Effects of infant-parent play with a technology-enhanced toy: affordance-related actions and communicative interactions.

Effects of infant-parent play with a technology-enhanced toy: affordance-related actions and communicative interactions. Infant-parent play with toys is an early form of socialcommunication, and the toy features (i.e., affordances), as well as thechild's language competence, contribute to the developmental levelof the play and the types of play actions that occur. This research,conducted in cooperation with a toy manufacturer, investigated how theaffordances of a technology-enhanced toy were used by 26 infant-parentpairs during six clinical sessions of play with the toy. The types ofplay, the features of the toy that elicited play, the humor elicited bythe toy, and the communicative interactions of the parent and child wereobserved. Results indicated that certain affordances of the toy wereused in exploration, practice play, and social games and were related toepisodes of child laughter. The communicative interactions of theparents and the language patterns used in the sessions grew incomplexity as the children's language facility increased. Theaffordances of the toy played a role in a variety of parent-childinteractions and joint attention experiences. Keywords: augmented toys, technology-enhanced toys, infant-parentinteraction, play, language ********** Many of the toys now designed for young children containtechnology-enhanced elements. For example, a stuffed bear or doll may"speak" when a button is pushed, and a toy phone may playmusic as well as imitations of dial tones when activated. A commonbelief is that such technology-enhanced toys may affect socializationduring play because no adult presence or interaction is needed. Anotherconcern is that technology-enhanced toys may detract from usingimagination during play, conjuring up images of children engaging insolitary play with few communication interactions and minimalelaborative play actions. These technology-enhanced toys also maydetract from time young children spend playing withnon-technology-enhanced toys and engaging in fundamental play withobjects. Presently, there is limited research on whether such toy playhas either positive or harmful effects. Perhaps technology-enhanced toysmay actually encourage parent-child interactions or be a catalyst tofacilitate imaginative play. This article discusses research conductedwith a technology-enhanced infant and toddler toy that addressed some ofthese questions by placing the toy play in the context of parent-childinteraction. BACKGROUND Theorists and researchers have noted that young children'sactive exploration, practice, pretense, and social game play enhancetheir development of concepts and language, and evidence of thisdevelopment can be gained by observing such play (e.g., Piaget, 1945;Vygotsky, 1967). Exploration involves perceptually examining thefeatures of the object and performing the actions it suggests--that is,finding out what the affordances of the object are that prompt possibleactions (Gibson, 1969). During the entire sensorimotor period ofchildren' s development (birth to age 2), exploration ofenvironmental objects (including toys and people) is a common activity.Play expands on exploratory acts by attempting to test the range ofaffordance possibilities--that is, by finding out what the player can dowith the object, not just finding out what actions the object affordsperceptually (Hutt, 1979). Types of Early Play In play, young children use objects in a wide variety of ways basedon their choices and motivations. From about age 7 to 8 months,children's practice play with objects involving repetition ofsimilar actions, and then elaboration of these actions into a broaderrange of actions, is prominent. It is the most common type of playduring the infancy period. However, as myelination of the brain'sfrontal lobe begins in the latter half of the first year, infants alsoenjoy social "turn-taking" games with parents (Bergen &Coscia, 2000). These games typically involve an object, such as ablanket (for "peek-a-boo"), or a variety of objects (for"hide and find"), but the parent is the primary affordanceobject. By age 18 to 30 months, pretense, which involves thetransformation of objects and actions, begins, and this play is usuallyalso facilitated by parents. "Feeding" a doll with an emptycup is an early example. In pretense, an object may be used in many waysthat are not what its designer intended, and language labels are used toaid the transformation. For example, a block can be a"sandwich" and then it is played with in a very different wayfrom that which the original affordances suggested. Youngchildren's humor development accompanies their social and cognitivegrowth (Bergen, 1998; McGhee, 1971) and also can be observed in theirplay. Parent-Child Play Interactions Several studies have observed mother-child interaction during toyplay and book reading (Jones & Adamson, 1987; Lewis & Gregory,1987; Snow et al., 1976). O'Brien and Nagel (1987) found that thetype of toy being played with affected the amount and function ofmaternal speech. Toy play can be seen as a form of early communicativefunction, as it establishes shared meanings between the mother and child(McCune, 1992). Shared meanings during mother-child play often includemany similar meanings expressed later in early verbal