Toddlers Using Tablets: They Engage, Play, and Learn

Abstract

Although very young children have unprecedented access to touchscreen devices, there is limited research on how successfully they operate these devices for play and learning. For infants and toddlers, whose cognitive, fine motor, and executive functions are immature, several basic questions are significant: (1) Can they operate a tablet purposefully to achieve a goal? (2) Can they acquire operating skills and learn new information from commercially available apps? (3) Do individual differences in executive functioning predict success in using and learning from the apps? Accordingly, 31 2-year-olds (M = 30.82 month, SD = 2.70; 18 female) were compared with 29 3-year-olds (M = 40.92 month, SD = 4.82; 13 female) using two commercially available apps with different task and skill requirements: (1) a shape matching app performed across 3 days, and (2) a storybook app with performance compared to that on a matched paper storybook. Children also completed (3) the Minnesota Executive Functioning Scale. An adult provided minimal scaffolding throughout. The results showed: (1) toddlers could provide simple goal-directed touch gestures and the manual interactions needed to operate the tablet (2) after controlling for prior experience with shape matching, toddlers’ increased success and efficiency, made fewer errors, decreased completion times, and required less scaffolding across trials, (3) they recognized more story content from the e-book and were less distracted than from the paper book, (4) executive functioning contributed unique variance to the outcome measures on both apps, and (5) 3-year-olds outperformed 2-year-olds on all measures. The results are discussed in terms of the potential of interactive devices to support toddlers’ learning.

Interactive technology use and child development: A systematic review

“…Of the 53 studies included in the review, the majority originated from high‐income countries, most notably Western European countries (Bonneton‐Botté et al, 2020; Clarke & Abbott, 2016; Desoete & Praet, 2013; Di Lieto et al, 2017; Fernández‐Molina et al, 2015; Fikkers et al, 2019; Gremmen et al, 2016; Kiefer et al, 2015; Konok et al, 2021; Kosmas & Zaphiris, 2020; Mayer et al, 2020; Picard et al, 2014; Smeets & Bus, 2012; Teepe et al, 2017; Walter‐Laager et al, 2017), followed by the United States (Antrilli & Wang, 2018; Diehm et al, 2020; Haegele et al, 2011; O'Toole & Kannass, 2018; Parish‐Morris et al, 2013; Rogowsky et al, 2018; Russo‐Johnson et al, 2017; Schmitt et al, 2018; Schroeder & Kirkorian, 2016; Xu et al, 2021; Zhen, 2017; Zheng & Sun, 2021; Zimmermann et al, 2015), Australia (Axford et al, 2018; Barnett et al, 2012; Huber et al, 2018; McNeill et al, 2019, 2021; Neumann, 2014, 2016, 2018; Trost & Brookes, 2021), the United Kingdom (Bedford et al, 2016; Herodotou, 2018; Outhwaite et al, 2019; Portugal et al, 2021; Ross et al, 2016), Taiwan (Lin, 2019; Lin et al, 2017; Lin et al, 2020), and one study each from Canada (Courage et al, 2021), South Korea (Moon et al, 2019), and Israel (Elimelech & Aram, 2020). Only two studies were from middle‐income countries Brazil (Souto et al, 2020; Spinosa et al, 2020) and China (Hu et al, 2020; Liu et al, 2021).…”

“…Twenty‐nine studies were related to cognitive development (Table 5), of which 22 studies were Tier 1 (Antrilli & Wang, 2018; Chen et al, 2013; Courage et al, 2021; Desoete & Praet, 2013; Di Lieto et al, 2017; Elimelech & Aram, 2020; Fernández‐Molina et al, 2015; Haegele et al, 2011; Herodotou, 2018; Huber et al, 2018; Konok et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2021; Neumann, 2018; O'Toole & Kannass, 2018; Outhwaite et al, 2019; Parish‐Morris et al, 2013; Ross et al, 2016; Rogowsky et al, 2018; Schmitt et al, 2018; Schroeder & Kirkorian, 2016; Xu et al, 2021; Zhen, 2017), and seven studies were identified as Tier 2 (Fikkers et al, 2019; McNeill et al, 2019; McNeill et al, 2021; Neumann, 2014; Neumann, 2016; Neumann, 2018; Portugal et al, 2021; Russo‐Johnson et al, 2017).…”

“…Among Tier 1 studies, 14 RCTs (Antrilli & Wang, 2018; Chen et al, 2013; Desoete & Praet, 2013; Elimelech & Aram, 2020; Fernández‐Molina et al, 2015; Haegele et al, 2011; Huber et al, 2018; Neumann, 2018; O'Toole & Kannass, 2018; Outhwaite et al, 2019; Parish‐Morris et al, 2013; Rogowsky et al, 2018; Schmitt et al, 2018; Schroeder & Kirkorian, 2016) and eight quasi‐experimental studies were included in the synthesis (Courage et al, 2021; Di Lieto et al, 2017; Herodotou, 2018; Konok et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2021; Ross et al, 2016; Xu et al, 2021; Zhen, 2017). Studies in Tier 2 included one cohort and five cross‐sectional studies.…”

“…All studies in both tiers were exclusively aimed at exploring the association between use of interactive digital devices and cognitive skills and were focused on general use of touchscreen devices (Courage et al, 2021; Konok et al, 2021; McNeill et al, 2019; McNeill et al, 2021) and educational software system (Fernández‐Molina et al, 2015; Haegele et al, 2011; Huber et al, 2018; Outhwaite et al, 2019; Rogowsky et al, 2018; Zhen, 2017), digital applications such as e‐books (O'Toole & Kannass, 2018; Parish‐Morris et al, 2013), multimedia (Chen et al, 2013), or videogames (Desoete & Praet, 2013; Elimelech & Aram, 2020; Fikkers et al, 2019; Herodotou, 2018; Russo‐Johnson et al, 2017; Schmitt et al, 2018; Schroeder & Kirkorian, 2016). The studies included children from 2 to 5 years.…”

To Game or Not to Game? Efficacy of Using Tablet Games in Vocabulary Intervention for Children with DLD

“…Moreover, tablets are handy devices because they are flat and lightweight with built-in audio and video, which makes them easy to handle and employ in an interactive therapy setting with children. Learning via these devices can be very motivating for children, and there is growing evidence that they can be beneficial to the acquisition of language and literacy in kindergarten and preschool children and support storybook comprehension in 2-and 3-year olds [8,9].…”