Too much screen time could be affecting your child's language development.
The American Academy for Pediatrics advises children be kept away from screens until they are 18 months old and should only use screen time for watching educational programs with a caregiver between the ages of 18 and 24 months. However, surveys from the pediatric research center Zero To Three has shown that, on average, children in the U.S. from birth to 23 months spend an average of 42 minutes on screens everyday.
Previous research has shown an association between screen time and brain development in children aged between 0 and 12 years of age. Now a paper published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics has demonstrated how screen time between the ages of 12 and 36 months can affect children's speech development.
Numerous studies have indicated a positive relationship between early language exposure and development in young children. Language exposure has also been linked to emotional development, IQ and brain function. But new research from the universities of Western Australia, Adelaide, Oxford as well as Griffith University in Australia suggests that screen time may be getting in the way of this development.
The study investigated 220 families from 2018 to 2021. Data was collected every six months using advanced speech recognition technology to capture the children's screen time and home language environment over an average 16-hour day.
The researchers observed conversations between parents and their children, measuring use of adult words, child vocalizations and taking turns in the conversation. Their data was then adjusted to account for differences in child age, parental education, number of children at home, home activities and any psychological distress of the primary caregiver.
With these factors accounted for, the study found that for every additional minute of screen time, children heard fewer adult words, made fewer vocalizations and engaged in fewer back-and-forth conversational interactions. This association was particularly stark for children at 36 months, with one extra minute of screen time associated with children hearing 6.6 fewer adult words, making 4.9 fewer vocalizations and engaging in 1.1 fewer conversational turn.
The researchers conclude that "screen time is a mechanism that may be getting in the way of children experiencing a language-rich home environment during the early years."
"[The] findings of this study support the notion of technoference for
Australian families, whereby young children's exposure to screen time is interfering with opportunities to talk and interact in their home environment," the authors wrote.
Marina Bazhydai, a lecturer in developmental psychology at Lancaster University in the U.K. who was not involved in the study, said that the study had several notable strengths.
"It measured a relatively large and diverse sample at multiple time points," Bazhydai said in a statement. "It also accounted for several crucial confounders. Methodological and statistical approaches are appropriate, and the study closes an important research gap in the emerging literature on technoference in infancy and early years."
However, Bazhydai also pointed out several weaknesses in the study.
"Other interferences to the normal flow of child-caregiver communicative exchange, besides technoference, and the quality and content of screen time children were exposed to were not captured here. In future research, it would be interesting to compare the effect of technoference with the effects of non-technological interference on parent-child talk outcomes to further delineate its impact," she said.
"Furthermore, the quality of screen exposure–the content of which was not captured in this study–might also play a role, potentially serving as a protective factor. It could be that less communicative contact with the caregiver is not as detrimental if the screen time is of high quality and developmentally appropriate, educational content. Future research should include such quality measures along with quantity measures of both predictors and outcomes."
Is there a health problem that's worrying you? Do you have a question about screen time? Let us know via health@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Update 3/4/24, 1:28 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from Marina Bazhydai.
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Pandora Dewan is a Senior Science Reporter at Newsweek based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on science, health ... Read more