expressions(Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979; McCune,1992; Terrell, Schwartz, Prelock, & Mesick, 1984). Toy play is aperfect time for adults to scaffold language as the context is basedaround the child's explorations and interests. This child-focusedcontext allows the adult to secure the child's attention andenhances mutual communication between adult and child. Parents have theopportunity to enhance the play environment by attending to, respondingto, and encouraging communication. Turn-taking games and socialinteractions during infant play predict early communicative andlinguistic acquisition (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984; Bruner, 1975;McArthur & Adamson, 1996; Tomasello & Farrar, 1986). Maternal responsiveness is an important aspect that directlyrelates to joint attention in early language acquisition because mothersare focusing on the same interest as their children (Tamis-LeMonda,Bornstein, & Baumwell, 2001). Mothers, however, are not the onlyimportant person during responsive interaction; the child must firstexpress a communicative intent, to which mothers then respond in asensitive and specific manner (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2001). Theresearchers found that for children at age 9 months, maternalresponsiveness facilitated early expressive achievements in imitations.First words and maternal responsiveness at age 13 months predictedincreased timing in the first 50 words, use of two or more utterances,and the use of language to discuss past events (Tamis-LeMonda et al.,2001). Thus, mothers' sensitivity to the objects and actions ofinterest to the child, rather than the objects to which the mothers wishto direct the child's focus, plays a major role in early languageacquisition. Research has specifically identified strategies parents use toenhance language development in play with infants and toddlers.Consideration of parental language narratives during play (Tamis-LeMondaet al., 2001) and the concept of joint attention (Dunham & Dunham,1992) have been especially useful in examining settings of shared playwith toys. In shared toy play, a wide range of parent-childcommunicative interactions has been noted (e.g., affirmations, comments,directives, expansions, questions), and these interactions are reportedto affect the quality of play and the fostering of language skills(Laasko, Poikkkeus, Eklund, & Lyytien, 1999; Newland, Roggman, &Boyce, 2001; Rollins, Marchman, & Mehta, 1998; Saxton, 1997; K.E.Smith et al., 1996; Spencer & Meadow-Orlans, 1996; Tamis-LeMonda etal., 2001). Maternal responsiveness and semantically related utteranceshave a major role in increasing early language skills of a child. Inother words, it is important for a mother to focus attention on what thechild is doing and saying and respond in relation to these verbalutterances and actions. Thus, variations in children's acquisitionof language can be attributed partially to the verbal information andmeanings contributed by adult communicative play partners (Tamis-LeMondaet al., 2001), because optimal language learning occurs when adultspeech is relevant to and focused on the child's attention andobjects of interest (Bloom, 1998; Bloom, Tinker, & Margulis, 1993). Characteristics of parent-child interactions also have been shownto affect the quality of young children's pretend play. Suchinteractions during child-preferred activities and the provision of toymaterials that promote social engagement in play have demonstrated theimportance of the interactive component of toy play. Much parent-childinteraction research has been conducted with general, nonspecific toys,such as baby dolls, cups and spoons, trucks, boxes, cloth pieces, size-and shape-matching toys, balls, books, toy telephones, and nesting sets(Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991; Lowe, 1975; Tamis-LeMonda & Bornstein, 1994;Umek & Musek, 2001). For example, Tamis-LeMonda et al. (2001) foundthat when mothers of 9-month-old infants were responsive to childattempts, this facilitated early expressive achievements in imitation.Mothers' responsiveness with 13-month-old children predicted anearlier occurrence of the first 50 words and the use of language todiscuss past events. Research also has been conducted on playful child-parentinteractions that elicit humor expression in young children (Bergen,2006; McGhee, 2002). For example, Bergen (1998) reported that parentalplayful behaviors and responsiveness to humor elicited child humorexpression. With the rise of technological advances in toy design andincreased marketing of technology-enhanced toys, researchers arebeginning to study how such toys may influence play activities andparent-child play interactions. Druin (1999) and Levin and Rosenquest(2001) have suggested there may be detrimental effects oftechnology-enhanced toys, such as loss of creativity, whereas otherresearchers (Luckin, Connolly, Plowman, & Airey, 2003; Strommen,1993) have found that technology can have positive influences onchildren's play and learning. For example, Luckin et al. (2003)stated that interactive media have the potential to provide scaffoldingsupport to children, because they can act in a "collaborativepartnership role" (p. 166). Many specially designed programsattempt to promote learning through some type of scaffolding approach. Technology-Enhanced Toy Affordances Recent studies have explored how the affordances of these new