1. Who were the investigators and what was the aim of the study?
The study was conducted to determine the relationship between media exposure and language development in children below two years. The investigators of the study include, Frederick J. Zimmerman, PHD, Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH, and Andrew N. Meltzoff, PHD. The investigators of the study are from the Child Health Institute of the University of Washington.
2. Who were the children in the study?
The parents of children between 2 to 24 months were interviewed about their children as well as parent demographics. In totality, one thousand and eight parents were surveyed, both of the male and female children within the above age bracket. The survey data was collected from parents in the United States in the states of Washington and Minnesota. The February 2006 survey identified the 1008 parents through the birth certificates application information, and they were interviewed by telephone.
3. What was the design of the study?
The parents identified for the survey were interviewed by telephone since the telephone numbers were easily accessed on their children’s birth certificates. The parents were asked questions on their children and the parent demographics. There were interrogated on their interactions with the children as well as the children’s viewing of different programs on television and videos on DVDs. The parents were too required to fill in brief forms of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI).
The variables in the study are divided into outcome, predicators and covariates. The income in the study is the analysis of the normed score of a child on CDI form. The predictors for the study are including the analysis of the type of media viewed by the children. The covariates are the ethnicity, age, household income as well as categorical maternal and paternal education.
The outcome was measured using CDI which determined the relationship between the language development of a child and experimental tests of neural, social as well as cognitive development. The score collected were normed using the initially published age – sex national norms. The predicators were measured by four categories by the type of viewing content on TV and DVD/ video; children’s none educational, baby DVDs/videos, and grownup TV. The average daily viewing was arrived at by calculating as twice as the recorded weekend viewing then adding it to five times the weekday records divided by seven.
4. Were there ethical concerns?
An arbitrary trial should have been conducted on a large scale discouraging parents from letting their children watch DVDs/videos. This would have helped make better conclusions and also provide important information on the negative influence of the DVDs/videos on the children language development.
5. What were the results?
For the children aged 8 to 16 months, it was found that in an hour, a child’s DVD/ video viewing and the CDI score had a significant level. For those children aged between 17 and 24 months, it was found that no significant relationship existed between any media exposure and the CDI scores. It was also found that there was no significant association between the level of parental viewing together with the child and CDI scores of both (8-16) and (17-24) months. Music also had no significant level for all the children.
A 16.99 point decrease in the CDI score was linked with DVD/video viewing at 95 percent significant level. (-26.20 to -7.77). Reading once daily as compared to less regularly had a percentile increases in the normed CDI score of 7.07 for children aged 8- to 16-months while it was found at 11.72 for those aged between 17 and 24-months at a 95% confidence interval. Story telling was recorded more than once a daily as compared to less frequently which had increases in normed CDI scores of 6.47 points at 95% CI(0.23 to 12.71) for the younger children and 7.13 points (95% CI _ _0.11 to 14.37) for the older children.
6. What did the investigators conclude?
The study showed that children viewing DVDs/videos had a negative influence on language development for the younger children aged 8 to 16 months. Firstly, this is because DVD/video advertisements promoted cognitive, language has well as brain development. The parents therefore relied on the DVDs/videos for language development. Secondly, the variables not determined in the study lead to increased DVD/video watching as well as decreased language development like is the case for parents less concerned about their children language development.
Lastly, the negative influence of DVD/video watching on child language development was associated with the relationship between swift brain development below three years and the environment. Such an environment can be DVD/video watching which is negative, and hence negative language development. Parents should therefore prevent the exposure of DVDs/video viewing for their children below the age of 17 months for better language development. For example parents buying DVDs/video to help their children in language development.
7. What converging evidence would strengthen these conclusions?
The study used only one developmental measure for language development, but to strengthen the conclusions made from the study, another measure could be introduced. The correlation nature for study could also avoid making casual inferences. Another experiment that would support the take home message for the study would include following up the children to check whether the DVD influence caused a lasting impact on children development. The study could also be more specific to those particular features of DVDs that cause the negative impact.
Work Cited
Zimmerman, Frederick J., Dimitri A. Christaki, and Andrew N. Meltzoff. "Associations between Media Viewing and Language Development in Children Under Age 2 Years." The Journal of Pediatrics (2007): n. pag. Web.
