Author(s): Sowmya ASL and Manjuvani E

Abstract:
Modern gadgets have lot of features and applications to entertain children. Young children are operating gadgets with ease and getting attracted towards them. The influence of gadgets on child’s development remains a question mark for researchers. The purpose of this present paper is to study the usage of gadgets and language development of preschool children. The sample included 200 preschool children selected from private preschools of Hyderabad. The tests used in this study were taken from NCERT publications. Nine language development tests were administered individually on the sample. Cronbach’s alpha reliability of the tool is α = 0.86. The findings reveal that when the age increases, children scores on language tests have increased significantly. Girls scored higher on language development tests as compared to boys. Children with high gadget usage during working day scored higher in the following directions test and action agent test when compared with low gadget usage children. Similarly, children with high gadget usage scored higher on following directions, following propositions, name and use of objects, action agent test, comprehension test, ability to give name, age, sex and address and indication of parts of the body tests than children with low gadget usage during holiday. Hence it can be concluded that high gadget usage children scored higher on language development tests than low gadget usage children.