typesof toys may influence child perception and elicit certain novel actionsand reactions. Affordances are the perceived and actual properties of anobject that suggest how the object should be used (Gibson, 1969;McGrenere & Ho, 2000). According to Hinske, Langheinrich, and Lampe(2008), toys that have been designed with technology components (whatthey call "augmented" toys) must follow design guidelines thatdraw on the existing criteria for good toy design. The design guidelinesfor traditional toys call for them to be "fun," offer mentalchallenge, be age appropriate, be reliable, be easy to understand anduse, encourage imagination, give immediate feedback, and further extendplay, while supporting physical and social interaction. If a toy isaugmented with technology, Bergen (2004, 2007) indicated thattraditional toy play qualities should still be present, while thetechnology enhancements provide added value. Carr (2000) has suggested three affordance factors that haverelevance to the current study: transparency, challenge, andaccessibility. The first refers to the ability to understand theconcepts inherent in the toy or object. An electronically enhanced toythat signals the child's success in its use (e.g., makes noise whenbutton is pushed) would meet the criterion of transparency. If the toymakes random sounds not contingent on child activation or if it isdifficult for the child to elicit the toy response, it would not havetransparency. The second criterion, challenge, involves havingaffordances that increase possibilities for action rather than narrowingoptions. For example, a toy that makes only one sound each time acertain feature is pressed and has no other features to be activatedwould have low challenge. The third criterion, accessibility, is relatedto the amount and type of social participation that a toy affords, suchas parent-child or peer collaboration. Some types of toy technologyafford extensive participation, whereas other types allow for only oneparticipant. These three qualities interact; for example, transparencyis more likely to facilitate accessibility, and challenge is usuallyincreased if the other two factors are present. Studies of preschoolchildren's interactions with technology-enhanced toys indicate thatthese toys initially foster exploration of the technology featuresrather than encouraging practice or pretend play, especially forchildren who have not had previous exposure to these types of toys(Bergen, 2001, 2004, 2007; Strigen, Vonderhaar, & Wilson, 2006).However, the children's existing play schema (e.g., scripts inpretend) often emerge as the play continues, and the toys may be used inways counterintuitive to the toy's strong affordance suggestions.For example, toy action figures may eventually be used by some childrenin routine actions familiar to them, such as "cooking dinner"or "going to sleep," and their language during peer play thenbecomes more similar to that used in play with other types of toys,although the terms used by "talking" toys are also repeated(Bergen, 2007). Although research on the play of infants and toddlers withtechnology-enhanced toys has been sparse, initial evidence suggests thatthe language learned and the cognitive scripts enacted may be affectedby long-term play with technology-enhanced materials. For example, in acase study of a 2 1/2-year-old who had long-term exposure to CD-ROMstory books, researchers found that after using that technology forseveral months, the child was "clicking" his parent to getattention and responding correctly if his parent "clicked" him(C. R. Smith, 2002). He also reproduced patterns of action seen on thestorybook CDs. Designers of robots have reproduced infant-like socialinteractions in their creations and believe that such work also mayinform theory in infant development (Breazeal & Scassellati, 2000;Prince, 2008). In a study with slightly older children (age 3 and older), whichcompared play with a robotic dog (AIBO) and a stuffed plush dog(nonrobotic), Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, and Freier (2004) foundfew differences in what children said about the two toys with regard totheir biological properties (alive/not alive), mental states (aware/notaware), social rapport (friend/not friend), or moral standing(caring/not caring). However, the children explored more, were morefearful of, and more engaged in reciprocity with the AIBO. Theresearchers, however, concluded that the reciprocity children attemptedwith the robotic toy resulted in "impoverished" relationships(p. 1452). Recently developed toys for infants and toddlers have manydifferent technology-enhanced features. One such toy is the Fisher-PriceLaugh & Learn Learning Home playset, which has numerous affordancesthat may elicit infant motor and communicative actions and reactions, insolitary play and in social play with parents. These include music(e.g., songs that play on a "radio"), names of objects andactions spoken when toy features are activated (e.g., "door,""open"), and action features that promote child creation ofeffects (e.g., a ball chute). The toy's affordances are designed toelicit many common actions that young children might engage in at home(e.g., opening doors, turning on the light), with the expectation thatthis would enhance the likelihood of children performing such actions onactual home objects if they had the opportunity to try the actions onthe toy. Because the toy was designed to be used in the home, theaffordances of the toy were also expected to foster parent-child playinteractions, and thus further language development and communicativeinteraction patterns. The toy was designed for infants and toddlers (6months to 36 months), and thus university researchers and toy companypersonnel were interested in exploring what affordances of the toyelicited expected actions when child and parent played together, andwhether play with the toy afforded communicative interactions andvarious types of play and humor. