Screen Time and Birth-2 Years:

Young children learn to talk and communicate through interactions with other people. That’s the way it has always been and that’s the way it will continue to be, despite any new technology that comes our way. The first several years of life are crucial for your child’s language development. It is when their brain is the most receptive to learning new language and is building communication pathways that will be with them for the rest of their lives.

Once that window closes, it is much more difficult for someone to learn and develop language skills. That’s why it’s harder for you to learn a foreign language as an adult and those rare children who were raised by wolves in the woods have a hard time learning to communicate efficiently.

Time spent in front of a screen basically takes away an opportunity to interact with those around him and learn by observing his environment. No, watching a screen for a few minutes won’t completely break your child’s language development, but we want them to spend as much time as possible interacting directly with those around them and learning from their environment.

Think about a car ride. If your child has a device in front of him, he quietly sits and watches his favorite show. You probably don’t interrupt often to talk to him. On the flip side, if he didn’t have a device, you would most likely be talking to him more, even if he’s not responding. And if he’s bored, he might start saying something to you as well. Let’s face it, we like to fill silence so if there’s no screen making noise, we’re more likely to talk. (This goes for the radio as well, turn off the noise and talk to your child in the car!)

So what about those awesome videos that are supposed to teach your child vocabulary, or sign language, or to read?

Well, they are still just videos. Yes, vocabulary and reading are important parts of communication, but they are a very small part of a much bigger picture. Communication is about interacting with others, the give and take.

The speaker responds to the listener’s body language and responses to change and adapt what they are saying. The listener uses non-verbal cues to gain deeper meaning from the speaker’s message. There is so much more going on than the list of vocabulary words that the lady in the video is teaching. Videos do not replace person-to-person interactions for teaching language or communication. In fact, this study showed that children younger than three-years-old were unable to relate what happens on a screen with real life. They don’t know it’s real!

On the plus side though, this study showed that if parents engaged in a vocabulary-learning video with the child and demonstrated the words for them, the children were able to learn more from the video than if they were watching alone. So if you’re really desperate for a video break for your little one, just sit with them and help your child follow along!

Can Screen Time Cause Language Delays in Young Children?

Researchers are beginning to publish more and more studies about the detrimental effects of screen time on language development.

This study by Chonchaiya and Pruksananonda found that children who began watching tv before 12 months and who watched more than 2 hours of TV per day were six times more likely to have language delays! Yikes!!

This study by Duch et. al. also found that children who watched more than 2 hours of TV per day had increased odds of low communication scores.

This is why the American Association of Pediatricians recommend no screen time at all until children are 18-24 months old.

Here are some more studies cited by the Hanen Centre about the effects of screen time on language development.

Did Screen Time Cause My Child’s Language Delay??

There is no way to tell if too much screen time caused your child’s speech delay or language problems. Most likely, it was a combination of factors, so there’s no use blaming yourself or feeling guilty. However, continued overuse of screen time could be making your child’s language delay worse or keeping it from getting better.

Some children do completely fine with tons of screen time. Some children learn to count, name things, or even read from screens! However, your child is having trouble with communication so he needs every opportunity possible to hear words spoken to him (by a real person, not a screen) and to practice using sounds and words himself.

I’m not saying that screen time caused your child’s language delay. I’m saying that it could be making it worse.

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Screen Time and Older Children:

The older children become, the more screen time they can handle. Plus, as they age they will begin to be able to actually learn things from screens as well! For example, in this study, children who watching the Super Why show performed better on literacy tasks after watching. And in this study, children who watched Daniel Tiger had improved social skills, especially when their parents talked with them afterward about the lessons.

Can My Older Child with a Language Delay Watch Screens?

Here’s where we get into a bit of a gray area! Since there’s no way to know if screen time impacted your child’s language development, we don’t have a clear answer here. You could always try cutting out screen time and see if your child’s communication improves. But that’s not always feasible for families.

This study determined that passive screen time (like watching videos) was more detrimental than playing an interactive game or using it for educational purposes. You could always try switching to less passive forms of screen time.

You can also just try reducing screen time bit by bit and watching for improvements. You can try limiting the maximum number of minutes the child is in front of a screen per day. Or, you could limit the times that he is allowed to use a screen (for example, only between 4:00 and 6:00). You could also set parameters on what types of screens or uses your child is allowed to watch, such as what shows or what devices.

