Digital tech can offer rich opportunities for child development, study says

Description

A two-year study, Toddlers, Tech and Talk, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and led by researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), working with Lancaster, Queen’s Belfast, Strathclyde and Swansea universities, looked at children’s interactions with everything from Amazon Alexa to Ring doorbells, in diverse communities across the UK, to find out how tech was influencing 0- to three-year-olds’ early talk and literacy. It examined how children use technology with parents or by themselves, whether taking photos and videos, using learning apps and playing games, listening and singing to songs, talking about favourite characters, or chatting on video calls.