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 transfixed by iPads, so when the device shuts off or is
taken away, YouTube videos show them going into a tantrum, 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 -- shrinking their
attention spans, ruining their 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 fought a lot more without the devices to
occupy them, but some child psychologists said those sibling fights 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 reactions to 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 center who specializes 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 Rosemari Tuglio, 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 I started 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."

Vocabulary The 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

Step One

experts
entertain
fought
sibling
reactions
distractibility

magnetic
tuned out
confiscated
verbal
elaborate
threedimensional

likely
pacified
associated
passive
thrilled
reunited

Put the words into ABC order here:

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.

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
Vocabulary
word
associated
confiscated

device
distractibility

elaborate

entertain

experts

fought
likely
magnetic

pacified
passive

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Idea
To connect
To take away
temporarily for
legal reasons
Thing that has
specific use
To cause
difficulties in
paying attention
to something
Work out with
great care and
detailed
Take into
consideration/pe
oples attention
People who
know a lot about
a specific topic
Argued or
disagreed
Might become
true
Attracting or
pulling
something
To ease the
anger
Inactive, used in
grammar

Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
reactions

reunited
savvy
shrinking
sibling

skills

tantrum
threedimensional
thrilled
transfixed

tuned out
verbal

Action taken in
response in
something
Unify or unite
again
To know and
understand
Becoming less
Anyone related
to you (sister,
brother)
Ability to do
something and
experienced in
Short lived fit of
frustrated
Having three
dimensions
Being sudden
excited
Having your
attention fixed
on something
with a spell
Musical harmony
Relating
something in to
word form

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 sibling.

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
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: verb
3. The opposite of interactive is associate. WF: verb
4. The reason the WB eraser sticks to the white board is
because it is magnetic. WF: adjective
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: verb
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
7. On the IELTS, did you do better on the verbal or the
written part?
WF: adjective
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 distracting and the students
will not pay attention to the teacher. WF: adjective
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: verb
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

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

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6. Par
7. Par
8. Par
9. Par
10.
11.
12.

10 you= kids
13 they = Child development experts
15 she= Little girl called Viv
17 who= Tovah Klein
Par 21 it = screen time
Par 22 they = tablets
Par 27 I = Devon

Reading Comprehension True/ False/ Not Given (T/F/NG)

Also mark the line where you found the information in the text.
T
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

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N
G
N
G

Line

2
F

N
G
T

12

14

Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
9

1
0
1
1
1
2
1
3
1
4
1
5

of the children were totally

distracted when using the iPads.
Researchers discovered that without
devices a childs eyesight and
hearing improves.
Some people use iPads to calm their
children down.
Toddlers who use interactive media
(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.

N
G
T

20
N
G
N
G
N
G
N
G
N
G

Write your response to this article here :

In my opinion, I agree with experts who said that
devices affect our kids today. Kids are smart and quick
learner. They can learn using technology devices very fast.
Unfortunately, kids are using iPads and other different
devices most of their day; if their parents didnt take the
device away from them, they wont omit it. Based on these
attitudes, researches agreed that children become
obsessed with technology devices, and they cannot live
one day without using them. In other hand, parents
cannot make their kids live without a device, because

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Toddlers Obsessed with iPads: Could It

Hurt Their Development?
devices are used everywhere around them. Schools and
universities are using devices in their education system,
so no students can study without his/her own device.
Moreover, most kids around me using devices have
tantrums, and they get frustrated especially when devices
are taken away from them, they start screaming and
crying. Finally, kids must know how to use these devices,
but at the same time, they should be a limit for using
these devices to avoid harmful.

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