About this session

Friday, 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Media Exposure and Language Outcomes in Early Childhood

Recent reports show that young children spend a substantial amount of time exposed to media, often surpassing the recommendations set by the American Academy of Pediatrics (Rideout & Robb, 2020). Generally, exposure to media has been shown to be negatively associated with child language outcomes (e.g., Brush et al., 2024). However, more research is needed to understand how media exposure amount, media platform type, and program type relate to child language development.

This symposium presents four studies that highlight different aspects of child language in relation to media exposure.

Paper 1 uses wearable recording devices to capture 21-30-month-old children’s naturalistic auditory and language environment, examining the relationship between the amount of audiovisual media exposure and children’s language use, as well as the role of program type.

Paper 2 examines the association between the amount of digital media exposure and 17-30-month-old children’s productive vocabulary composition – based on caregiver reports of media time and child vocabulary.

Paper 3 investigates whether shared book reading via live video chat (versus prerecorded video) can contribute to preschool children’s vocabulary learning, and the role of gestures during these interactions.

Finally, paper 4 takes a cross-national perspective by comparing frequency of one- to five-year-old children’s multilingual media use and types of multilingual media platforms for a large sample of parent-child dyads in four regions.

Together, these papers provide a comprehensive view of how the amount of media exposure, program type, and media platform contribute to the development of various language skills in young children.

Paper #1
Title	Examining the Link between Media Exposure and Toddlers’ Language Environment
Presenting author	Ekaterina Novikova, University of Delaware, United States

Paper #2
Title	Videos and Vocabulary: How Digital Media Use Impacts the Types of Words Children Know
Presenting author	Sarah C. Kucker, Ph.D., Southern Methodist University, United States

Paper #3
Title	Storytime in the Digital Age: Exploring Preschoolers’ Vocabulary Learning From Remote Reading
Presenting author	Amanda Delgado, University of Delaware, United States

Paper #4
Title	Media Use and Language Exposure in Multilingual Families: Insights from an International Study
Presenting author	McCall Booth, Georgetown University, United States

View all paper details

Session chairs
Ekaterina Novikova, University of Delaware, United States; Giovanna Morini, Ph.D., , United States

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