Kids

10 Aug

Posted at 18:07h in Kids, Methodology, Qualitative Research, Research, Research Camp

In June, my colleague Amy Warren and I set out to recruit families from the Greater Boston and Providence areas for Fluent Research’s first ever Research Camp, a new and innovative take on community-based action research. For this inaugural camp, we focused on recruiting Latinx families for a GBH study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). But we were not just focused on hitting target recruitment numbers. Fluent’s Research Camp is about building genuine connections and embracing the diverse backgrounds of the communities that inform our research.

Anyone who has ever tried to recruit research participants knows it is no easy task, an uphill battle some may say. It requires a lot of time, energy, planning, and resources. The approach must be strategic, utilizing personal connections to tap into different networks. To make things easier, Fluent could have hired a professional recruiter and called it a day, but we wanted to connect personally with these families, hear their stories, and build bridges of trust.

Armed with sunscreen, pushpins, tape, and stacks of flyers, Amy and I hit the streets of Boston and Providence in our most comfy sneakers to engage the community. Our recruitment journey was guided by a map we created of key locations where we could find our target population – bodegas, restaurants, laundromats, hair salons, schools, nonprofit organizations, etc. With a well-rehearsed spiel in English and Spanish, we set forth to talk to anyone who would listen.

Interestingly, our journey turned into an immersive cultural experience. At each stop, we heard fascinating stories from really interesting people that reminded us of the resilience and diligence of the Latinx immigrant community. For instance, we met a business owner from El Salvador, who had recently written a book about the first Central American migrants who arrived in the US in the 1800’s, a story not many people know about. Another notable encounter occurred with two young boys who were spending their summer helping out at the cash register of their family’s store. One of them expressed interest in going to summer camp because it was something he had always wanted to do. Towards the end of the day, we visited a tortilleria, a shop that makes and sells hand-made tortillas. There, I chatted with a worker about how tortillas connect our two cultures, hers Guatemalan and mine Mexican.

One major highlight was the opportunity to indulge in what felt like a culinary tour of Latin America. Amy and I tried dishes from a variety of cultures like Brazilian coxinhas, Colombian empanadas, Mexican agua fresca, and Dominican guisado de res, which made us feel more connected to the people we met.

As a Mexican-American woman, I felt a great deal of responsibility and pride employing my own cultural background and roots to build bridges of trust throughout this experience. I value knowing that my upbringing, principles, and Spanish-language skills allowed Amy and I to form authentic connections that otherwise could not be formed by simply using a recruiting service.

As I reflect on our journey, I am reminded of the true purpose of research, to gain a genuine and ethical understanding of the human experience. It is more than just hitting recruitment numbers and it begins long before the analysis phase. The process of uncovering insights begins when we build true human connection, when we appreciate and experience diverse cultures, and when we collaborate on the ground with communities.

By Evelin Garcia, User Experience Researcher, Fluent Research

07 Jun

Posted at 14:04h in Children, Kids, Research, Technology

Have you noticed vibrant color schemes, unconventional patterns, curated clutter, and an eclectic mix of styles popping up in your social media feed lately? If so, then you may be familiar with Gen Z maximalism— a bold and expressive design aesthetic that exemplifies the motto, “more is more.” Let’s take a dive into this recent trend.

Gen Z maximalism is a far departure from minimalism, popular among millennials. Whereas the millennial generation prefers simplicity and functionality through clutter-free spaces, clean lines, and neutral colors, Gen Z prioritizes vibrancy, creative self-expression, and constant stimulation.

The rise of Gen Z maximalism is due, in large part, to the impact of the pandemic. With extended periods of quarantine and stay-at-home orders, young people spent more time indoors cultivating living spaces that emanated warmth and inspiration. Gen Z turned to maximalism as a way to infuse their homes with the energy, joy, and personality that reflect their unique tastes. The aesthetic goes beyond interior design. Gen Z’s maximalist effect on fashion and beauty subverts conventions and tradition with an eclectic style of bold patterns, textures, and colors.

In our work at Fluent Research, we often explore how digital products empower the creativity of young people around the globe. Gen Z maximalism reflects the unique ways in which this generation seeks to express their individuality, creating unique content that stands out in the crowded digital landscape. This aesthetic encourages personalization and unabashed exploration of various styles and modes of expression. We must ensure that Gen Z continues to have access to the latest digital platforms, innovations, and tools that empower them to customize and personalize their experiences and express their creativity.

