The literature review discusses studies which have been conducted to determine whether television enriches a child's imagination or leads to distortions of reality, and whether adult mediation during a child's television viewing or immediately after can evoke constructive changes or stimulate make-believe play. Thirty-six references are cited.…

This study examined the ways in which the spontaneous imaginative play and other social behaviors of 3- and 4-year-old children are affected by the frequency and patterns of their television viewing. The subjects were 141 children from predominantly white middle class homes. Pretesting was done to get an estimate of IQ (Peabody Picture Vocabulary…

This study examined the patterns of ongoing play manifested over a year's time by 141 three- and four-year-old boys and girls at nursery schools and daycare centers. The relationships between such play and concurrent language usage and the child's patterns of television viewing at home were examined during this period. Parents of the children were…