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Poster #238 - Television Exposure and Children’s Language-Related Brain Structure

Sat, March 23, 8:00 to 9:15am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Increased media exposure during childhood is associated with lower language skills (Tomopoulos et al., 2010; Zimmerman, Christakis & Meltzoff, 2007). Early television exposure has been linked with substantial reductions in parent-child interactions (Christakis et al., 2009; Courage et al., 2010; Kirkorian et al. 2009; Mendelsohn et al., 2008; Nathanson & Rasmussen, 2011; Pempek, Kirkorian & Anderson, 2014), which in turn may explain decreased language skills in children (Hoff, 2006; Hart & Risley, 1995; Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, & Baumwell, 2001; Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). However, the neural mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unknown. Language skills are known to rely on left persylvian cortical regions, and thus, these regions may be impacted by variability in exposure to media, as frequent media exposure may disrupt language development by reducing the quality and quantity of parent-child verbal interactions.
The primary goal of the current study was to examine associations between television exposure and children’s language-related brain structure. Further, we explored two mediation models: (1) whether language-related brain structure mediated the association between television exposure and children’s language/reading skills (see Figure 1) and (2) whether differences in adult-child verbal interactions mediated the association between television exposure and children’s language-related brain structure (see Figure 2).
A socioeconomically diverse sample of parents and children (5-9 years of age; N=42) participated in this study. Audible television exposure and linguistic stimulation in the home were measured using the LENA system, which combines naturalistic home audio recordings with automated estimates of adult and child vocalizations, and television exposure (Ganek & Eriks-Brophy, 2017). Children completed a T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and regions-of-interest included language-supporting regions in the left perisylvian cortex. Analyses included a comprehensive set of covariates, including child age, sex, and maternal education.
Higher television exposure was significantly associated with decreased surface area in the left transverse temporal gyrus, β = 3.856, p = 0.048. Left transverse temporal surface area was in turn significantly associated with children’s reading skills, but this association became non-significant after accounting for television exposure. Higher television exposure was significantly associated with reductions in hourly adult-child conversational turns (β = - 1.578, p = 0.025), but not in hourly adult word count (β = - 24.323, p = 0.095). Hourly conversational turns were in turn significantly associated with left transverse temporal surface area, but this association became non-significant after accounting for television exposure. Thus, we were unable to disentangle mediational pathways.
To our knowledge, this is the first study to link naturalistic observations of television exposure with children’s brain structure. Consistent with previous work, associations were found for brain regions involved in language skills, with frequent television exposure linked with reduced gray matter in these regions. These associations could be attributable to frequent television exposure reducing time spent in verbal interactions with adults, which should be tested in future work with a larger sample.

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