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine theparent-child play interactions elicited by the toy affordances and toexamine parent-child communicative interactions during the play.Specific questions of interest were: * What affordances of the toy are most likely to result inchild-parent play and communicative interactions? * What is the quality of child-parent communicative interactions(e.g., mean length of utterance [MLU], joint attention) in the toy play? * What affordances of the toy elicit child humor expression duringthese interactions? * What affordances of the toy enhance child functional actions athome? * What affordances of the toy are most salient during home play inthe year after study completion? METHOD The study included cross-sectional and longitudinal elementsfocused primarily on the types of play and communicative interactionsfacilitated by the affordances of motor, language, and socialinteractions of infants, toddlers, and parents during play with theLaugh & Learn Learning Home toy's affordances. Participants The initial participants in the study were 58 children and theirparents, half of whom were randomly assigned to the experimental(clinical sessions) and the control groups (no clinical sessions).Participants included 32 male and 26 female children, ranging in agefrom 7 to 28 months (mean age 17.05 months). They were recruited from arange of socioeconomic levels, and experimental and control groups hadsimilar numbers of high and low socioeconomic participants. Forty-eightpercent of the families were in the lower socioeconomic group, and 52%were in the higher income group. Not all participants were available forall sessions, resulting in a final experimental group of 26 and acontrol group of 29. A year after the study was concluded, 34 of theparents, half of whom had children in the experimental group and halfwith children in the control group, were able to be reached by telephoneand asked to report on home activity with the Laugh & Learn LearningHome toy during the year following the study. Procedures Before beginning the clinical sessions, each child (experimentaland control) was evaluated for language status using the Rossetti Infantand Toddler Language Scale (Rossetti, 1990), which is a parent reportinstrument. Each parent identified the level of his or her child'sabilities on the six dimensions of the scale: interaction/attachment,pragmatics, gesture, play, language comprehension, and languageexpression. Each child-parent pair in the experimental group was thenseen six times, approximately 2 weeks apart at the Department of SpeechPathology and Audiology child laboratory facilities. Each sessionconsisted of a 25-minute play period with the Laugh & Learn LearningHome playset. Each session was videotaped from the mounted camera in theobservation room. After the clinical sessions were completed,experimental and control were again evaluated for language by theirparents, using the Rossetti instrument. All families received a Laugh& Learn Learning Home toy to take home at the end of the study. Analysis of the Toy Affordance Actions Four types of analyses were conducted to answer the questionsrelated to what toy affordances elicited child and parent actions andinteractions. The number and types of toy affordance features thatelicited interactions were measured by making frequency counts of parentand child initiations and responses to toy features during the first andlast sessions. The instances of smiling and laughter elicited by the toywere compiled for all six sessions, using a coding form from previoushumor studies (Bergen, 1998), to investigate which affordances of thetoy were most likely to elicit humor expression. Generalization and carryover of child and toy interaction at homewas measured after the second session by a parent home report instrumentasking for child actions specific to toy affordances (e.g., openingdoor, turning on light switch) and the number of reported home actionspre- and postsessions was compared. To determine the home activitiesthat continued involving the Laugh & Learn Learning Home, reports ofthe parents who were contacted one year after they had received the toywere also compiled. Analysis of Child Language and Parent-Child CommunicativeInteractions Four graduate students transcribed every caregiver and childutterance and communicative gesture. Caregiver-child play during theinitial and final visits was transcribed using the Systematic Analysisof Language Transcripts (SALT, 2006) program (Miller & Chapman,1985). A 15-minute transcription time frame for each session was chosenbased on similar work by Conti-Ramsden (1990), Lasky and Klopp (1982),and Rescorla and Fechnay (1996). Eight of the 55 experimental videotapeswere transcribed by two students for interrater reliability. Kappareliability coefficient was R = .676 (p = 0.065) for child