Professor Julia Gillen has been busy discussing her recent research project, “Understanding how very young children learn language and literacy at home in a post-digital age” with a variety of audiences. Also known as Toddlers, Tech and Talk, the study is a highly topical investigation of very young children and their uses of digital technology in homes. The ESRC funded project, in which Julia was a co-investigator, took place between May 2022 and December 2024 and is the most large-scale investigation of this area in the UK to date, of this little researched age group.

Evidence submitted by Julia to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Media Select Committee inquiry in Media Literacy was published in April. Recent practitioner audiences have included the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Clinical Excellence Network and the London Early Years Advisors’ Forum. Julia says, “It’s great to talk about research results with people with strong opinions and existing experience. There is so much alarmist material in the media and our research presents more nuanced findings. We’re also responding to requests for more open access materials, through focussing on our summary report, policy briefs and infographics, besides academic outputs.”