Digital media, such as cellphones and tablets, are a common part of our daily lives and their usage has changed the communication structure within families. Thus, there is a risk that the use of DM might result in fewer opportunities for interactions between children and their parents leading to fewer language learning moments for young children. The current study examined the associations between children’s language development and early DM exposure.Participants: Ninety-two parents of 25months olds recorded their home sound environment during (...) a typical day [Language ENvironment Analysis ] and participated in an online questionnaire consisting of questions pertaining to daily DM use and media mediation strategies, as well as a Swedish online version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, which includes a vocabulary scale as well as a grammar and pragmatics scale.Results: Through correlations and stepwise regressions three aspects of language were analyzed. The child’s vocabulary was positively associated with interactional turn-taking. The child’s vocabulary and grammar were negatively associated with the likelihood of parent’s device use during everyday child routines and the amount of TV watched by the child. The child’s pragmatic development was also positively associated with the parent’s device use in child routines but also with the parent’s joint media engagement, as well as the child’s gender.Conclusion: Our study confirms that specific aspects of the 2-year old’s DM environment are associated with the child’s language development. More TV content, whether it is viewed on a big screen or tablet, is negatively associated with language development. The likelihood of parents’ use of DM during everyday child routines is also negatively associated with the child’s language development. Positive linguistic parental strategies such as interactional turn-taking with the child, JME, and book reading, on the other hand, are positively associated with the child’s language development. (shrink)

BackgroundHeavy media use has been linked to sleep problems in children, which may also extend to the infancy period. While international parent-advisory agencies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, advise no screen time before 18 months, parents often do not follow this recommendation. Research on Italian infants’ early access to media is sparse, and only very few studies have investigated links with sleeping habits.MethodTo address this gap, we examined concurrent associations between parent-reported surveys of child technology use and sleeping (...) patterns. The Italian version of the 60 item Comprehensive Assessment of Family Media Exposure Survey, developed as part of a larger international study,, the Brief Screening Questionnaire for Infant Sleep Problems Sadeh, 2004) were completed online by 264 Italian parents of 8- to 36-month-olds and a subset completed the Parenting Stress Index Abidin, 1995) between April 2017 and April 2018.ResultsMore devices located in the child’s room and the more time spent watching TV or using an iPad were associated with less hours of sleep at night. Furthermore, more time spent watching TV or using a smartphone, as well as the number of devices in the room was associated with going to sleep later at night. Instrumental media use was associated with less sleep.ConclusionLike other countries, Italian infants have high levels of exposure to media, and differences in media patterns were associated with sleep patterns. Cultural factors influence both instrumental reasons for media use and sleep practices. Further research should explore how media use may serve to regulate emotion as a function of both contextual factors and individual differences. (shrink)

Studies have demonstrated that parents often exhibit a still face while silently reading their cell phones when responding to texts. Such disruptions to parent-child interactions have been observed during parental media use such as texting and these disruptions have been termed technoference. In the present study, we explored changes to mother-child interactions that occur before, during and after interruptions due to texting using an adapted naturalistic still face paradigm. Specifically, we examined the effect of an interruption due to either maternal (...) smartphone use or use of an analog medium on maternal interaction quality with their 20- to 22-month-old children. Mother-child interactions during free play were interrupted for 2 min by asking the mothers to fill out a questionnaire either by typing on the smartphone or on paper with a pen. Interactional quality was compared between free-play and interruption phases and to a no-interruption control group. Mixed ANOVA across phase and condition indicated that maternal responsiveness and pedagogical behavior decreased during the interruption phase for both the interruption groups but not for the no-interruption group. Children also increased their positive bids for attention during the paper-and-pencil and the smartphone conditions relative to the no-interruption control. These findings are consistent with a large body of research on the still-face paradigm and with a recent study demonstrating that smartphone interruptions decreased parenting quality. The present study, however, connects these lines of research showing the many everyday disruptions to parent-child interactions are likely to decrease parenting quality and that toddlers are likely to detect and attempt to repair such interruptions. (shrink)