Parents mobile use may harm children’s language development

A recent study has found that parents who spend more than an hour a day scrolling on their mobile phones in front of their young children may negatively affect their children’s cognitive abilities.

According to the study, parents screen time had a greater impact on children’s language development than the amount of time children themselves spent using devices. Furthermore, five-year-old children who had their own tablets or mobile phones were found to have weaker language skills than children who did not have such devices.

However, the difference observed between children’s screen time and their cognitive abilities disappeared by the age of seven.

Researchers from Norway have warned that smartphones and tablets can be distracting devices and excessive use may cause parents to interact less with their children. This can limit opportunities for children to expand their vocabulary during a crucial stage of language development.

According to the research, around 90% of brain development takes place before the age of five. Earlier this year, the Norwegian government warned that excessive television time could affect children’s language development.

Parents were advised to limit screen time for children aged two to five to no more than one hour per day. The study was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics and followed 747 Norwegian children for three years from the age of five until their eighth birthdays.

At the beginning of the study, parents were asked how many hours their children typically spent looking at screens and whether they had their own tablets or mobile phones.

Parents were also asked about their own social media use and were instructed to provide the screen-time records from their phones. The children took language tests annually at the ages of five, six and seven. These tests assessed how many words they could understand and how well they understood grammar.

Instead of comparing the children’s results at only one point in time, the researchers examined how their language abilities changed over the years. This allowed them to distinguish between children who initially had weaker language skills and those whose language development slowed over time.

After taking other potentially influential factors including household income and parents educational levels into account, researchers at the University of Oslo concluded that higher parental phone use was associated with a slower development of children’s vocabulary.