utterancesand R = 0.777 (p = 0.023) for mother verbalizations. This article reports an analysis of the effects of communicativestyle of the mother during interactive toy play on two characteristicsof maternal and child speech: initiation and response. The speechmeasures were based on the Tamis-Lemonda et al. (2001) study. The totalnumber of maternal and child utterances used throughout each 15-minutesegment at the beginning and end of the study was calculated. Anutterance was defined as not more than one grammatical sentence and wasless if intonation or natural pause time suggested an utterance end. Thesyntactic complexity of maternal utterances was assessed using meanlength of utterance (MLU) in morphemes based on all the complete andintelligible utterances produced. The SALT program generated the MLUs.Additionally, each time the mothers initiated play through vocalizationsor play prompt was coded (e.g., mother tells child about the"phone" or encourages child to further explore area of the toythe child is already engaged in). The child's response to theparent prompt was also coded. Similarly, each child initiation (e.g.,the child says ba for ball and hands to parent) was coded. Affirmationsor responses to a child' s initiations were subsequently coded(e.g., "Yes," "Good job"). To estimate communicative status on the Rossetti, children wereranked as to their performance in the age-appropriate age ranges at thepre- and posttime periods. The results were then analyzed withparametric statistics appropriate for ranked data. Pre- and postgrowthof the experimental and control children on the Rossetti scale wascompared. RESULTS Results for the affordance questions and the communicativeinteraction question are presented separately. Toy Affordances Toy affordances in the clinical setting For this analysis, the dependent variable was the number ofinteractions with the affordance features of the toy. An ANOVA examiningfeatures (16), persons (mother/child), time period (1/6), interactiontype (initiation/response), and communication mode (talk/action) foundan overall significant difference, F(19, 220) = 11.931, p < .001.Effect size was .507. There were significant differences on a number ofdimensions. Feature use differed, F(14, 220) = 6.847, p < .001, asdid persons, F(1,220) = 3.782, p < .05, interaction type, F(1,220) =69.20, p < .001, and mode, F(1,220) = 6.696, p < .01. There wasalso a significant person/type interaction, F(1,220 = 14.666, p <.001. Multiple comparisons using the Scheffe test showed that theblocks, ball, mailbox, puppy, and door features elicited moreinteractions than other features. There were no significant differencesbetween Time 1 and Time 6. (See Table 1 for toy affordance frequencycounts that elicited talk and action by the parent and the child.) Parent initiation and child response were the typical pattern,rather than child initiation and parent response. That is, parentsdominated the communicative interaction. Child responses weresignificantly correlated with parent verbal initiations (r = .91, p <.01) and actions (r = .90, p < .01). Thus, joint attention wasfacilitated by the parents. Child initiation of talk and actions didincrease from the first to the last sessions, F(3, 60) = 10.87, p <.001. At the first session, child verbal initiations had a mean of .81;for the last session, however, mean child verbal initiation was 18.19.At the first session, the mean for child action initiations was 3.0, andfor the last session, the mean had increased to 20.7 initiations. Theseresults show that child language and action increased over the sessions,which is typical for children this age as they discover the fun of gamesand recognize names of familiar objects. The humor dimensions were analyzed by combining all episodes ofhumor and examining patterns with a chi square test. There were 625total humor events across the six sessions, with 52% of the eventsinvolving the ball, radio, door, or window. Child mild and stronglaughter was elicited most often by actions such as opening and shuttingthe door (22% of the humor instances involved the door), activating theradio songs (14%), raising and lowering the window (8%), and putting theball or other objects down the spout (7%). Child-parent interactionswithout the use of any of the toy affordances accounted for 8% of thelaughter episodes. Individual children varied greatly in humor expression, with 16 ofthe 26 children having 25 or more events whereas 10 children had fewerthan 10 events. Parents and children engaged in humor during similartypes of play; however, children initiated more humor during explorationand practice play and parents initiated more with games, [chi square](3)= 88.774, p < .001. Younger children showed more laughter ininteraction with the affordance features, with the door, window, blocks,dog, phone, ball, and mother alone (no toy features) resulting in morehumor events for the younger children, [chi square] (27) = 60.885, p< .001. For all parent-child pairs, the features that wereconsistently involved in humor events across the six visits were theball, radio, and door, [chi square] (135) = 2.708, p < .001. Boys hadmore humor events in total, and they laughed twice as often during gameplay while girls laughed more during practice play, [chi square] (3) =50.206, p < .001. Toy affordances related to home actions Home actions reported by parents after the first three sessionsshowed