Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?

Read the text about toddlers and devices. Do all of the vocabulary exercises that
follow. Then read it again and answer the T/F/NG questions.
1. Liana Vilanova can't even sit up yet, but her father is already cheering his 2-monthold's digital skills, praising her for interacting with an iPad app.
2. There are so many proud parents sharing their infants' touch screen skills in videos
posted on YouTube, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over their kids as they interacted with
various apps. Babies are transfixedby iPads, so when the device shuts off or is
taken away, YouTube videos show them going into atantrum, screaming and crying
for the device.

3. Beth Brooks put an iPad in front of her 10-day-old baby, Alex, to see how he would
react.
4. "I guess I just didn't think it was going to hurt, so why not give it a try," she said. "And
he seemed to like it."

5. The iPad didn't exist until three years ago, so there is no hard data yet on the effects
the device might have on a child's development.
6. But could all of the electronic play hurting kids developing brains -- shrinkingtheir
attention spans, ruiningtheir social skills and their eyesight?
7. The Klaus family of Whitehouse Station, N.J., is a very modern family. Devon, 9,
Delaney, 7, and Dalton, 4, are savvy digital experts, excellent in using iPhone and
iPad apps.
8. "From a distraction perspective, if we go out to eat, and the children are out of
control, we can take[the devices] out and they will be completely distracted until the
food arrives," said their mother, Sharla Klaus.

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
9. ABC News wondered what would happen if the Klaus kids would go iPad- and
iPhone-free for a month, -- no devices for 31 days.
10. "That means you have to entertain yourself outside or in the playroom," Sharla
Klaus told the kids.
11. The girls were left to play with their non-digital toys and had to resort to imaginary
play. At one point, Devon and a friend played with a pretend iPad.
12. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Klaus kids foughta lot more without the devices to
occupy them, but some child psychologists said those siblingfights are healthy
socialization.
13. At Barnard College's renowned Center for Toddler Development, child development
experts invited "Nightline" behind a two-way mirror where they were observing
several young kids and monitoring their reactionsto traditional toys versus an iPad,
taking note of how the kids reacted after the iPad was taken away.
14. The center tested for "distractibility" by having researchers call out the names of
the children who were playing with iPads and noted how quickly the children
responded. Many of the kids were so focused on the apps they were playing with,
they didn't respond to the researchers at all.
15. The only toddler who managed to resist the iPads' magnetic pull was a little girl
named Viv, who never fully tuned out her environment. She had a full conversation
with a researcher while creating a make-believe world of her own.
16. But once the iPads were confiscated, the researchers believed the toddlers became
more verbal, more social and more creative creatures.
17. Tovah Klein, the director of Barnard's toddler centerwhospecializes in toddler social
and emotional development, said the kids were much more active when the iPads
were taken away.

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
18. "You see how much their vocabulary has gone up and they are talking to each other,"
she said.
19. Researchers said imagination needs to be exercised like a muscle in order for
creativity to be developed. Over time, children's play became more elaborate and
three-dimensional.
20. Klein said the more parents use iPads, smart phones or similar devices to calm their
kids down, the less likely the kids are to learn how to calm themselves down
naturally. In other words, if kids are constantly pacified with an iPad, they won't be
learning the skills to come down from a tantrum.
21. Studies show that hours and hours of screen time doesn't do any real harm to a kid's
eyesight. But it is associated with behavioral problems later on, which is why the
American Academy of Pediatrics discourages "passive screen time" for kids under
age 2.
22. But tablets are not passive,they are interactive, and that's the. In fact, a recent report
from the Millennium Cohort Study, a long-term research project in England that has
been following the lives of 19,000 children born in 2000 and 2001, showed that
toddlers do learn better from interactive media.
23. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind "Sesame Street," has been
developing educational apps designed as interactive.
24. "I'm trying to create content to engage you to interact with your child and so you can
extend the learning," said RosemariTuglio, the vice president of education and
research for Sesame Workshop.
25. Tuglio said the apps don't just teach letters and numbers, there is more social
interaction with characters like Elmo.

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
26. As for the Klaus girls, they were thrilled to be reunited with their digital devices,
even though, after a month of no electronics, Devon learned an old-fashioned craft:
sewing.
27. "I had free time to do that, like in the morning Istarted off doing it," she said. "But
now, since I have my iPad, I probably won't do that first thing in the day. But I will still
use my sewing machine sometimes."

VocabularyThe following 24 words are the underlined words from

the text in the same form and order that they appear.
Skills
transfixed
Tantrum
Device
Shrinking
Savvy

Experts
Entertain
Fought
Sibling
Reactions
Distractibility

Magnetic
tuned out
Confiscated
Verbal
Elaborate
threedimensional
Step One Put the words into ABC order here:

Likely
Pacified
Associated
Passive
Thrilled
Reunited

Associated
Confiscated

Experts
Fought

Reactions
Reunited

Device
Distractibility
Elaborate
Entertain

Likely
Magnetic
Pacified
Passive

Savvy
Shrinking
Sibling
Skills

Tantrum
Threedimensional
Thrilled
Transfixed
tuned out
Verbal

Step Two Put the words into the chart below in ABC order.
Use a dictionary to fill in the different columns.
Vocabular
y word
Associated

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Idea
Connected with another person or event.

Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
Confiscated
Device
Distractibili
ty
Elaborate
Entertain
Experts
Fought

take part in a violent struggle

involving the exchange of
physical blows or the use of
weapons

Likely
Word

probably going to happen.

Magnetic
Pacified

able to attract iron or steel objects.

Passive
Reactions

Idea

to calm somebody who is angry or agitated,

or soothe violent or angry feeling.
tending not to participate actively, and
usually letting others make decisions.
an emotional or intellectual response that
something arouses

Reunited

come together or cause to come

together again after a period of
separation or disunity..

Savvy
Shrinking

shrewdness and practical knowledge.

Sibling
Skills
Tantrum
Three-

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to take somebody's property with authority,

or appropriate property for personal use as if
with authority
a tool or machine designed to perform a
particular task or function
to take somebody's attention away from
what he or she is doing or thinking or from
what is happening
having many different parts or a lot of detail,
and organized in a complicated way.
transitive and intransitive verb to engage a
person or audience by providing amusing or
interesting material.
somebody with a great deal of knowledge
about, or skill, training, or experience in, a
particular field or activity.

transitive and intransitive verb to become

smaller, or cause something to become
smaller, e.g. when exposed to cold, heat, or
damp.
a brother or sister a member of a group of
persons who trace their descent from a
single real or presumed ancestor.
the ability to do something well, usually
gained through training or experience.
an outburst of anger, especially a childish
display of rage or bad temper.
possessing or appearing to possess the

Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
dimensiona
l
Thrilled
Transfixed
tuned out
Verbal

dimensions of height, width, and depth.

to feel intense excitement, or make

somebody experience intense excitement
to shock or terrify somebody so much as to
induce a momentary inability to move
a series of musical notes that make a simple
melody
using words or language, especially as
opposed to pictorial representation

Step 3 Using the vocabulary. Fill in the sentences below with

the correct word and word form (WF =noun/verb/adjective).
1. She is an only child. She does not have any
_____siblings___________.
WF: ___noun_____
2. If you wash our cotton shirt in hot water, it will
____shrink_______ and maybe you will not fit into it
anymore. WF: ______varb______
3. The opposite of interactive is ________ Passive
_________ . WF:___adj______
4. The reason the WB eraser sticks to the white board is
because it is _____magnetic________ . WF: ___varb_____
5. When we traveled to the USA, the customs police
______confiscated___________ all of our fresh fruit and
did not give it back to us! WF_____varb_______
6. Yesterday in the store I saw a two-year old having a
major __tantrum ___ ! He was kicking and screaming
because he wanted to have a chocolate that his
mother did not want to buy. WF_____ noun_______

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
7. On the IELTS, did you do better on the ___verbal ______
or the written part? WF:______adj _____
8. Which of your English __ skills __ is you best?
Reading, writing, speaking or listening? WF:____
noun _____
9. Some teachers do not like for the students to have
their iPads open while they are talking because they
think iPads can be very ___ districting___ and the
students will not pay attention to the teacher. WF:
__adj___
10.
When a child is very upset, a mother sometimes
rocks them in a rocking chair. This helps to ___ Pacify
___ and calm the child. WF: __ varb __
Reference To what do the highlighted words refer?
1. Par 1 her= __________Liana Vilanova__________
2. Par 2 them = _________Babies__________
3. Par 4 he= _______Alex_______________
4. Par 6 their= _______Kids___________
5. Par 8 they= ________Children__________
6. Par 10 you= _______each of Sharla Klaus kids___________
7. Par 13 they = __ child development experts_______
8. Par 15 she= ______Viv ____________
9. Par 17 who= _______Tovah Klein__________
10.
Par 21 it = _______hours and hours of screen
time___________
11.
Par 22 they = ________tablet________
12.
Par 27 I = _____Devon______________

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
Reading Comprehension True/ False/ Not Given
(T/F/NG)Also mark the line where you found the information in
the text.
T
1

Lianas father is happy that she can

use an iPad.
2 Some kids have tantrums when the
iPad shuts off.
3 We have a lot of data about how the
iPad can affect a young childs brain.
4 The amount of time a child can focus
and concentrate has increased
recently.
5 The Klaus family sometimes uses
iPads to entertain their children when
they go to a restaurant.
6. The iPads and other devices were
taken away from the kids for two
months.
7 The children without the devices had
more fights with their siblings than
usual.
8 At the study at Barnard College, all of
the children were totally distracted
when using the iPads.
9 Researchers discovered that without
devices a childs eyesight and hearing
improves.
1 Some people use iPads to calm their
0 children down.
1 Toddlers who use interactive media

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N
G

Line

1&2

2
X

5
X

12

15

21

20
X

Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
1
1
2
1
3
1
4
1
5

(like iPads) are smarter.

The Sesame Street App developer is
trying to make apps for parents now
too.
Toddlers should only use apps alone
so that he/she can learn more.
Cartoon characters in an app make
the app social as well as educational.
When the children got their devices
back after one month, they never plan
to use traditional toys again.

X
X

24
25

27

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