By Natalia Belchikov

 

 

30 May

Posted at 14:20h in Children, Education, Evaluation, Kids

In this special Kid Insight column, which originally appeared in Kidscreen Magazine last month, David Cohen, senior director of content research at Sesame Workshop, Stefanie Cousins, vice-president of marketing and communications at Fluent Research, and Sofia Polo, director of research strategy at Fluent Research, give insight into Sesame Workshop’s impact strategy for hard-to-reach communities.

Children’s content has the power to positively impact children’s lives in ways that ripple through generations, and that’s the reason why many of us do what we do. But while we may try to deliver content that authentically reaches a diverse range of families, we have to ask: Are we achieving that goal? And if not, how can we do better?

At Sesame Street in Communities (SSIC), we’ve tried to formalize the answer to this second question. Although our efforts lean on the reach and resources of Sesame Workshop, we believe that elements of our model can be incorporated by other companies that want to more strategically develop and distribute their content (or supporting campaigns) to specific or hard-to-reach communities.

STEP 1

Partner up!

Identify potential partners with strong connections to local communities, such as healthcare organizations, nonprofits and educational institutions. We believe that a key part of success here is giving community stakeholders co-leadership roles right from the beginning. Here are some questions to consider.

Population: Is there a group of people that you are specifically interested in creating content for? If so, reach out to social service organizations that provide outreach to that community.

Subject matter: Who might have subject matter expertise or an interest in your topic? It’s helpful to consider community partners who can contribute ideas and who will also benefit from the outcome.

Capabilities: What can the community partner realistically offer for the delivery and implementation of content? Successful partnerships begin with clearly communicated expectations about responsibilities and level of involvement.

STEP 2

Do your research!

Now it’s time to get to know the community—like, REALLY get to know it. Get out there (or go online) to conduct interviews, focus groups or surveys to understand your target population’s context, needs, beliefs and attitudes as related to your topic. Connecting with the community in this way will also give you the opportunity to learn about effective ways of distributing the content. Here are some tips to get you started.

Use step 1: Community partners likely have relationships with the people you want to reach. Engage them by asking them to help recruit research participants, host focus groups or review interview questions to ensure that they are culturally and linguistically sensitive.

Choose the right methodology: Focus groups and interviews, for example, let participants tell stories that highlight their lived experience, and they work great for research that’s meant to inform decisions about an upcoming project. There are also online platforms (such as bulletin boards) that provide a freeform space for research participants to respond to your questions in writing. You do not need to recruit hundreds of research participants—many SSIC studies recruit as few as 25 people for this type of research.

Hire a research consulting firm: Not all of this needs to fall on your shoulders, and there are often affordable options.

STEP 3

Spread the word!

Let the results of your research guide your content development and distribution. Having the help of community partners at this point is essential. As you know, it’s challenging for any content or campaign to capture the attention of busy parents with young children, especially those from underserved communities. However, when a trusted community organization disseminates the content, those parents are more likely to see it, trust it, and absorb its messaging. Here are some suggestions.

  • Organize family-friendly events at local schools or community centers where materials are distributed.
  • Conduct sessions to show healthcare providers and caregivers how to access and use the materials.
  • Work with librarians and healthcare providers to connect with community members.
IDEAS IN ACTION

Let’s take a look at how this works on the ground. In 2018, SSIC launched an oral health initiative targeting Black and immigrant families with young children in Los Angeles County. We set out to address how content could improve oral health outcomes for young children.

Why oral health? According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tooth decay is the most common chronic disease in young children, and it affects high-risk children beginning in infancy and early childhood. Children with poor oral health miss more school days and receive lower grades than children with good oral health.

We became aware of this issue as part of a National Maternal and Child Oral Health Policy Center meeting in Washington, DC in 2006. Once we identified the opportunity for content to play a role in improving this outcome, we set about building our strategy.

Partner selection: We decided to partner with the UCLA School of Dentistry because it was determined that SSIC resources would be a valuable complement to its existing “More LA Smiles” children’s health awareness campaign.

