Effects of new and old media on young children’s language acquisition, development, and early literacy : findings from a longitudinal study of Australian children

The current generation of young children has been described as “digital natives”, having been born into a ubiquitous digital media environment. They are envisaged as educationally independent of the guided interaction provided by “digital immigrants”: parents and teachers. This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to study children’s (aged 0-8 years) development of vocabulary and traditional literacy; access to digital devices; parental mediation practices; the child’s use of digital devices as recorded in time-diaries and, finally, the association between patterns of media use and family contexts on children’s learning. The analysis shows the importance of the parental context framing media use in acquisition of vocabulary, and suggests that computer (but not games) use is associated with more developed language skills. Independently of these factors raw exposure to television is not harmful to learning.

Digital natives? : new and old media and children’s language acquisition

The current generation of young children has been described as “digital natives”, having been born into a ubiquitous digital media environment. They are envisaged as educationally independent of the guided interaction provided by “digital immigrants”: parents and teachers. This paper uses data from the multiples waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to study the effect of various media on children’s development of vocabulary and traditional literacy. Previous research has suggested that time spent watching television is associated with less time spent reading, and ultimately, with inferior educational outcomes. The early studies of the “new” digital media (computers, games consoles, mobile phones, the Internet, etc.) assumed these devices would have similar effects on literacy outcomes to those associated with television. Moreover, these earlier studies relied on poorer measures of time spent in media use and usually did not control for the context of the child’s media use. Fortunately, LSAC contains measures of access to digital devices; parental mediation practices; the child’s use of digital devices as recorded in time use diaries; direct measures of the child’s passive vocabulary; and teachers’ ratings of the child’s literacy. The analysis presented shows the importance of the parental context framing the child’s media use in promoting the acquisition of vocabulary, and suggests that computer (but not games) use is associated with more developed language skills. Independently of these factors, raw exposure to television is not harmful to learning, as previously thought.

Globalisation and the restructuring of higher education for new knowledge economies: new dangers or old habits troubling gender equity work in universities?

This article undertakes a feminist critique of the restructuring of the modern university in Australia. It considers the interaction of the processes of globalisation, corporatisation (through the twin strategies of marketisation and managerialism) and the social relations of gender, and their implication for gender equity work in the academy. The paper locates the reform of Australian universities within their Western context, and considers the gendered effects of the new disciplinary technologies of quality assurance and online learning on the position of women academics. It concludes with some comments about the shift in language from equity to diversity which has accompanied corporatisation, and how this has effectively coopted women's intellectual labour to do the work of the entrepreneurial university.

Over and undernutrition in the children of Australian immigrants : assessing the influence of birthplace of primary carer and english language use at home on the nutritional status of 4-5-year-olds

Objective. To document the relationship between childhood nutrition status and ethnicity (defined as the birthplace of primary carer and English language use at home) using a nationally representative sample of 4- to 5-year-old children. Design and participants. Cross-sectional population survey of 4 983 4- to 5-year-old children (2 537 boys and 2 446 girls) as part of Wave 1 (2004) of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Main outcome measures. Overweight/obesity and thinness using the newly published body mass index cut-off points of Cole (2007). Results. In total, 20.6% (95%CI 19.5, 21.7) of children aged 4 to 5 years were estimated to be overweight or obese, while 1.0% (95%CI 0.8, 1.3) was thin. Unadjusted analyses showed a significant relationship between childhood overweight/obesity and primary carer's country of birth (χ2=15.9, p<0.01), but the significance became minimal after adjusting for socio-economic and demographic factors. The adjusted model suggests that boys of primary carer's born in Europe (excluding UK and Ireland) were less likely to be overweight/obese than boys whose primary carers were born in Australia, but the overall effect size was negligible. No difference was found for girls. In addition, boys who mainly spoke English at home were less likely to be overweight/obese (OR=0.49; 95%CI 0.27, 0.88; p=0.017) and thin (OR=0.27; 95%CI 0.12, 0.62; p=0.002) than boys who spoke a language other than English at home. No difference was found for girls. Conclusions. There is a relationship between main language spoken at home and nutritional status in 4-5-year-old boys but not girls. The use of English language at home may be a protective factor for normal weight in young boys. After adjustment for socio-economic and demographics characteristics, there was a negligible relationship between overweight/obesity in children and their primary carer's country of birth.

Digital natives? New and old media and children's outcomes.

