包括儿童与成人一起使用媒体的数量，儿童使用互动（应用程序/游戏）与非互动（电视/视频）媒体的数量，以及儿童使用教育媒体的数量。这些因素可能会影响媒体使用对语言发展的影响。广泛的数据来源用于捕捉儿童媒体使用的细微观点。此外，还收集了大量可能与媒体使用和语言发展有关的协变量的信息。这使得在这个关键时期，媒体使用和儿童语言发展之间的独特关系得以确定。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Young children today use over 2 hours of media per day on average, and some children use much more. There is considerable societal concern about the effects of media use on young children. However, we know very little about how media affects children’s language development over time. Media use could negatively impact language development by displacing other important activities like shared book reading and interactions with parents and peers. This is a crucial area to study because early language skills are critical contributors to later academic achievement. This study follows children from age 3 to 5 and examine their media use and language skills. Beyond how much media children use overall, data collection includes information about how much children use media with adults, how much children use interactive (apps/games) vs. noninteractive (TV/video) media, and how much children use educational media. These factors may influence the impact of media use on language development. A wide range of data sources are used to capture a nuanced view of children’s media use. Further, information is collected about a host of covariates that are likely to be linked to both media use and language development. This allows for the identification of the unique relation between media use and children’s language development during this crucial time frame.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.