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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Dev. Psychol.
Sec. Development in Infancy
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2024.1463991
This article is part of the Research Topic Early Media Exposure View all 13 articles

Language development in Slovenian toddlers: The role of electronic media, parental knowledge of language development, and parental input

Provisionally accepted
Urška Fekonja Urška Fekonja 1*Ljubica Marjanovič-Umek Ljubica Marjanovič-Umek 1Nika Pogorelc-Jesih Nika Pogorelc-Jesih 1Naja Ferjan Ramírez Naja Ferjan Ramírez 2
  • 1 Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 2 University of Washington, Department of Linguistics, Seattle, Seattle, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study examines the relationships between toddlers' language production, parental language input, media exposure, and parental knowledge of early language development. We used a unique collection of daylong recordings of Slovenian toddlers (age: 16-30 months, N=40, 18 girls) to measure the language environment, toddlers' language production and media exposure. In addition, parental reports of toddlers' media exposure and language ability (using the Slovenian adaptation of the CDI) were collected. The results indicate that toddlers' average exposure to electronic media was rather low, with exposure varying widely across the sample and boys being more exposed to electronic media than girls. Parental language input was related to various measures of toddlers' language. Parents with a greater knowledge of early language development used more parentese, while their toddlers had less exposure to electronic media. In addition, toddlers' media exposure was related to their age, with older toddlers having more exposure to electronic media, and was marginally related to the number of words spoken by adults and parents' education. No significant relationship was found between toddlers' language ability and media exposure when On the other hand, toddlers who were more exposed to electronic media had a larger vocabulary and formed more grammatically complex sentences as measured by the CDI; controlling for toddlers' age.however, these relationships were no longer significant after controlling for toddler's age.

    Keywords: media exposure, language development, Parental knowledge and practice, vocabulary, language imput

    Received: 12 Jul 2024; Accepted: 27 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Fekonja, Marjanovič-Umek, Pogorelc-Jesih and Ferjan Ramírez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Urška Fekonja, Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia

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