The current generation of young children has been described as 'digital natives', having been born into a ubiquitous digital media environment. They are envisaged as educationally independent of the guided interaction provided by 'digital immigrants': parents and teachers. This article uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to study the development of vocabulary and traditional literacy in children aged from 0 to 8 years; their access to digital devices; parental mediation practices; children's use of digital devices as recorded in time-diaries; and, finally, the association between patterns of media use and family contexts on children's learning. The analysis shows the importance of the parental context in framing media use for acquiring vocabulary, and suggests that computer (but not games) use is associated with more developed language skills. Independently of these factors, raw exposure to television is not harmful to learning.

Radio tuning search old style SFX

A sound recording of a very old, large radio/record player with fabulous speakers and vintage sound.

Play, language and social skills of children attending a play-based curriculum school and a traditionally structured classroom curriculum school in low socioeconomic areas

Aim and method: A comparison study of four six-year-old children attending a school with a play-based curriculum and a school with a traditionally structured classroom from low socioeconomic areas was conducted in Victoria, Australia. Children’s play,
language and social skills were measured in February and again in August. At baseline assessment there was a combined sample of 31 children (mean age 5.5 years, SD 0.35 years; 13 females and 18 males). At follow-up there was a combined sample of 26
children (mean age 5.9 years, SD 0.35 years; 10 females, 16 males).
Results: There was no significant difference between the school groups in play, language, social skills, age and sex at baseline assessment. Compared to norms on a standardised assessment, all the children were beginning school with delayed play ability. At follow-up assessment, children at the play-based curriculum school had made significant gains in all areas assessed (p values ranged from 0.000 to 0.05). Children at the school with the traditional structured classroom had made significant positive gains in use of symbols in play (p < 0.05) and semantic language (p < 0.05). At follow-up, there were significant differences between schools in elaborate play (p < 0.000), semantic language (p < 0.000), narrative language (p < 0.01) and social connection (p < 0.01), with children in the play-based curriculum school having significantly higher scores in play, narrative language and language and lower scores in social disconnection.
Implications: Children from low SES areas begin school at risk of failure as skills in play, language and social skills are delayed. The school experience increases children’s skills, with children in the play-based curriculum showing significant improvements in all areas assessed. It is argued that a play-based curriculum meets children’s developmental and learning needs more effectively. More research is needed to replicate these results.

Metadiscourse functions in English and Persian sociology articles : a study in contrastive rhetoric

This study on contrastive rhetoric reports on metadiscourse functions in sociology articles in Persian and English. The results have revealed a higher number of metadiscourse elements in the English texts. Among the different metadiscourse elements used, text connectors are the most frequently employed in both languages. Modality markers are the second most frequent in both languages although the English writers used nearly twice the number of these markers. Overall, it is found that the frequency of textual metadiscourse markers is greater than the interpersonal markers in both language samples. It was further revealed that the Persian writers of sociology texts are less interested in explicitly orienting the readers and some of the main points in an article, especially in the concluding section, are left for the readers to infer. This, we believe, is the result of less reliance on academic writing in the educational system of the country. Instead, the Iranians are largely encouraged to employ a flowery language and rhetoric to decorate their writing in their school years which makes them less attentive of their readers.

An examination of the associations among multiple memory systems, past tense, and vocabulary in typically developing 5 year old children

Purpose: Considerable research has investigated the role of verbal working memory in language development in children with and without language problems. Much less is currently known about the relationship between language and the declarative and procedural memory systems. This study examined whether these 2 memory systems were related to typically developing children's past tense and lexical knowledge.

Method: Fifty-eight typically developing children approximately 5 years of age completed a battery of linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks, including tests of vocabulary, past tense production, and procedural and declarative memory.

Results: The results showed that declarative and procedural memory were not correlated with either regular or irregular past tense use. A significant correlation was observed between declarative memory and vocabulary.

Conclusions: The results of the study were not consistent with the view that the declarative and procedural memory systems support children's use of the regular and irregular past tense. However, evidence was found suggesting that declarative memory supports vocabulary in this age group.

The role of verbal and nonverbal memory in the family pictures Subtest: Data from children with specific language impairment

This study examined the contribution of verbal and visual memory to performance on the Family Pictures subtest of the Children's Memory Scale. This subtest purports to assess declarative memory functioning in the visual/nonverbal domain. A total of 115 nine-year-old children participated in this study. Fifty-eight had specific language impairment (SLI), whilst the remaining 57 were typically developing (TD), with no history of language difficulties. Results showed that the children with SLI, who had intact declarative memory for visual but not verbal information, obtained significantly lower scores on the Family Pictures subtest when compared to the TD group. Regression analyses revealed that across the entire sample, individual differences on the Family Pictures subtest was best predicted by a measure of verbal working memory. These results question whether the Family Pictures subtest can be considered a measure of visual memory in pediatric populations. These results have implications for the interpretation of scores on this subtest regarding the nature of the types of neurocognitive difficulties children may exhibit.

