3-067 - Conversation Roundtable on Using Technology- and non-Technology Based Interventions in Underserved Communities and Families

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

In our current digital age, mobile technology has the potential to reach underserved populations with technology-based interventions and education provide an important opportunity to provide interventions that are effective and evidence based. On the one hand, there continues to be a “digital divide” between those with access to digital resources and those without. On the other, the use of smartphones crosses race, ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries. According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of Americans owned a smartphone in 2015 and this number is growing rapidly worldwide, especially in developing countries. In 2014, Nielsen reported that smartphone penetration among mobile phone users was higher among Asians (87%), African-Americans (83%) and Hispanics (82%) than whites (74%). Moreover, 15% of smartphone users report that they have limited ways to access the internet other than their smartphone and that they have used their smartphones to look up health-related information or apply for jobs. However, bringing technology to interventions and education poses its own challenges, not the least of which involves clear channels of communication between cutting edge developmental science, intervention specialists, educators, and the technology development communities. A primary goal in organizing this roundtable is to challenge developmental scientists to consider our role in this conversation. Our panelists span these communities and share their differing experiences with children, technology, and interventions in the interest of advancing both developmental science and technology-based interventions for underserved populations.

Sub Unit

• Technology, Media & Child Development

Moderator

• Twila Tardif, University of Michigan

Panelists

• Martin Buschkuehl, MIND Research Institute, Irvine, CA

• Shawna J. Lee, University of Michigan

• Aaron Seitz, University of California, Riverside

• Dawn Ulley, Age of Learning, Inc./ABCmouseforschools