Research: We partnered with Fluent Research, a consulting firm with expertise in children’s media and community-based research. They were selected through a competitive RFP process based on their experience in conducting research and evaluations of media-based resources and initiatives with young children and their caregivers. The research consisted of a series of interviews and focus groups with parents, early childhood educators, and dentists who serve Black, Latino, Korean, Chinese and Filipino families in Los Angeles. SSIC’s community partners played an instrumental role in carrying out this research by identifying and recruiting hard-to-reach research participants.

Analysis: The research highlighted specific financial, psychological and immigration-related factors that make accessing oral healthcare a challenge for parents, and pinpointed common misconceptions and hesitations around diet, oral hygiene and dentist visits. The research also identified schools, daycares and doctors’ offices as trusted settings for accessing information about parenting and health.

Execution: SSIC and its community partners developed several strategies for distributing the content, including events at schools and clinics, the distribution of booklets and online videos to childcare and healthcare providers, and a social media campaign that involved local businesses and organizations posting bilingual graphics and videos promoting the importance of tooth brushing (featuring Elmo and Grover, of course!). SSIC also worked with community partners to install Sesame Street-themed “Comfy-Cozy Spaces” in their facilities, where children can play with plush Sesame Street Muppet toys and parents have access to the oral health content.

Results & follow-up: After one year, a review of the campaign’s reach found that it had exceeded its goals, generating nearly 700,000 views of the oral health videos and increasing SSIC’s following on Facebook by 112%.

This is just one example of how SSIC uses its community-centered model to develop content and supporting campaigns that successfully target hard-to-reach populations. Although it has its challenges, even small steps toward blending aspects of this model into your content development and distribution process can make a difference.

At the end of the day, infusing community voices into content helps producers make more authentic programming, but it also ends up having a much deeper impact on the people and audiences who are targeted to consume it.

24 May

Posted at 11:06h in Children, Kids, Research

One of the most consistent findings I have noticed while studying families and digital media over the years is that parents want their children to be less dependent on them. At the same time, however, parents must also supervise their children and ensure their children’s online safety. In various studies about educational apps, children’s media, digital gaming, non-digital play, and reading, many parents have admitted that whatever the medium, they want their children to be both safe and independent. Therein lies the parenting conundrum.

Parents tend to opt for solo activities and resources for their children that can offer the safest options and the most autonomy. For example, while co-reading is important to parents to allow time to bond, they also want their child to grow to love reading and eventually choose to read independently on their own. Similarly, parents often prefer to send their children to the yard (if one is available to them) instead of a public park, since they can provide supervision while getting other things done at home.

While this idea may seem like a no-brainer (especially to parents), the solutions that research offers as the best and safest options for children—co-viewing and co-playing, for example, which we fully support—can admittedly leave parents feeling that they have to make a hard choice. They feel they have to choose between what they should do to be a “good parent” and what they end up doing in reality, which is often pushing their child toward the easiest solution that gets them out of their hair. We have heard from many parents that they struggle to balance their children’s need for activities that are educational, fun, and physically active —activities that often require supervision—with their own need for time to do what they need to do, which often requires their child to act independently.

According to our research, the capacity for independent play is one of the key drivers for parents to allow technology use among young children, beating out most other anxieties parents report having about screen time and active time. This is a particularly interesting finding to see come up time and again, especially given the vats of ink spilled over screen time since the debut of the iPad in 2010 (not to mention the invention of the television). Complicating the picture further, the levers for safety and autonomy are different for each family. A family most concerned about exposure, for example, might allow their 11-year-old to access any video game they want as long as their device is not connected to the internet. Another family concerned about contact and location might give their 11-year-old a phone so that they can be reached wherever they are, with less concern about how the child uses it.

Regardless of each family’s situation, however, there are certain takeaways tech companies might consider to help parents feel more confident in their child’s safety when using technology independently. Ideally, with this peace of mind, parents might be less anxious about not striking the balance between wanting to engage with their children and needing time to be more hands off.

1) Support the balance of learning and fun.

