"Did you know that toddlers learn new words just as well through conversations on Skype as through conversations in person (and much better than simply watching a passive video)?"
I found this point quite interesting, because I have heard the constant argument that the internet is ruining our language development. Isn't it true that the slang and textisms of today are the reason children no longer are creative writers? According to the 2014 article written by Roseberry, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff named "Skype Me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language.", the opposite is true
Although we don't completely know how language acquisition happens, we know that it happens due to social language interaction. As a matter of fact, people who hear language but don't have interactive experiences to enact that language will lose their chance to acquire language skills. One example of this is Genie the Wild Child, whose parents kept her locked up and didn't speak to her for nearing 12 years. by the time she was rescued, she had all but lost her abilities to learn new words and phrases. For this experiment, researchers drew on their knowledge of interactive word acquisition to complete their study. The experimenters took 36 toddlers aged 24-30 months and randomly sorted them into one of 3 categories: live-interaction learning, "yoked" learning (pre-recorded videos), and live video chat learning. They presented the babies with action verbs that they had never been introduced to to see if they would pay attention to the instructive adult, and if they would retain words.
Babies in the live video chat condition did excellent; not only did they keep their eyes trained to the adult, but they managed to retain the words they were taught and start to use them in other forms and contexts! Video chat was an excellent mediator of learning. The important part was social contingency: babies needed to have an adult who gave them confident and immediate responses. So if you're out of town and you want to talk to your child over Skype, maybe read them a bed time story or try and teach them some new things, don't worry! It will be just like you're there.
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