Presenter(s): Ashley Goussak − Communication Disorders and Sciences
Faculty Mentor(s): Lauren Cycyk
Oral Session 1S
Research Area: Communication Disorders and Sciences
The purpose of this study is to describe the electronic media exposure of young children from Mexican immigrant backgrounds in their home and to investigate the association between media exposure and children’s vocabulary development. Thirty children between the ages of 15 and 24 months participated. Audio recordings of children’s home environment were completed through LENA technology and information on children’s productive vocabulary was collected through the MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory and MacArthur Inventario Del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas (Inventario). The electronic media captured on the audio recordings was categorized by frequency (i.e., percentage of total minutes of recording time), type of programming (i.e., child directed versus adult directed, cartoons, or educational child-directed media), and language (i.e., Spanish or English). These characteristics of children’s media exposure were described. Then, the association of these characteristics to children’s English and Spanish productive vocabulary was examined through nonparametric, rank order correlation analyses. The findings indicated that children were more likely to be exposed to adult directed electronic media rather than child directed media and were more likely to be exposed to programs in Spanish than English. No significant associations were found between children’s vocabulary and any characteristic of electronic media exposure for toddlers from these backgrounds. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of the development of language for bilingual Spanish-English speakers and helps speech-language pathologists best understand clients from these linguistic backgrounds.