We have heard from many parents that, if their children are going to be on a screen anyway, they want the time spent to be as educational as possible. For some parents, an engaging educational app is a relief, since the alternatives are “mindless” apps that just waste time. But above all, we have heard that parents take cues from their children about what is engaging for them and worth spending time and money on. If it is educational but no fun, it is not going to be worth the time, let alone the money. App designers should strive for the happy medium. Note, however, that the desire for educational apps seems to change over time: as older children have increased responsibilities at school, parents want their children to relax and are more okay with “mindless” fun.

2) Support parents’ search for appropriate content.

We have likely all experienced the inundation of choices that have resulted from the proliferation of streamers, channels, and podcast networks. The children’s media landscape is no different. There is no shortage of options for devices, apps, or shows to choose from, and parents are operating on a combination of word of mouth, pre-vetting (using the apps themselves for a while), and trial and error. Issues with app store rating systems have been well documented, but in addition to overdue changes to those systems, parents need to be made aware of websites like Common Sense Media (CSM) that include parent and child reviews and media research. Outlets such as CSM can also help parents differentiate high-quality, research-based content from popular apps that claim to be educational. This information can help parents make their own decisions about what is right for their family.

3) Support parents’ efforts to keep their children safe.

Parents trust devices and apps that help them maintain control over what their children are exposed to. While they can control most of what comes into their home in other ways, technology can be a conduit to the wider world that parents have comparatively little control over. We have found that parents are not completely comfortable with company-imposed or set-it-and-forget-it filters, so we suggest clear controls that allow parents to customize and revisit the boundaries they’ve set over time.

4) Support regulations on children’s time.

Although parents like that technology can occupy their children’s time, they also fear and dislike the complete and utter takeover of their attention. Parents we have talked to complain about being excluded from engagement with their child while they are on devices. While some parents have outsourced being the screen time “bad guy” to timers and house rules, many parents wish apps and devices integrated periodic breaks after an appropriate amount of time. This feature would make transitions between activities smoother for everyone.

5) Support optional parent participation.

Although parents want and need their children to be independent, they still see the value of co-engagement and participation in their interests. Multiplayer modes and prompts for optional parent participation in activities invite parents to engage with their children in digital spaces rather than exclude them. Portals or logins that give parents a view of what their child is doing and the progress they have made also help parents feel connected without interrupting their child’s screen time.

Conducting research with parents and children provides me and my colleagues at Fluent with the opportunity to advise tech companies on how their products and services might have a positive impact on kids and their parents. These are some of the most common insights we have heard from families across our research studies. I look forward to seeing how Fluent Research continues to help make new innovations even better for them.

By Tiffany Salone*

23 May

Posted at 15:00h in Get to Know Us, Kids

May is National Teen Self-Esteem Month. Self-esteem issues affect people of all ages. However, we are particularly at risk of experiencing a low sense of self-worth during our teenage years. At Fluent, we understand the importance of lifting up our young people and helping them to foster a positive view of who they are and what they can achieve. With that in mind, we asked some of our team members to reflect on the advice they would offer their teenage selves. Their answers warmed our hearts and provided us with some valuable self-esteem tools.

 

Charlotte Beatty, User Experience Researcher

Alone time in nature is essential! Alone time (read: no parents, no authority figures, no outside noise or opinions!) affords teens a moment to rest and reset and listen to their own voice without any distractions, but doing something active, like going outside, can really help teens consciously reflect about themselves and their interests. Taking a walk or going for a hike outdoors can significantly help with processing difficult emotions, finding a sense of flow or balance, and sparking creativity. If you’re not a nature person, any solo, meditative activity can have the same benefits. When I was a teen, I connected to my sense of self-esteem best when I was hiking bluffs, walking along beaches, painting, performing ballet, or swimming.

 

Stefanie Cousins, Vice President of Marketing and Communications

It’s okay to make mistakes. Be kind to yourself. Every other teen is figuring it out too.

 

Heath Cozens, Director of Productions

This is my confidence hack for public speaking, but it can apply in lots of socially stressful situations. Focus on the message, not yourself. Think of how you ride a bike: if you only look at your front wheel, you’ll wipe out. But if you look at where you’re going, you’re golden. It’s a lot more fun to focus on communicating your passion, and 99% of the time, people are actually rooting for you. Their attention is on the substance of your message, your actions, and what you bring to the table, rather than superficial aspects like your appearance or how polished you seem. And if you’re bringing positivity/utility/good vibes and they’re still attacking you…? Well, in that rare case, you can probably guess why, and the real reason has nothing to do with you. So when you’re feeling stressed, take a moment to note that feeling, and then put it aside. Shift focus to what you want people to take away from the interaction. This will not only make you more confident but also make your interactions more meaningful.

