A Naturalistic Study of Mother Child Interaction Around Digital Media Applications

• In Event: Home and Family Contributions to Young Children's Development

Abstract

This study sought to understand the nature and extent of mother-child talk as they engaged in joint digital media activities on a touch screen tablet device. A total of 20 mothers and their preschool aged children were observed as they engaged in three digital activities: reading an e book, video watching, and playing a game. Mother child talk was transcribed verbatim and the coded. Categories of mother child talk included clarify, ask label, describe, digital content-world, expand, label, linguistic term, wh question, world-digital content, and repeat. There were differences in the frequencies and type of talk generated during each of the activities. In most cases, the mothers generated more utterances than did their children.

Authors

• Burcu Izci, Florida Gulf Coast University

• Ithel Jones, Florida State University