The major developmental task facing infants and toddlers is learning to communicate. Most babies will learn to talk. However, there are certain higher-order communication skills that are more susceptible to varying amounts of environmental input. These higher-order skills include children's vocabularies and their ability to express their wants and needs. With very young children, linguistic input is primarily a function of those persons in their immediate environment who speak to and with them (i.e. parents, caregivers, siblings). In recent years, however, questions about the role of media, especially television, in young children's lives have arisen. Is television a viable source of linguistic input and can it impact, either positively or negatively, on babies' developing communication skills? My research has found that young children may benefit under the right circumstances.

In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement that children under two should not watch any television. This position is conservative, given that there is very little research that examines television or other media use by babies. Around this time, my colleague Dale Walker was commencing a longitudinal study of infants and toddlers, collecting information about the amount and quality of talk these babies heard in both their childcare settings and their homes, and relating this linguistic input to the babies' vocabularies and expressive language abilities. As part of this larger project, I was able to track both the amount and type of programmes and videos these children were viewing. We followed these babies from six months to 30 months of age, meeting with them, their caregivers, and their families every three months. In order to strengthen our argument that the linguistic input available from television was related to the babies' communication skills, we controlled for both the cumulative contributions related to their families' characteristics (e.g. parent's education and income, other siblings, parental involvement with their child and organisation of their child's home environment) and the child's general cognitive ability.

In prior research with older children, we often analysed categories of programming in relation to child outcomes. For children older than two, we would separate all viewing we considered educational (e.g. Sesame Street, Between the Lions, Dora the Explorer, Arthur and Friends) from all viewing we considered entertainment (e.g. PowerPuff Girls, Disney movies, Scooby Doo) and then use these categories as predictors of various child outcomes. With children over two, these categories are consistently related to positive (educational programming) and negative (entertainment programming) child outcomes, including school readiness, literacy, increased leisure book reading, pro-social behavior, aggressive behavior, poor grades and obesity. However, when we did this type of analysis for the very young children in this sample, these relationships either did not exist or were related in unexpected ways. Developmentally infants and toddlers need early, consistent, and sustained experiences to grow and learn. Because the babies and toddlers in our sample had little experience with televised messages, and because they tended to watch the same television programme or videotape repeatedly, we began to speculate that effects might be more noticeable at the programme level instead of the broader content level. Therefore, we analysed specific television programmes as predictors of language outcomes and found these analyses to be more powerful predictors of language than those analyses at the level of the broader content categories. To select programmes for analyses, we set criteria that at least 25 per cent of our sample needed to have viewed them on at least two occasions. The programmes that fit this criteria included Arthur and Friends, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues, Barney and Friends, Dragon Tales, Sesame Street, and Teletubbies.

We found that babies' first interest in viewing was around nine months of age, ranging between two and 23 months. Around 70 per cent began viewing before 12 months of age, while 30 per cent began viewing after 12 months of age. Number of minutes of viewing began to accelerate around 18 months; by 30 months of age, the toddlers were watching about 9.3 hours of television per week. Most early viewing could be classified as educational programming directed at a child audience.

We computed growth trajectories to determine whether viewing was related to vocabulary size and expressive language use (i.e. frequency of single and multiple word utterances in a naturalistic play session). We found:

• watching Arthur and Friends, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Dora the Explorer, and Blue's Clues was positively related to both vocabulary size and expressive language use (i.e. single/multiple word utterances)
• watching Dragon Tales was positively related to expressive language use and unrelated to vocabulary size
• watching Barney and Friends was positively related to expressive language use and negatively related to vocabulary size
• watching Sesame Street was negatively related to expressive language use and unrelated to vocabulary size
• watching Teletubbies was negatively related to both vocabulary size and expressive language use.

Nonetheless, we do believe that there are possible explanations for why these programmes are associated with increases or decreases in the particular language outcomes. In general language studies, researchers have identified particular communication strategies that either promote or inhibit the use of language in babies and toddlers. These language-promoting strategies include reading stories with tight narrative structures, providing multiple opportunities to respond followed by praise for those responses, and modeling turn-taking in conversation. In contrast, when these language-promoting strategies are not used or are used improperly, it might be expected that decreases in vocabulary or expressive language (i.e. word use) might result. For instance, showing stories with looser narrative structures, little immediate reinforcement or characters modeling a lower-order communication skill (i.e. vocalisations), might inhibit language development.

We found increases in vocabulary size and expressive language use with programmes that featured story book programmes and audience participation programmes. Arthur and Friends, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Dragon Tales are storybook-type programmes that feature story-like formats with tight narrative structures, are visually appealing, and contain opportunities to see and hear vocabulary words embedded in everyday conversation. In other literacy research, picture-book reading is associated with higher vocabularies and other literacy-related skills. Conversely, these programmes may be preferred by young children whose parents read more frequently to them.

Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clues are audience participation programmes that actively solicit feedback and comments from its viewers, praise child responses, and offer definitions and visual demonstrations of various vocabulary words - all strategies known to increase vocabulary and support increased single and multiple word use. Teletubbies features poor language models (primarily vocalisations and single-word utterances). Those children who did view the programme tended to produce more vocalisations and fewer single and multiple word utterances than those who did not view, suggesting that children will model or imitate what they see onscreen.

The findings for Sesame Street and Barney and Friends were puzzling. There is a vast body of literature with numerous positive relationships between viewing both programmes and other cognitive and pro-social outcomes for children over two years of age. It is possible that the loose narrative structure and the changing vignettes of these programmes did not provide enough support to maintain interest and learning throughout the show. Sesame Street was completely redesigned in 2001, after we finished data collection. The new format features tighter narratives with content more suitable for younger viewers. In other research with Barney and Friends, word learning occurred best when there was an adult co-viewer present to support programme messages. However, increased interactions with adults were noted for a sample of toddlers after viewing the programme for two weeks.

So what does this study mean for parents and caregivers of babies and toddlers? It underscores the importance of choosing programmes that are age-appropriate and that have well-developed curricula. In addition, we would advocate using these programmes in moderation, perhaps as another set of tools for learning like any other activities you would select for your children. In addition, the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation may be premature especially for those children who might not have access to other educational resources or activities. These children may especially benefit from educational television because it can provide opportunities for early language learning not otherwise available. This early learning may then produce a snowball effect for positive developmental outcomes. In other work that we have completed, we have found that educational viewing at age five was positively related to increases in high school grade point average and leisure book reading. Ultimately, content matters most, especially for the youngest children who have a significant dearth of experience. Children will learn whatever they are allowed to view. It is up to us as parents, educators, and producers to provide them with the best and most appropriate content possible.

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