 

Tom Fuller, Vice President of Business Development 

Take off that silly hat and wear sunglasses instead of those coke bottle horn rims! No, you’re okay — remember you’re smarter than some and faster than most.

 

Nellie Gregorian, Founder and President

Don’t be so hard on yourself, Nellie. Keep that critical inner voice in check! And don’t be shy about acknowledging your strengths and talents. It’s OK to pat yourself on the back from time to time.

 

Mary Meyn, Director of Research 

It’s ok to not have all the answers — keep asking questions and challenge the status quo. I’m proud of you.

 

Anonymous

Every loving thing you do for yourself is practice for loving someone else well. Meditate on your strengths, and focus less on your weaknesses. Not getting everything right on the first try makes you human, leaving plenty of room for growth and discovery. Expect failure, and allow it to serve as transformational instruction; maybe you can even help others learn from your mistakes one day. Get good at identifying your feelings by building a vocabulary for the range of emotions you feel — “amused,” “anxious”, “astonished”! Don’t be scared of your feelings, feel them all, and let them inform you of what is important or valuable to you. Remember that you are deeply loved as an immutable fact and that no one, not even you, can undo that.

 

 

07 Apr

Posted at 17:31h in Children, Content, Kids, Media, Research, Technology

A wise and dear professor once told me, “The medium is not the message. The message is the message.” And when television was the medium, that was certainly true. But is that still the case with the proliferation of interactive media for children taking hold? Does the interactivity of the medium outweigh the content being delivered on it?

In the podcast series, Chasing Life, Dr. Sanjay Gupta delves into the science behind the impact of technology on our brains. This particular episode, Inside a Lab Studying Toddlers and Touchscreens,” explores the impact of interactive touchscreen technologies on very young children. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and director of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, explains how his research is finding that children between the ages of 18 and 24 months struggle to disengage from an app in comparison to a traditional toy. This knowledge triggers questions for both parents of young children as well as the technology companies that create these apps. What can parents and tech companies do to prevent adverse effects on children’s young brains from this relatively new technology?

As a parent myself, I see in my teenagers how the interactivity and stimulation of technology keeps them fully engaged and immersed. And in my role as Director of Content Research and Evaluation at Fluent Research, I help technology and media companies understand how children and parents experience apps, games, and other products so designers and producers who create digital content for kids do so with their wellbeing in mind. This is more important than ever as technology continues to evolve and draw in the attention of a generation. As Dr. Christakis says, “Every program is educational. The question is, ‘What is it teaching?’” We need to do better for our children.

By Allison Caplovitz, PhD

24 Jul

Posted at 19:58h in Conferences, Employee News, Kids

Last week Allison Caplovitz and Stefanie Cousins traveled to Miami to attend the Kidscreen Summit, one of the most important events for the kids’ entertainment industry. Attendees from all over the world return year after year to engage in critical conversations affecting the industry, conduct business meetings, and participate in key networking opportunities.

The week kicked off with a keynote by New York Times best-selling author and Newbery Award winner Kwame Alexander about the power of yes, specifically saying yes to creativity, saying yes to thinking outside the box, and saying yes to every opportunity. It was an impactful event, setting a positive tone for the rest of the week.

Streaming platforms, networks, production companies, animators, writers, and researchers were well represented on the stage and in the crowd last week. While not all sessions focused on COVID, several of the sessions Stefanie and Allison attended looked at kids’ content through that lens. Here are a few of their takeaways:

• A panel of kids’ content experts from Sesame Workshop, Warner Brothers Discovery, Duolingo, and Crandall Consulting discussed Lessons in Social Emotional Learning. They emphasized that infusing positive psychology, human-centric learning, and social-emotional learning into kids’ content is more critical than ever for kids to overcome the adversity they experienced during COVID. All panelists emphasized that soft skills, like resilience, collaboration, cooperation, and communication must be the nutrition we pack into programming.

