Wednesday 30 August 2017
WATCHING television or playing with smart phone apps does not have any effect on children’s language development – providing they still spend time reading – researchers have found.
A study
led by University of Salford developmental psychologist Dr Gemma Taylor and
published in the Journal
Of Children And Media, has found that as long as parents or carers spend
time reading with young children, and this time is not reduced in place of
television or touchscreen devices such as iPads, children’s exposure to this
media should have no effect on the size of their vocabulary.
A team
of researchers from the University of Salford and the ESRC International Centre
for Language and Cognitive Development at Lancaster University used online
questionnaires to get data from 131 parents of children aged 6-36 months.
The parents were asked a series of questions about the
amount of time their children typically spend watching TV, using devices such
as smart phones or tablets, or either reading or having stories read to them.
They were also asked to complete the UK Communicative
Development Inventory (CDI) – a detailed checklist of words from different
categories such as animals, household items and food and drink – which their
children were able to say and understand.
Of the families surveyed, 99 per cent of children were read
to daily, 82 per cent watched television and 49 per cent used mobile
touchscreen devices daily.
The researchers
found a positive relationship between the amount of time children spent reading
or being read to and their vocabulary size, but time spent watching television
or using mobile devices had no relationship – as this reading time was not
offset by time in front of screens.
Dr Taylor said:
“Children are now growing up in a digital age surrounded by a wide range of
media, and scrolling across the screen of a tablet is as natural for a
three-year-old as flicking through a picture book.
“Mobile
touchscreen use among children is also increasing, and there is some concern
that this is taking the place of time spent between children and parents which
is crucial to language development.
“Our findings
showed that, in the sample we looked at, the children’s vocabulary size was not
affected by time in front of mobile devices, as the parents were still spending
time reading with them.
“However, it’s
important to note that the sample we looked at was made up of highly educated
families, and in order to study this issue more broadly we would need to look
at a much larger group of parents.”