Speaking of Screens: Longitudinal Associations Between the Home Media and Home Language Environment During Early...

Media has the potential to hinder children's language development if it disrupts or displaces parent-child interactions. However, little research has examined the wider family media ecology and how this might relate to the home language environment during infancy and early childhood. The current research utilized a longitudinal study to examine associations between the family media ecology (joint media engagement, technoference, and child television screen time) and children's quantity of child talk and parent/child conversational turns. Participants included 250 families with children (Wave 1 M age = 15.85 months) who completed a number of questionnaires and observations around media and language at two time points approximately one year apart. Higher technoference was related to lower quantity of child talk at the first wave only, but children who had higher television screen time demonstrated lower quantity of child talk and experienced fewer conversational turns 1 year later. However, there was no significant association between joint media engagement or parental technoference on quantity of child talk or conversational turns over time. Reducing television screen time in early childhood may be one strategy to encourage quantity of child talk and to enhance the home language environment.