Infants Learn Baby Signs From Video #MMPMID25622926
Dayanim S; Namy LL
Child Dev 2015[May]; 86 (3): 800-11 PMID25622926show ga
There is little evidence that infants learn from infant-oriented educational videos and television programming. This four week longitudinal experiment investigated 15-month-olds? (N=92) ability to learn ASL signs (e.g., patting head for hat) from at-home viewing of instructional video, either with or without parent support, compared to traditional parent instruction and a no-exposure control condition. Forced choice, elicited production, and parent report measures indicate learning across all three exposure conditions, with a trend towards more robust learning in the parent support conditions, regardless of medium. There were no differences between experimental and control conditions in the acquisition of corresponding verbal labels. This constitutes the first experimental evidence of infants? ability to learn expressive communication from commercially available educational videos.