Language in educational apps for pre-schoolers : A comparison of grammatical constructions and psycholinguistic features in apps, books and child directed speech

Kolak, Joanna and Monaghan, Padraic and Taylor, Gemma (2023) Language in educational apps for pre-schoolers : A comparison of grammatical constructions and psycholinguistic features in apps, books and child directed speech. Journal of Child Language, 50 (4). pp. 895-921. ISSN 0305-0009

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Abstract

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.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Child Language
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3310
Subjects:
?? language in touchscreen appschildren’s bookschild-directed speechlinguistics and languagelanguage and linguisticsgeneral psychologyexperimental and cognitive psychologydevelopmental and educational psychologypsychology(all) ??
ID Code:
169551
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
28 Apr 2022 14:55
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
16 Jul 2024 11:50