Screen Time and Language Development

Wendy Lee
3 days ago
5 min read

The UK government has published guidance on screen time for children under 5 years old. It’s based on work by the Early Years Screen Time Advisory Group (EYSTAG), who were tasked with reviewing evidence on early years screen time and providing advice to support the guidance.[1]

Why Is It Important?

From a speech and language point of view, we know children are ‘hard wired’ to focus on the faces around them; what they look and sound like. Interaction with people is fundamental to language development and nothing else can provide that instant response tailored to each child. It’s human interaction that helps build multiple turn conversations which we know are crucial for language development. It is also interaction that encourages children to be curious about the world, to explore and engage with people and things around them.

However, screens are attractive. They draw attention, make interesting noises and are bright and colourful. They are fast paced and pull children in. But therein lies the challenge. Screens can be a source of good for children’s language development, though mostly can interrupt and disrupt – when children are more engaged by the bright lights of a screen, they don’t spend the time interacting with others, playing and problem solving in the world. The more time with screens, the more likely children are to struggle to invent their own games and play interactively with others and struggle with listening and paying attention in the real world.

Importance of Interaction

Babies and young children need to spend time seeing and interacting with people. As much time as possible! Watching faces, smiling, taking turns, making noises, blowing raspberries, playing peekaboo, hearing songs and nursery rhymes.

It allows them to tune into language and build those early interactions that are the basis of communication.

The challenge with screens is there is no responsive ‘serve and return’ – that lovely turn taking we do with young children and babies to build connection and interaction. Screens also distract adults from interaction as well as not providing interaction for young children.

The EYSTAG Report

There is a huge amount of development in the first five years of life and the report highlights that even high quality digital content is no substitute for ‘the social, emotional, and physical experiences that come from real-world engagement’. They also emphasise the importance of ‘responsive adult-child interaction’ to support healthy development.

The report was clear around the evidence available as well as the lack of quality research in other areas, where they gave advice based on the expert input from the group.

The report doesn’t specifically cover Early Years settings, which is a shame – I see lots of variety in my visits to schools and settings, though a definite increase in settings using screens to share books, stories and rhymes with children as well as activities on tablets. I’m not convinced these support language and learning in the way interaction with an adult would, and think some guidance would be incredibly useful.

Parents

Parents were consulted during the review and they requested guidance that was ‘clear, evidence-based and non-judgemental’.

It’s good to see the report has acknowledged the challenge parents have in managing digital screens for their children. It also highlighted that ‘balancing negatives and positives in children’s lives is familiar to parents’.

The report highlights the strong influence we have in the way we use our phones and other devices in front of our children.

It also suggests parents should trust their instincts as they make decisions about what is best for their child and for their particular circumstances, with the aim of the guidance being to help parents make informed choices.

The Guidance

The guidance includes information on screen time for children and on wider issues such as what and how children watch screens.

Screen Time

The overarching guidance is to limit screen time for young children wherever possible, though more specifically:

For children under 2 years, to avoid screen time other than for shared activities with family that encourage bonding, interaction and conversation.
For children from 2-5 years, to try to keep it to 1 hour a day. Less if possible

Screen Activities

Who uses screens with children, and how they use them, matters; they advise watching with children, building responsive interaction between parents and children when using screens.
What children are watching also matters; choosing slow paced programmes, with repetitive predictable content is good for young children.
They discourage fast paced short form content, which can impact on children’s attention skills.
They also discourage children spending lengthy periods of passive watching, scrolling through content by themselves, which can also impact negatively on children.

The EYSTAG report is helpful to understand the wider picture and where the government guidance has come from, which is brief and more accessible for busy parents.[2]

What To Do Instead

We all live busy lives and though it would be wonderful to have hours of free time to spend playing with our children, it often isn’t the reality… and not entirely what children need.

Parents I work with often tell me how challenging it is to manage their children’s screen time, particularly on fast paced short form content, such as those found on YouTube, not least because as one video ends another pops up.

Although hugely challenging, technology is very much part of our lives and can be used as a force for good. Finding ways to share screen time is a great start alongside building conversations and play into everyday activities.

Top Ten Tips for Sharing Screen Time

Watching TV or sharing online content with our children is a great way to build a connection and to talk about what is on the screen.
Quiet time is important – background noise can get in the way of talking and listening, so turning off the TV or putting away tablets and phones is a simple action that can support language and listening.
Watch programmes that are at the right level for young children, e.g. CBeebies has lots of programmes at the right level and pace.
Have fun with programmes – join in with rhymes and presenters to make the experience an interactive, not passive one. Pause online videos and join in with actions.
Use the TV or online content as a starting point for communication – maybe comment on what’s happening to spark off a conversation, comment on what the characters are up to or what they might do next.
Make links to your own lives, this can help children make sense of what they are seeing on screen – ‘oh look, Lily is having a picnic, just like we did.’
Have screen free times/places. No screens in the bedroom or at meal times is a great place to start. Both are spaces where conversations with children can easily flow.
Talk about the programmes afterwards, what they like and why, favourite characters and activities – share your thoughts too. Building conversations like this helps with talking and understanding the world.
Use the ideas on screen as a starting point for pretend games – make believe you are in a jungle like your favourite characters, or have your own carpet picnic, create a farm or a den. Children will take the ideas and build them, which is brilliant for language and communication development.
Most importantly, young children like to feel listened to and generally enjoy talking with the adults around them. Too much TV and other screen time can get in the way of the wonderful connections we have with our children, so finding a good balance is key.