an increase in actions related to toy-promoted affordances (seeFigure 1 comparing actions before and after the three sessions).Significant increases were evident on all dimensions, with t(1, 32)scores ranging from -2.101, p < .05 to -7.483, p < .001. Forexample, the greatest change was in child home activation of doorbells,clock hands, keys, windows, radios, doorknobs (p < .001) and thesmallest increase was in book-related actions (p < .05). Book-relatedactions were ones that more parents reported as occurring at pretesttime. Younger children and older children had similar actionimprovements, although the younger children had fewer initial skills.That is, more of the older children could turn on the light switch orring the doorbell initially, but even that group increased in ability,according to parent report. One year later, parent report data regarding the child'sinteractions with the toy affordances at home were primarily congruentwith results from the clinical sessions. The most frequentlyparent-reported affordances used during child's independent playwere the door (23.7%), radio (15.85%), and mailbox (13.41%). When thechild and parent played together with the toy, the door (18.8%), themailbox (15.15%), and the shapes (12.12%) were most frequently reported.Parents indicated that their children typically played often with thetoy when it was first in the home and that interaction decreased as thechild grew older. However, many parents reported that the child stillplayed with the toy after a year. The drop-in play seemed to be relatedto the increasing age of the child. Parents were also asked if theythought learning was occurring during the play, and most reported eitherthat sensory motor learning (29%) or academic skill learning (28%)occurred. Figure 2 shows the percent responses to this question. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Communicative Interactions Table 2 shows examples of maternal language characteristics andmean values from pre- and postsessions. The analysis of clinical sessionlanguage transcripts showed that parents primarily used comments,questions, and directives to focus child attention on the toy features.The maternal variable with the highest frequency for the initial andfinal sessions was comments (mean = 52.85). These comments includedstatements by the mother on an action of the child or some aspect of thetoy. Use of questions (mean = 26.15) was used with the second highestfrequency. Directives (mean = 22.55), or commanding the child to performan action or verbalize, was the third highest frequency. Parentsfacilitated joint attention to the affordances of the toy by theiraffirmation (mean = 11.16) of the child's actions and naming of thefeatures. Expansions (mean = 1.47), when the mother verbally repeatswhat the child had said with additional utterances, were used the leastoften. Imitation (mean = 3.56), or the act of repeating the child'sresponse, was also used rarely. Table 3 shows MLU data for children and parents. MLU data wereanalyzed for utterances, words, and morphemes. As expected, MLU data forchild word and morpheme complexity increased significantly, MLU words,t(1, 25) = -2.335; p < .05; MLU morphemes, t(1,25) = -2.368, p <.05, while total utterance length remained similar (p = .10) from thefirst to sixth session. Increased verbal language structures over a12-week period for this age group is a normal developmental change. MLUdata for parent utterances remained essentially the same from the firstto sixth sessions (p = 10). However, parents' word and morphemecomplexity increased from the first to the sixth session, MLU words,t(1, 25) = -2.122, p < .05; MLU morphemes, t(1,25) = -2.652, p <.05. Increases in adult MLU data generally would not be expected;however, parents may have adjusted their complexity as children'scomplexity increased. Table 3 shows MLU data. As expected, child wordand morpheme complexity increased significantly (p < .05), whiletotal utterance length remained similar (p < .10). Increased verballanguage structures over a 12-week period are a normal developmentalchange. A comparison of the experimental group and the control groupgrowth in language, as measured by the parent report Rossetti Infant andToddler Language Scale (RITLS; Rossetti, 1990) over the 12-week period,did not show a significant difference (p = .10). Thus, the control andexperimental groups did not differ on interaction-attachment,pragmatics, gesture, play, language comprehension, and languageexpression. The experimental and control groups thus showed similaroverall language growth. DISCUSSION The affordances of the Laugh & Learn Learning Home toy thatprompted child and parent playful interactions with the toy were quiteconsistent across observations and were generally congruent with thejoint-attention research literature on child-parent toy play (e.g.,Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2001). For the experimental group, there was aninitial carryover of some specific child actions to the home settingafter two sessions with the toy, which supported the toymanufacturer's expectation that the toy would enhance those childbehaviors. Also, parents of the experimental and control groups reportedsimilar toy affordances being used during the year following the studywhen the toy was located in the home environment, and they also statedthat a wide variety of learning was enhanced by the toy. In the