Electronic Toys Decrease the Quantity and Lexical Diversity of Spoken Language Produced by Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Age-Matched Children With Typical Development

Abstract

Many young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have language delays. Play-based interactions present a rich, naturalistic context for supporting language and communication development, but electronic toys may compromise the quality of play interactions. This study examined how electronic toys impact the quantity and lexical diversity of spoken language produced by children with ASD and age-matched children with typical development (TD), compared to traditional toys without electronic features. Twenty-eight parent-child dyads (14 per group) played with both electronic and traditional toy sets in a counter-balanced order. We transcribed child speech during both play sessions and derived the number of utterances and number of different word (NDW) roots per minute that children produced. Children with ASD and children with TD talked significantly less and produced significantly fewer unique words during electronic toy play than traditional toy play. In this way, children appear to take a “backseat” to electronic toys, decreasing their communicative contributions to play-based social interactions with their parents. These findings highlight the importance of understanding how toy type can affect parent-child play interactions and the subsequent learning opportunities that may be created. Play-based interventions for children with ASD may be most effective when they incorporate traditional toys, rather than electronic toys.

Embracing neurodiversity in doll play: Investigating neural and language correlates of doll play in a neurodiverse sample

“…The fact that these children spoke more during joint doll play than joint tablet play implies that doll play increased the extent to which these children socially and linguistically engaged with their social partner. Previous research has reported that non‐digital toy play is associated with greater quality and quantity of language in parent–toddler and parent–child dyads compared to digital play (Ewin et al, 2021; Sanders, 2020; Sturman et al, 2022; Venker & Johnson, 2022). In contrast, children with a higher degree of autistic traits talked more during solo doll play than solo tablet play but showed no differentiation in joint contexts.…”

Requirements elicitation in board game design for children with developmental language disorder (DLD)

“…Meanwhile, conventional toys such as flashcards and puzzles, are also seen to increase effective communication children (Jadi, 2019), whilst electronically-enhanced conventional toys can often lead to adverse effects during therapy, such as a reduction in the lexical diversity of the child's spoken language. (Venker & Johnson, 2022). A number of differences can therefore be formulated when SLPs decide on whether to opt for conventional toys or board games as part of their prescribed treatment activity:…”

Relationship Between Speech Delay and Smart Media in Children: A Systematic Review

“…The findings from the included studies indicated that media devices affect the development of speech in children [11,15,21,22,27,[29][30][31][32]. There was a high likelihood of language development problems in children possessing electronic devices (Odd ratio [OR] = 3.94, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.97-7.84, p < 0.001) [23].…”

“…Another study found that increased media device access led to lower language scores in preteens who used them frequently, especially if conversations with parents were limited by the device use [ 11 ]. For children with autism spectrum disorders and children without autism, the average count of child utterances per minute and the mean number of distinct words per minute were significantly reduced during electronic toy play compared to traditional toy play [ 32 ]. Language acquisition delay was also found to be associated with increased screen time in children aged more than two years (Adjusted OR [aOR] = 20.93, 95% CI: 2.68-163.32, p < 0.01) and less than two years (aOR = 52.92, 95% CI: 12.33-227.21, p < 0.001, respectively) [ 24 ].…”