Pre-schoolers’ speech and language development, as a result of too much screen time, is in a “steady decline,” an expert has warned. Over a quarter of three and four-year-olds own their own smart phone and around half of children under the age of 13 are on social media, a recent Ofcom report has revealed.
One early years centre in North Yorkshire said that some pupils had been using American terms including “diaper” and “garbage” which they will have heard from screen time. They struggled to communicate basic needs including needing the toilet.
The Department for Education said that it has set out a “clear milestone” which includes advanced early language support that hopes to ensure children are school-ready by the time they are five-years-old.
Screen time was a “big factor” in the decline of language skills among children, says Kate Beck, from Mill Hill Community Primary in North Allerton. “Some children use American vocabulary which they are definitely hearing from a screen.”
Beck has been a teacher for 20 years. She also added that some children had not experienced the world first-hand but had been seeing it through “someone else’s eyes” as they watched someone playing with toys on YouTube.
Speech and language therapist Sindy Chapell from Health Professionals for Safer Screens said that she has witnessed a decline in communication skills among children over the last decade, as well as an increase in referrals.
More young children, she said, had been referred with delayed speech and language abilities including poor social, attention, and listening skills. Parents, she believes, do not know how damaging screen time can be for young children. She is calling on a public health campaign to draw attention to the matter.
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