clinical session play of the participants in this sample,parents initiated most of the play activity, and the children readilyresponded to parent prompts and actions. This may have occurred becauseinfants often follow parents' verbal or nonverbal cues even whenengaged with toys, causing a shift gaze directly to the target (Deak,Walden, Kaiser, & Lewis, 2008). Some of the toy affordances wereparticularly likely to be involved in child humor expression, and thestrongest laughter occurred when parents used features of the toy toengage children in such social games as peek-a-boo. This complementsBergen's (1998) suggestion that playful behaviors andresponsiveness from parents can promote humor expression in children.Some of the humor expressed, especially during the first three sessions,appeared to be related to surprise, because the augmented toy actionswere initially unexpected. For example, the songs that played when theradio dial was turned and the noises and words that activated were notwhat the child might have expected from experience with similar-lookingtoys that were not augmented. Exploratory actions rather than extended elaborated play were moreprominent in the clinical setting, and pretense was seen onlyoccasionally. This may have been due to the shortness of sessions andtime span between sessions. However, it also may have been due to themany affordance features of the toy that were present. The high level ofexploratory behavior is congruent with findings from other studies oftechnology-enhanced toys (Luckin et al., 2003; Strommen, 1993). Perhapsbecause of toy novelty or the artificiality of the clinical setting, theplay patterns did not show advanced play levels. Although, pretensewould not be expected to be complex with children this age, even theearly stages of pretense were observed only minimally, which differsfrom some other studies of toddler-parent play (e.g., Umek & Musek,2001). The toy affordances included some features that could haveinitiated pretense (e.g., cooking, feeding the dog, talking on thephone); however, perhaps because the technology-enhanced affordancefeatures were so prominent (e.g., radio songs, lights, sounds), theyengaged most of the parents' and children's attention andinteraction. The criteria for augmented toys suggested by Hinske et al. (2008)seem to have been met for the most part: the toy appeared to be fun,mentally challenging, age appropriate, reliable, easy to understand anduse, giving immediate feedback, and supporting physical and socialinteraction. However, it did not seem to promote imagination or extendplay to higher levels, at least in the clinical setting. It may be thatlonger periods of play with the toy would show those qualities to beevident. For the sample of children analyzed for language features, childutterance complexity and language attempts showed an increase betweenthe first and last session, and the complexity of parent utterances alsoincreased between sessions, which indicates that parents adapted theirlanguage as their children increased in their comprehension andproduction of language. Parents used syntactic structures with greatercomplexity, a wider vocabulary, and a greater use of plurals andprepositions as their children's language skill increased,indicating that parents were sensitive to the language capabilities oftheir children. The advancement in language, specifically vocabulary,might have influenced the children's responses to verbal andnonverbal cues elicited by the parents. In addition, the use of commentswas the most common pattern when maternal language characteristics wereanalyzed. This occurred almost twice as often as the use of directivesand questions. The nature of the toy may have moderated some parentalspeech differences because of the intensive and prominent affordances ofthe toy (e.g., lights and sounds). The presence of thetechnology-enhanced features may have reduced the child's jointattention, making the parent rely more on comments than directives wheninteracting with the child. Another possibility is that the affordancesof the toy made it unnecessary for the parent to direct the child'sattention and, therefore, interactions developed more throughcommenting. Because there was no observation of the language of thecontrol children, it is not possible to say why there were nodifferences between overall language growth in the two groups. However,it is likely that the brief six-session treatment either was notsufficient to show differential language growth or that the parent-childcommunicative interactions in the sessions did not differ from those ofcontrol group parent-child interactions during that time period. There are a number of limitations of the study. A major limitationis that the control group received no treatment that could be contrastedwith the experimental groups' play with the toy. Also, although theresearchers attempted to recruit a wide range of socioeconomic andethnically diverse participants, the sample was not representative ofmany types of ethnicity or socioeconomic status due to the location in auniversity community. Furthermore, the brief length of the sessions mayhave prohibited extended pretend play scripts and richer communicativeinteractions. It also would have been interesting to have had acomparison of parent-child play with the same toy but with thetechnology-enhanced features turned off. However, this iteration, whichwould