power to the people - Swinburne University of Technology

child development
Grandparents rarely try them, parents are getting the hang of them,
teens are glued to them and young children are fascinated by them.
If you put an iPad or other tablet computer in front of most
toddlers, they seem immediately comfortable manipulating its
touch-screen controls. However, many parents worry that tablets
add to the negative effects on their child’s development of too
much screen time.
Dr Jordy Kaufman, senior research fellow at Swinburne, watched
his son use a tablet computer and decided to explore the concerns in greater
detail. He started by noting an important distinction between the effect of television
viewing and the use of tablets.
“Research into the negative effects of television has been lumped onto tablets,”
he says. “Being on a touch-screen device is more interactive. It’s not right to assume
that sitting in front of the TV has the same effects on children as using tablets.”
Dr Kaufman is founder and director of the BabyLab at Swinburne, which is one of
Australia’s first research facilities to specialise in child cognitive brain research and
social development from birth. He moved from the UK to Australia after completing
his PhD in developmental psychology at Duke University in the US and a postdoctoral
fellowship at the University of London in developmental cognitive
neuroscience.
Google comes on board
Dr Kaufman’s research has attracted attention around the world, and
last year he received a Google Faculty Research Award to advance the
work in collaboration with fellow Swinburne academics Dr Mark Finn,
Dr Anthony Bartel and Peter Ciszewski. “It was a great boost, we were
one of two Australian teams to receive a grant,” Dr Kaufman says.
Dr Kaufman’s research team includes two PhD students, honour
students and undergraduate volunteers, working with volunteer
parents and children from across Melbourne. “We usually get around
15 children in a week from about four months to over six years of age.
We’ve had 40 to 50 children take part in the touch-screen research,”
Dr Kaufman says.
This research looks at attentiveness, impulsivity, learning and
emotional effects of a touch-screen environment with children
aged four to seven. Experiments contrast the attention spans
and problem-solving capabilities of children using
traditional toys with their experiences using
a tablet.
“We give them creative activities such as
drawing and block building,” Dr Kaufman says.
“So far, there has been no difference between touch-screen and real-world activities
when it comes to slow-paced creative activities. We are not finding any difference
in their skills whether they are using a tablet or a toy. If you are careful with the
applications you choose, we haven’t found any negative effects on attention span.”
Parents have voiced concern that the virtual screen environment might take away
from the physical world. To test this, Dr Kaufman’s team give children a difficult
problem-solving task. “First we use real objects, and then we get the children to
practise the same task using an application on an iPad. Both groups of kids improve
dramatically on both the iPad and using the real object.”
Love at first byte
Dr Kaufman said many parents found asking their child to stop playing a touch screen
caused tantrums and tears. “We are just beginning to look at emotional findings,” he
says. “We want to determine if these responses are related to it being a touch screen
or if they are about stopping them from doing something they are enjoying.”
Another area of research includes video communication, through programs such
as Skype. Postgraduate student Joanne Tarasuik, who is a part-time researcher
on the touch-screen work, is undertaking her PhD on the video research. Testing
methods include separating children from their parents and providing the child
with a video link to the parent. “When there is a video link, the children don’t
act like they are alone and are happy to explore,” Dr Kaufman says. “We will
also look at video versus audio and parents versus strangers over video.”
Baby brain development
Brain activity in babies has been a developing area of research for
Dr Kaufman since 2009. “The babies listen to sounds and see pictures,
and we look at what the brain does when you show them something
different,” he says.
“Other work with young infants is about understanding
how babies’ brains help keep objects in mind. It’s not always
necessarily out of sight, out of mind. Babies remember what was
hidden and where it was hidden.”
This research has led to working with infants with a high
hereditary risk of autism. The team received $85,000 from
the Bennelong Foundation towards this research, which
studies babies who have an older sibling with autism.
“We measure brain activity and social gaze behaviours
to determine if these measures predict a later outcome
of autism,” Dr Kaufman says. “Studies have found that it
can be more effective if autism is detected early and can
be very helpful with babies.” l
CHILD’s PLAY
The explosion of tablet technology has created
yet another parenting dilemma: what are the effects
on our children of using these devices? A Swinburne
team is hoping to resolve this question in its study
of infant cognitive development.
by fiona kiLlman
6 | swinburne | venture | issue ONE 2013