Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Language in educational apps for pre-schoolers
T2 - A comparison of grammatical constructions and psycholinguistic features in apps, books and child directed speech
AU - Kolak, Joanna
AU - Monaghan, Padraic
AU - Taylor, Gemma
PY - 2023/7/31
Y1 - 2023/7/31
N2 - Language in touchscreen apps could be useful as an additional source of children’s language input, alongside child directed speech (CDS) and books. Here we performed the first analysis of language in apps, as compared with books and CDS. We analysed language in 18 of the most popular educational apps targeting pre-schoolers and compared their language content to children’s books and CDS with respect to types of constructions and psycholinguistic features of words. We found that apps contained lower frequency words and had lower lexical diversity compared to CDS, and shorter utterances compared to books. Apps may thus provide an enriched supplementary form of input for young children, due to containing less frequent words. However, apps do not expose children to a high proportion of questions and complex sentences, both of which are crucial for supporting child’s development of structurally rich constructions.
AB - Language in touchscreen apps could be useful as an additional source of children’s language input, alongside child directed speech (CDS) and books. Here we performed the first analysis of language in apps, as compared with books and CDS. We analysed language in 18 of the most popular educational apps targeting pre-schoolers and compared their language content to children’s books and CDS with respect to types of constructions and psycholinguistic features of words. We found that apps contained lower frequency words and had lower lexical diversity compared to CDS, and shorter utterances compared to books. Apps may thus provide an enriched supplementary form of input for young children, due to containing less frequent words. However, apps do not expose children to a high proportion of questions and complex sentences, both of which are crucial for supporting child’s development of structurally rich constructions.
KW - language in touchscreen apps
KW - children’s books
KW - child-directed speech
U2 - 10.1017/S0305000922000198
DO - 10.1017/S0305000922000198
M3 - Journal article
VL - 50
SP - 895
EP - 921
JO - Journal of Child Language
JF - Journal of Child Language
SN - 0305-0009
IS - 4
ER -