engleski

Screen time and early language development

‘Screen time’ is the duration of time spent in front of phones, video games, TVs, computers, and tablets (Ponti et al., 2017), either actively or passively (Sweetser et al., 2012). Increased exposure to screens has been known to influence children’s overall development, but findings in terms of the effects on language development are not straightforward (Karani et al., 2022). Therefore, it is important to further investigate this topic. Aims of this study are to investigate the relation between screen time and language development based on the data reported by parents observing their child interacting with the screen, and to explore parents’ attitudes towards screen time and different abilities related to child development. 62 parents of typically-developing children (ages 3 ; 0-3 ; 6) filled the Screen Devices Usage Questionnaire (Tulviste & Schults, 2018) and Croatian version of Communicative Development Inventories–III (Kuvač Kraljević & Matić Škorić, in prep). First analysis included correlations between screen time and scores on vocabulary size (across four semantic categories) and grammar (word forms and syntactic complexity), and the second descriptively observed parents’ responses. Results suggest that screen time is connected neither to vocabulary size nor grammar. Parents find screen devices useful for the development of creativity and arithmetic skills, but harmful for physical activities, sleep and general behaviour. Half of the sample finds screens useful for communication, language development and reading skills, while the other half perceives them as very harmful in this respect. Findings will be discussed in relation to language development, with research and clinical implications.

screen time ; language development ; vocabulary ; grammar ; parents’ attitudes

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