Start off by only limiting your child’s screen time slightly. Then, gradually increase the limits until you have reached the desired amount of screen time. Also, make sure you replace the times that your child normally would have been using a screen with one of the alternatives below.

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Alternatives to Screen Time:

Replacing Screen Time with Interaction Time

Try some of these alternatives to screen time that are way better for your child’s development and will help you build a better relationship with your child as well. Keep in mind it’s important for you to put away your screens when you interact with your child as well. Put away your smart phone!

• Talk with your child. If your child is only giving you one-word responses, try asking more specific questions (like “who did you eat lunch with”) instead of open-ended questions (like “how was your day?”).
• Sing songs
• Read a book
• Play with your child’s favorite toy
• Color a picture
• Make a craft project
• Play in the yard
• Go for a walk
• Take your child to a park
• Go for a car ride and talk about what you see
• Go to the library and look for books on a topic that interests your child
• Play a board game
• Teach your child a new skill
• Teach or practice a sport in the back yard
• Ride bikes
• Go somewhere with an indoor play-place
• Call up some friends and have a play date
• Cook something in the kitchen together
• Plant seeds or plants in a garden
• Do a family service project together, like helping an elderly neighbor with house work

Waiting Cards: Language-Boosting Alternatives for Screen Time: So many times we hand over technology when a child needs to wait. Learn how to teach kids to wait using waiting cards.

**Keep in mind, the key here is that you are replacing the screen time with quality time with you or another caring adult. That will help ease the transition!

How to Keep Your Child Busy Without Screens (When You Need to Get Something Done):

Ok, I know you can’t always sit down and have a tea party with your child. We have to get things done and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to always be sitting down with your child. Often we use the screens to keep the child busy or entertained so we can get food in everyone’s bodies and take care of our basic bodily needs…like going to the bathroom. Or we need to put out the literal fire that the 4-year-old started.

Here are some tips that will help keep your little one independently engaged without screens:

1. Rotate Toys: If you put a toy away for a bit and then get it out again, your child probably will have completely forgotten about it and will suddenly find it fascinating again! Have a spot in your house where you dump a tub of a few toys (we had a train table in our living room for this). Every few days (or whenever your child loses interest), shove all of those toys into the tub and dump out a new one. This should buy you at least a few minutes, right??
2. Give them a (Fake) Side Job: When your children are young, they don’t always know that they’re not really helping. Sure, it’s great to teach children how to actually help you with chores and meal prep, but there’s a time and a place for that. And it’s not when you’re trying to get a meal on the table before that terrible witching hour when the baby is gonna scream till you put her down. So if you’re needing a moment, try giving them a job that looks like it’s helping but will actually just keep them busy. Give them a step stool and let them “wash dishes” in a sink with some soapy water in it. Give them a few plastic dishes and let them play in the bubbles. Or, give them a piece of paper and let them write or draw on it. Find a way that you can give them some piece of what you’re doing so they feel like they’re participating.
3. Send them on a Scavenger Hunt: Ask your child to go upstairs and find something blue. Or bumpy. Or little. Once they bring you something, tell them to take it back to where it goes and then find you something different.
4. Place Strategic Toys Near You: Put some colorful magnets on the fridge and redirect your child to them when you’re trying to prepare food. Or lay some puzzles out near your desk when you’re trying to get that report typed up. I have an actual swing that hangs in the doorway of my office so when my kids are following me into the office, they can swing while I get my work done.
5. Bathtub Full of Balls: If you haven’t discovered the magic of the bathtub yet, you’re missing out! If the thing you need to do happens to be “clean the bathroom”, you’re in luck! Give them a water bath and let them play. If you need to leave that room though, try putting something else in the bathtub with them like several balls or some sort of mess/sensory play that can go down the drain, like bubbles or pouring water from one jar to another.

I’m sure your child will resist the lack of screen time at first, but keep in mind that you are doing her a huge favor by limiting her exposure and creating wonderful new experiences that will open her mind, improve language development, and maybe even expose her to some new hobbies or interests that she never would have found otherwise. I know this is a hard thing to do, but it is so worth it in the end. You can do it!