About this srcd poster session

---

Panel information
Panel 24. Technology, Media & Child Development

Abstract

---

Children frequently use phones in the first 2 years (Kabali et. al., 2015), despite recommendations that early screen use should be limited or eliminated (AACAP, 2024) due to potential negative impacts on development. Concerns are especially pronounced for foundational cognitive skills in language and communication, which show mixed relations to screen use (e.g., Lin et. al., 2020, Rayce et. al., 2024). More research examining the nuances in screen use and early precursors to language (e.g., joint attention related to attentional sharing of an episode with another) may be useful in better understanding why mixed findings between screen use, language, and communication exist. The present study aims to better understand how toddlers engage with screens and whether different measures of engagement may differentially relate to language and joint attention.
Sixty-nine parents of toddlers (13 to 25 months, 32 girls) completed a survey answering questions about how their children engage with screens (i.e., screen type, content, age started, week/weekend use, and time ranging from 1=does not use to 7=more than 4 hours). Language was measured with the McArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI), an 89-word parent-reported checklist measuring comprehension and production (Fenson et. al., 2007). Joint attention was measured with the Pictorial Infant Communication Scale (PICS, Delgado et. al., 2001), a 16-item parent-reported joint attention questionnaire with subscale in initiating joint attention (i.e., child driven shared engagement), responding to joint attention (i.e., following others attempts to share attention) and initiating behavior regulation (i.e., a child driven request of another).
For screen use, parents reported the highest percentage of toddlers engaged with TV (87%) over other devices, McNemar X2s>14.70, p<0.001. The next highest was phones (60.8%), which was higher than tablets (14.49%) and computers (4.34%), McNemar X2’s > 26.95, ps<0.001.Table 1 presents Spearman’s bivariate correlations between screen use for the most frequently devices, language, and joint attention. Screen use variables were not significantly related to joint attention and only one correlation indicated that starting to watch TV at an older age related to better language comprehension, r(67)=.25, p=.04. Results also suggest toddlers engage with content differently across devices, see Figure 1. For TV, parents reported the highest percentage of child engagement for streaming video and music, which were significantly higher than engagement with books, photos, and personal videos, McNemar X2’s > 21.55, ps<0.001. Interactive game engagement was lower than all other content, McNemar X2’s > 5.4, ps<0.001. For phones, parents reported the highest percentage of child engagement for photographs, which was higher than all other content (McNemar X2’s > 4.77, ps<0.05). Reported use of music, personal videos, streaming video, and other (FaceTime) was not different, but were higher than interactive games and books, McNemar X2’s > 5.26, ps<0.04. Results suggest further considerations of device and content may be important to understanding how screen use relates to cognition moving forward (Bustamante et. al., 2023).

Author information

Author	Role
Amanda Greene, University of Mississippi	Presenting author
Morgan Harris, University of Mississippi	Non-presenting author
Fatemeh Esfandiari, University of Mississippi	Non-presenting author
Biju Rajbhandari, University of Mississippi	Non-presenting author
Stephanie Miller, University of Mississippi	Non-presenting author

⇦ Back to session