Can Toddlers Learn Vocabulary from Television? An Experimental Approach
By Marina Krcmar, B. Grela, Kirsten Lin. Media Psychology, 2007
242 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This study was inspired by the rise in television targeting toddlers and preverbal infants (e.g., Teletubbies, Baby Mozart). Overall, we investigated if very young children who are in the early stages of language acquisition can learn vocabulary quickly (fast map) from television programs. Using a fast mapping paradigm, this study examined a group (n = 48) of toddlers (15–24 months) and their ability to learn novel words. Utilizing a repeated measures design, we compared children's ability to learn various novel words in 5 different conditions. These included the presentation and identification of a novel word by an adult speaker via live presentation when the toddler was attending (i.e., joint reference), an adult via live presentation when the toddler was not attending, an adult speaker on television, and an edited clip from a children's television program (Teletubbies). Overall, the toddlers were most successful in learning novel words in the joint reference condition. They were significantly less successful in the children's program condition. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between age and condition on children's performance. Both younger (15–21 months) and older (22–24 months) participants identified the target objects when they were taught the novel word by an adult speaker; however, it appeared that children under the age of 22 months did not identify the target item when they were taught the novel word via the television program.
Subfields: Communication, Education, Information Systems
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2eb1832592ae037e4656f5bfefd603f6fc8f3de4
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Citations in the corpus
- Can Social Meaningfulness and Repeat Exposure Help Infants and Toddlers Overcome the Video Deficit? (2010, methodology): “For example, Krcmar et al. (2007) utilized an edited clip of Teletubbies, a program with a viewing audience that includes preverbal children, to test if children age 16–24 months could learn a completely novel word from television.”
- Putting Education in “Educational” Apps (2015, background): “…a video deficit (Anderson & Pempek, 2005; Robb et al., 2009; Zimmerman et al., 2007), the undisputed finding is that human interaction trumps electronic “interaction” (Krcmar et al., 2007; Kuhl et al., 2003; Reiser, Tessmer, & Phelps, 1984; Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek, Parish-Morris, & Golinkoff, 2009).”