have doubled the research data collection plan, was not feasiblegiven the faculty and student resources available. In regard to the affordance criteria of transparency, challenge,and accessibility, the toy play in the clinical sessions showed thatthese dimensions were present, at least when parent communicativeinteraction facilitated the play. The criteria of challenge appeared tobe met for motor and social game play; however, the sessions may nothave been long enough for promoting challenge related to early pretense.It is unknown whether longer play sessions might have promoted increasedpretend play interaction or whether the salience of some affordances ofthe toy interfered with the initiation of pretense. More diversepopulations should be examined to determine if the results can berelated to populations of other socioeconomic backgrounds, geographiclocations, and ethnicities. CONCLUSIONS This interdisciplinary research, in cooperation with a toymanufacturer, which investigated the affordances of a toy for youngchildren and examined their elicitation of play actions andcommunicative interactions, provided some useful information for theresearchers and the manufacturer regarding how the communicative andplay interactions of young children and their parents can be facilitatedby a technology-enhanced toy. The study did give some initial supportfor the toy designers' goal that the Laugh & Learn LearningHome's affordances would elicit child-parent communicativeinteractions, exploration, practice play, social game play, and humorexpression. Careful analysis of toy features that elicit elaboratedplay, communication, and laughter may promote better toy play and toydesign. In particular, the level of technology-enhancement that a toyshould have should be further investigated. It is possible that there isan optimal amount of toy-initiated action, sound, and talk thatfacilitate child-parent play, but a point at which a plethora of toytechnology affordances might prevent in-depth and extended play andhigher-level communicative interactions. That is, augmented toys muststill promote typical benefits of toy play while adding salient featuresthat promote higher levels of play, learning, and adult-childinteraction. The model of university researcher and toy manufacturingresearcher collaboration that was used in the current study is apromising one that may be used in the future to extend knowledge of theeffects of toy affordances. Comparative studies measuring thesevariables during infant-parent play with traditional toy affordances andtechnology-enhanced toy affordances also should be conducted. DOI: 10.1080/02568540903439342 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors wish to thank Fisher Price, Inc. for supporting thisresearch. 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E-mail:bergend@muohio.eduTABLE 1Frequency Count of Toy Affordance Feature Uses Session 1 Caregiver Initiations Child Child Caregiver Caregiver Response ResponseFeatures Talking Actions Talking ActionBell 9 10 3 3Window 3 15 0 4Door 23 23 3 8Book 4 5 0 1Radio/Music 2 6 0 8Mailbox/Letters 46 23 2 16Blocks 71 41 0 20Ball 65 50 0 25Sun/Moon 13 5 0 3Clock 16 10 1 2Light Switch 16 15 0 5Phone 7 0 0 7Puppy 14 0 0 1Key 15 12 0 4Flower 1 0 0 0 Session 6 Caregiver Initiations Child Child Caregiver Caregiver Response ResponseFeatures Talking Actions Talking ActionBell 7 5 2 1Window 17 8 0 5Door 23 17 0 3Book 4 6 0 1Radio/Music 2 3 1 2Mailbox/Letters 92 30 0 19Blocks 84 51 1 38Ball 65 40 0 18Sun/Moon 7 11 1 0Clock 14 4 0 2Light Switch 10 4 0 2Phone 20 20 0 10Puppy 58 28 4 14Key 27 11 1 5Flower 0 0 0 0Note. Numbers indicate number of caregiver action initiations andchild responses.TABLE 2Examples of Maternal Language Characteristics and Mean ValuesFrom Pre- and PostsessionsAffirmations "Red triangle" (Mom handing block to child) Mean "Good job!" 11.16 "Big girl!" (after child put ball in mailbox) "You got it!"Comments "I think this is a doggie dish." 52.85 "You can play with it." "Did you hear it say 'tummy'?" "It's a flower."Directives "Look!" 22.55 "Put the ball in there" (Mom drops ball in chute). "Bring me the letters." "Push it in like that" (into the slot).Expansions Child: "Mail." Mom: "I think there is a 1.47 letter for you." Child: "Doggy." Mom: "Here's the doggy. He's got to eat. You gotta feed the doggy."Imitations "It's purple" (handing letter to child). 3.56 Can you say purple? (When child drops block) Mom: "Say uh-oh." Child: "Uh-oh." "Say 'yeah'." Child: "Yeah."Naming Child opens window. Mom: "up" "down" (as 11.50 child acts). Mom picks up key. Mom: "Look, key." (Child picks up ball) Mom: "Ball." Mom touches dog's nose. Mom: "Nose, that's his nose."Questions "You wanna do that again?" (pointing to 26.15 book). "Can you get in there? (doorway). "Is it night time now?" (turning dial on moon). "Where's the flower go?"TABLE 3Mean/Standard Deviations for Utterances and MI-Us Utterances MLU-Words MLU-Morphemes MISD MISD MISDChildFirst Session 43.18/33.478 1.33/.515 1.34/.524Sixth Session 64.59/48.521 1.69/.6111 1.71/.638ParentFirst Session 171.8//82.596 3.13/.678 3.31/.722Sixth Session 172.59/77.028 3.50/.557 3.78/.604MLU = mean length of utterance.FIGURE 2 Parent reported learning from toy affordances.Reported Categories of LearningAcademic Skills 28%Sensory Motor Skills 29%Concept Reasoning 10%Musical Skills 11%Social Skills 15%Nothing 7%Note: Table made from pie chart.