• In their session, Coming out of COVID, experts from Dubit looked at the toll the pandemic has taken on kids, specifically their relationship with media. Dubit found that familiar, low risk, interactive, and comforting entertainment brands bring stability to kids and families now.

• Nickelodeon presented research in Mind the Gap, about “bridge” programs, which are geared toward 4-7-year-old, between preschool and big kid age groups. Bridge shows are just the right mix of comfort and excitement and are more like preschool programming than programs for big kids. Bluey, Gaby’s Dollhouse, and Wild Kratts are all examples of bridge programs. In our post-COVID world, bridge shows are thought to be more supportive of children in both age groups.

• The session, Pandemic Education Fallout: How COVID-19 Has Changed Everything, featured Sesame Workshop and The Family Room sharing research about the shifting learning priorities parents have for their preschoolers since the onset of the pandemic and how content creators can use this new information to impact their educational programming. Sesame Street, for example, has used this research in the development of its content for next season, focusing on curiosity (I wonder…) creative thinking (What if…), and task persistence (Let’s try…).

The next KidScreen Summit returns to Miami in February 2023 and we’re looking forward to another powerful week. See you there!

21 Jul

Posted at 23:49h in Children, Kids, Media, Methodology, Qualitative Research, Research

Digital contexts are becoming more prevalent in children’s lives than ever before, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to move various aspects of children’s lives online*. Since human development is a holistic and dynamic process between the developing person and his or her context* and children develop in positive and healthy ways when their strengths are combined with the strengths of their contexts, we have an opportunity as researchers to bring this framework to the changing landscape of children’s lives.

What has become apparent in our company’s recent requests for proposals, is that there is a lack of fit between the knowledge and experience of many designers and the developmental needs and abilities of children. This lack of fit signals a fundamental problem, and an opportunity, given the growing presence of digital technology as a context for children’s development. The virtual world is a new frontier and there has been a land rush of companies looking to stake their claim flag.  This rapid growth has seemed to create holes in the capabilities of these frontier companies. More precisely, the talent needed to design for adults does not adequately translate to designing for kids. In the absence of comprehensive knowledge about child development, current designers may err in using themselves or those close to them as the markers of success and/or “normality”.

“We all have a blind spot and it’s shaped exactly like us.” – Junto Diaz, Author

Short of extensive training in child development, designers can utilize a few central rules of thumb when designing for kids. Keeping these in mind will go a long way to minimizing, or at least acknowledging, our biases:

1) All humans are whole. Sometimes by necessity, we need to zoom in and focus on a specific part of children’s development, such as their literacy level or their ability to swipe on a tablet. But it is important to understand those parts within the context of the whole developing person. We then need to further adjust our lens to view that person as situated within a dynamic relationship with his or her context.

2) There is no ‘typical’ child. Much of what we know and have studied about children is approximations that are gathered from information that has been averaged over large groups from mostly Westernized societies. Expectations about children should be considered approximations that can get you close to understanding.

3) All households are different. A common mistake is to view children’s development as unfolding in a vacuum. Rules and expectations differ greatly by household and are driven by cultural, situational, and practical factors. Just because a child is developmentally capable of something does not mean that they will do it.

4) Child development is less linear than it appears. Because development is an iterative process, there are often regressions that ebb and flow with progressions. Development of a skill or competency may occur steadily over time or rapidly in spurts. While many abilities get better over time, it is not always the case.  Some abilities, like attention span increase gradually over time during childhood while other capacities, like learning a new language, decrease over time. Other aspects of development, like identity development, are latent during younger years and then rapidly develop.

If there is one mantra that we could recommend to all designers and those thinking about how to best support kids, we would strongly offer this:

“Every [child] is like all other [children], some other [children], and no other [child].” – Kluckhohn & Murray, Anthropologist & Psychologist

By Dan and Amy Warren.

==========

1*Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children. UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, Florence, 2022.

*Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Gestsdóttir, S. Naudeau, S., Jelicic, H., Alberts, A. E., Ma, L., Smith, L. M., Bobek, D. L., Richman-Raphael, D., Simpson, I., Christiansen, E. D., & von Eye, A. (2005). Positive youth development, participation in community youth development programs, and community contributions of fifth-grade adolescents: Findings from the first wave of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 17-71.