Use of reference in the narratives of Kurdish-Persian bilingual children

This study investigates some of the differences and similarities between Kurdish-Persian bilinguals and Persian monolinguals with respect to the use of referring expressions in spoken narratives. The narratives were elicited from 36 participants, consisting of 24 bilinguals (groups 1 and 2) and 12 monolinguals (group 3) in the first four grades of primary school using the Mayer’s (1969) book ‘Frog, where are you?’. The results have revealed that group 1 (bilingual told the story in Kurdish) used definite noun phrases most frequently followed by zero anaphors, indefinite noun phrases and pronouns. Group 2 who narrated the story in Persian produced definite nouns most frequently followed by pronouns, zero anaphors and indefinite noun phrases and group 3 (Persian monolinguals) employed definite noun phrases followed by zero anaphors, pronouns, and indefinite noun phrases. The significant difference between groups 1 and 2 and groups 2 and 3 has been in indefinite noun phrases and between groups 1 and 3 in the use of pronouns. One reason is that children universally apply similar strategies regardless of their first language (Berman, 2001). The conclusion is that some of the differences are due to the difference in the structure between Persian and the dialects of Kurdish.

Developing in a new language-speaking setting

This study investigated the effect of English-language acquisition on the learning experiences of a four-year-old Taiwanese immigrant child in a state kindergarten in New Zealand. Data was collected through child observations and parents’ and teachers’ interviews. The child’s learning experience was analysed based on five behaviours –‘taking an interest’, ‘being involved’, ‘persisting with difficulty’, ‘expressing a point of view’, and ‘taking responsibility’ – adopted from the child assessment technique of ‘Learning Stories’ utilised in many childcare services in New Zealand. Results suggested that, regardless of English-language incompetence, the child demonstrated learning dispositions under two circumstances: first, there was little interaction required between him and the English-speaking children; second there was a teacher participating in what he was doing. It is suggested that the child’s learning outcomes were contingent on the situations in which he found himself.

Building a model of support for preschool children with speech and language disorders

Speech and language disorders impede young children’s abilities to communicate and are often associated with a number of behavioural problems arising in the preschool classroom. This paper reports a small-scale study that investigated 23 Australian educators’ and 7 Speech Pathologists’ experiences in working with three to five year old children with speech and language disorders. The participants responded to a questionnaire relating to the types of SaLD; social and emotional challenges experienced by children; their role in providing support and issues confronting both professions. The findings highlighted that educators play a valuable role in supporting children’s speech and language disorders through the social context of the preschool classroom. Furthermore inter-professional practice between Speech Pathologists and educators was viewed as highly valuable. Drawing upon these findings, a model of support is presented to improve interventions for holistic development.

Two-year outcomes of a population-based intervention for preschool language delay : an RCT

OBJECTIVE: We have previously shown short-term benefits to phonology, letter knowledge, and possibly expressive language from systematically ascertaining language delay at age 4 years followed by the Language for Learning intervention. Here, we report the trial's definitive 6-year outcomes. METHODS: Randomized trial nested in a population-based ascertainment. Children with language scores >1.25 SD below the mean at age 4 were randomized, with intervention children receiving 18 1-hour home-based therapy sessions. Primary outcome was receptive/expressive language. Secondary outcomes were phonological, receptive vocabulary, literacy, and narrative skills; parent-reported pragmatic language, behavior, and health-related quality of life; costs of intervention; and health service use. For intention-to-treat analyses, trial arms were compared using linear regression models. RESULTS: Of 1464 children assessed at age 4, 266 were eligible and 200 randomized; 90% and 82% of intervention and control children were retained respectively. By age 6, mean language scores had normalized, but there was little evidence of a treatment effect for receptive (adjusted mean difference 2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI] -1.2 to 5.7; P = .20) or expressive (0.8; 95% CI -1.6 to 3.2; P = .49) language. Of the secondary outcomes, only phonological awareness skills (effect size 0.36; 95% CI 0.08-0.65; P = .01) showed benefit. Costs were higher for intervention families (mean difference AU$4276; 95% CI: $3424 to $5128). CONCLUSIONS: Population-based intervention targeting 4-year-old language delay was feasible but did not have lasting impacts on language, possibly reflecting resolution in both groups. Long-term literacy benefits remain possible but must be weighed against its cost.