Associations between parenting, media use, cumulative risk, and children's executive functioning.

Objective: This study was designed to examine how parenting style, media exposure, and cumulative risk were associated with executive functioning (EF) during early childhood.

Methods: A nationally representative group of US parents/caregivers (N = 1156) with 1 child between 2 and 8 years participated in a telephone survey. Parents were asked to report on their child's exposure to television, music, and book reading through a 24-hour time diary.

Assessing the relationship between pediatric media guidance and media use in American families.

Objective: American parents were surveyed to isolate demographic factors that predict reliance on a pediatrician, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), or both for media guidance. We then investigated whether reliance on these resources resulted in different media practices with children.

Methods: A nationally representative survey was conducted (n = 1454).

Investigating Correlates of Self-Regulation in Early Childhood with a Representative Sample of English-Speaking American Families.

Children who possess less self-regulatory skill are at a disadvantage when compared to children who demonstrate greater skill at regulating their emotions, cognitions and behavior. Children with these regulatory deficits have difficulty connecting with peers, generating relationships with teachers, negotiating their social world, and succeeding academically. By understanding the correlates of self-regulatory abilities, interventions can be developed to ensure that children at-risk for poor self-regulation receive the support necessary to enhance their regulatory skills.

Background television in the homes of US children.

Objective: US parents were surveyed to determine the amount of background television that their children are exposed to as well as to isolate demographic factors associated with increased exposure to background television. After this, we ask how certain home media practices are linked to children's background television exposure.

Methods: US parents/caregivers (N = 1454) with 1 child between the ages of 8 months and 8 years participated in this study.

Visual Attention to Antismoking PSAs: Smoking Cues Versus Other Attention-Grabbing Features.

This study examines how addicted smokers attend visually to smoking-related public service announcements (PSAs) in adults smokers. Smokers' onscreen visual fixation is an indicator of cognitive resources allocated to visual attention. Characteristic of individuals with addictive tendencies, smokers are expected to be appetitively activated by images of their addiction-specifically smoking cues.

Influence of licensed spokescharacters and health cues on children's ratings of cereal taste.

Objective: To investigate whether licensed media spokescharacters on food packaging and nutrition cues affect young children's taste assessment of products.

Design: In this experimental study, children viewed 1 of 4 professionally created cereal boxes and tasted a "new" cereal. Manipulations included presence or absence of licensed cartoon spokescharacters on the box and healthy or sugary cereal name.

Structure and strategies in children's educational television: the roles of program type and learning strategies in children's learning.

Educational TV has been consistently linked to children's learning. In this research, educational TV characteristics were identified, coded, and tested for their influence on children's program-specific comprehension and vocabulary outcomes. Study 1 details a content analysis of TV features including a program's macrostructure (i.

TV as storyteller: how exposure to television narratives impacts at-risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills.

Educational media serve as informal educators within the home by supplementing young children's development. Substantial evidence documents the contributions of educational television to preschoolers' acquisition of a variety of skills; however, television's natural capacity as storyteller and the role it plays in preschoolers' early literacy development has been largely overlooked. This study examined the effects of viewing different TV program types on 311 at-risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills.

Evaluating the educational potential of health PSAs with preschoolers.

Children learn from a variety of televised programs, including the short public service announcements (PSAs) that air between children's programs. PSAs are designed to repetitively expose children to important content ranging from the benefits of reading to health-related messages. The purpose of this study was to evaluate 5 PSAs containing health messages for preschoolers (i.