 

27 Jun

Posted at 14:52h in Children, Content, Education, Employee News, Kids, Research

Next month Fluent’s Director of Content & Evaluation, Dr. Allison Caplovitz, will be returning to Miami to attend the Kidscreen Summit after the conference’s two-year hiatus due to COVID. Allison’s favorite meeting of the year, the Kidscreen Summit is known as the most important annual event in the kids media industry.

Allison’s background includes deep experience informing the development of children’s television programs, evaluating curriculum development, and conducting summative research. She has advised 9 Story, Highlights for Children, Meta, Netflix, PBS Kids, Sesame Workshop, Warner Media, and YouTube Kids, and was instrumental to the success of the iconic children’s media property Blue’s Clues. Read all about Allison here and be sure to connect with her in Miami.

10 May

Posted at 22:51h in Children, Content, Kids, Media, Methodology, Research

Today, the most cutting-edge thinking about human development is holistic, dynamic, and emphasizes the relationship between the developing person and his or her context.  This thinking is an important evolution; a stark contrast to outmoded ideas that see people as something to be molded by the context like a piece of clay or “filled” like an empty receptacle.

The Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective is one such holistic and dynamic view, based on the ideas that:1

   1. All young people have strengths (because of the potential for developmental change across the lifespan), and

   2. All contexts have strengths as well. These strengths are resources that can be used to promote positive youth development.

   3. If the strengths of young people are combined with the strengths of the context, then positive, healthy development occurs.

PYD emerges out of this dynamic relationship and is evidenced by the presence in young people of “Five C’s”:  Competence, Confidence, Connection, Caring, and Character.

Digital contexts are becoming more prevalent in children’s lives than ever before, fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to move various aspects of children’s lives online.2  The growing presence of digital technology as a context for children’s development requires that we think deeply about its impact, identify its strengths, and consider how best to combine those strengths with the strengths of young people to promote their positive development.

Nutrient-rich digital contexts have many of the same features as those found in the physical world.  Both are guided by a deep understanding of children’s development, behavior, and natural play patterns.3  Both also recognize social interactions as the core of what it means to be human, seeking to enhance and extend (not obstruct) human connection.4  In turn, both types of contexts empower children to be agents in their own development, to make choices and course-corrections, to be generative and creative.5

We know digital contexts support positive development when children exhibit these six positive behaviors:3

    1. Communication (sharing ideas, caring about and interpreting the work of others)

    2. Collaboration (turning shared ideas into shared action)

    3. Community Building (contributing to the good of the community)

    4. Content Creation (using tools to create new artifacts)

    5. Creativity (being flexible and imaginative)

    6. Choices of Conduct (making decisions based on one’s personal sense of morality)

Taken together, these behaviors can be used to guide the design of developmentally-mindful digital contexts and, as well, to evaluate and revamp existing digital contexts.

When we take a positive developmental approach to digital contexts, we recognize that the quality and potential benefits of those contexts are contingent upon children’s developmental milestones.  Just as a child’s height determines the relevance of monkey bars, so too does their attention span, memory, symbolic representational skills and so on, determine the relevance and nutrient richness of digital contexts.  Certain developments, particularly in early childhood, happen best in the physical, multidimensional world.  Children must reach these key milestones to unlock and benefit from the strengths of digital contexts.  When unlocked, the strengths of young people can combine with the strengths of digital contexts to support positive development.

    1. Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Gestsdóttir, S. Naudeau, S., Jelicic, H., Alberts, A. E., Ma, L., Smith, L. M., Bobek, D. L., Richman-Raphael, D., Simpson, I., Christiansen, E. D., & von Eye, A. (2005). Positive youth development, participation in community youth development programs, and community contributions of fifth-grade adolescents: Findings from the first wave of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 17-71.
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Amy Warren, Ph.D. is a Senior Child Development Researcher at Fluent Research. Amy holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Clark University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in child development from Tufts University. Dan Warren, Ph.D. is Director, Youth Development and Education at Fluent Research. Dan holds a doctorate in Human Development and Child Study from Tufts University and taught elementary school in Massachusetts for nearly a decade. Together, they co-founded Home Base Learning Center, a nature-based elementary school guided by the core values of Positive Youth Development, Social Justice, and Earth Stewardship.