Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

With Kinedu Videos, Parents​ ​speak​ ​and​ ​engage​ ​with​ ​infants​ ​more in digitally scaffolded interactions

mother playing with her baby

Emily Hembacher, Veronica Cristiano, and Michael C. Frank Stanford University

Parenting advice is increasingly delivered through apps and video sites, and often takes the form of digitally-scaffolded parent-child interactions. Although these activities are designed to promote learning and cognitive development, it is unclear how they might affect the overall quality of parent-child interactions. Quality of interactions can be measured by both the social engagement of parents (joint attention; JA) and the quality of language (e.g., vocabulary diversity). How do digitally-scaffolded interactions affect the social and linguistic characteristics of parents’ speech to their children?

Parents of 6- to 24-month-olds ( n = 60) interacted with their infants by playing with a set of toys for 3 minutes. Half first watched one of six possible age-matched videos from a parenting app (Kinedu, Inc) describing activities meant to promote cognitive development, for example, sorting toys according to size. The remaining parents were simply told to play with the toys with their infants as they would at home.

The sessions were recorded, transcribed, and coded for JA. We examined number of words spoken (tokens) and lexical diversity (ratio of word types to tokens). Intriguingly, video condition parents produced more tokens ( β = 55.58, p = .03), but had lower lexical diversity ( β = -.12, p < .001). In contrast, video condition parents made more bids for JA ( β = 3.51, p < .01), although the number and duration of JA episodes did not differ between groups (p s = .62-.97). Following digitally-scaffolded activities may cause parents to engage with and speak more to children overall, but speak more repetitively.

X

Related Articles

spring activities for preschoolers
Kinedu Educators

4 Spring Activities for Preschoolers

Spring activities for preschoolers can play a significant role in the overall development of children. Through playful exploration of nature,…

newborn care immediately after birth
Health Guide

Essential Newborn Care

The birth of a baby is a moment of great emotion and joy for parents and, at the same time,…

signs of colic in babies
Health Guide

Signs of Colic in Babies

Colic is a common disorder in babies, characterized by intense, prolonged crying for no apparent reason. This can be very…

3 Responses

  1. TENGO UN BEBE DE SIETE MESE DE EDAD Y AUN NO SE SIENTA SOLO NO GATEA Y MI PEDIATRA LE MANDO TERAPIAS PERO MI EPS NO TIENE CONTRATO CON LA EMPRESA PRESTADORA DE DICHO SERVICIO HE VISTO ALGUNOS VIDEOS POR INTERNET Y ES LO QUE HAGO EN CASA CON MI NIÑO .

  2. Estás actividades serían aplicadas en una guardería. Cómo apoyo a nuevas cosas.

  3. An awesome blog here.
    Great job Kinedu team.

    Most of the activities listed earlier were what my baby did at 6th month. For example crawling and independence, making friends always wanting to go uot of the house to play whenever she hears the voice of the other children playing

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.