Hand-held screens like smart phones, tablets, electronic games and other devices might delay an infant’s ability to develop words, a new study warns. The new research that will be presented at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco. The new research says children under two years’ old who are exposed to use too much smartphone tablet and electronic gadgets are likely to begin talking much later. In Britain children under the age of three spend an average of 44 minutes in a day using electronic gadgets (smartphones and tablets) but this is the first time, researchers have shown it can impact on language. In the United States, some children begin using mobile gadgets before they could even learn how to talk.
Researchers will explain the abstract, “Is handheld screen time use associated with language delay in infants?” on Saturday, May 6. The meeting will be held at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. The study included 894 children between ages six months and two years participating in TARGet Kids!, a practice-based research network in Toronto between 2011 and 2015. By their 18-month check-ups, 20% of the children had daily average handheld electronic gadget use of 28 minutes, according to their parents.
Based on a screening tool for language delay, researchers from the University of Toronto and The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto found that the each 30-minute increase in hand-held screen time, there was a 49 percent increased risk of expressive speech delay. There was no apparent link between handheld electronic gadget screen time and other communications delays, such as social interactions and body gestures. By the age of two to three, children should be able to express themselves in sentences of between three and four words. But those who spent the most time on handheld devices were found to struggle with speaking ability.
“Handheld devices are everywhere these days,” said Dr. Catherine Birken, the study’s principal investigator and a staff pediatrician and scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in the Canada. “While new pediatric guidelines suggest limiting screen time for babies and toddlers, we believe that the use of smartphones and tablets with young children has become quite common. This is the first study to report an association between handheld screen time and increased risk of expressive language delay,” said Birken.
For the record, the recent findings support a recent policy recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics to prevent technology exposure in children below 18 months old. Dr Birken said any type of screen media should be discouraged in children younger than 18 months. She further said, more future study is needed to understand the type and contents of screen activities infants are engaging in to further explore mechanisms behind the apparent link between handheld screen time and speech delay, such as time spent together with parents on handheld electronic devices, and to understand the impact on in-depth and longer-term communication outcomes in early childhood.
Story Source:- The Science Daily
