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Alan L. Mendelsohn, MD; Samantha B. Berkule, PhD; Suzy Tomopoulos, MD; Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, PhD; Harris S. Huberman, MD; Jose Alvir, DrPH; Benard P. Dreyer, MD

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2008;162(5):411-417.

Objective  To assess verbal interactions related to television and other electronic media exposure among mothers and 6 month-old-infants.

Design  Cross-sectional analysis of 154 mother-infant dyads participating in a long-term study related to early child development.

Setting  Urban public hospital.

Participants  Low socioeconomic status mothers of 6-month-old infants.

Main Exposure  Media exposure and content.

Main Outcome Measures  Mother-infant verbal interaction associated with media exposure and maternal coviewing.

Results  Of 154 low socioeconomic status mothers, 149 (96.8%) reported daily media exposure in their infants, with median exposure of 120 (interquartile range, 60-210) minutes in a 24-hour period. Among 426 program exposures, mother-infant interactions were reported during 101 (23.7%). Interactions were reported most frequently with educational young child–oriented media (42.8% of programs), compared with 21.3% of noneducational young child–oriented programs (adjusted odds ratio, 0.4; 95% confidence interval, 0.1-0.98) and 14.7% of school-age/teenage/adult–oriented programs (adjusted odds ratio, 0.2; 95% confidence interval, 0.1-0.3). Among coviewed programs with educational content, mothers reported interactions during 62.7% of exposures. Coviewing was not reported more frequently for educational young child–oriented programs.

Conclusions  We found limited verbal interactions during television exposure in infancy, with interactions reported for less than one-quarter of exposures. Although interactions were most commonly reported among programs with educational content that had been coviewed, programs with educational content were not more likely to be coviewed than were other programs. Our findings do not support development of infant-directed educational programming in the absence of strategies to increase coviewing and interactions.

Author Affiliations: Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine (Drs Mendelsohn, Berkule, Tomopoulos, Huberman, and Dreyer), and Department of Applied Psychology, New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (Dr Tamis-LeMonda), and Global Medical Research and Development, Pfizer, Inc (Dr Alvir), New York, New York; and Department of Pediatrics, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn (Dr Huberman).

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