So honored to get some gems of wisdom from early intervention expert, Stacey Landberg. Stacey is an LA-based speech-language pathologist who has developed a particular interest in the effects of screen-time and early childhood development.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became interested in screen time and its effects on speech & language and development. 

I am an SLP who has been working in home-based early intervention for 13 years. Throughout my career, I have worked with very young kids who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or go on to be later diagnosed with ASD. I first started down this path when I became a mom in 2012 and had many questions. I discovered it was difficult for me to adhere to the current AAP recommendations regarding screen time. I wanted to know exactly why kids had to wait until 24 months to watch TV. What happens in the brain exactly? How much (screen time) is too much? How do we know? Are we sure? And yes – I was so curious to learn whether or not all this screen time affected kids’ language development and especially curious about any possible impact on their social communication. Since then, I’ve been following this research closely and since 2015, I've been fortunate to present on this topic to thousands of therapists from many disciplines across the US.

Does screen time affect speech and language development?

Speech – probably not. Language - quite possibly.  I’m not a researcher myself, but from what I know from based on an exhaustive review of the literature myself and communicating directly with researchers, we don’t really have enough studies yet to do a systematic review on this question. We also can’t conduct strong randomized control trials to prove whether or not screen-time is a direct cause of language impairment delays because of the ethics involved.  For example, we can’t take group A and give them 5 hours of screen time per day vs. Group B who gets zero screen time (similar issue with showing violent content vs. educational content to two groups). Therefore it’s hard to make a direct correlation between screen time and any area of child development since it’s impossible to control for every possible factor: like parent education level, SES, language used in the home, gender, screen content, time spent watching, etc. 

Is there any research proving that screen time is detrimental to how children learn language?  

So far the research I’ve seen isn’t incredibly compelling as I mentioned before. There are some studies that make some convincing arguments about the relationship between screen time and language development. I think as a field in general, we are right justified to have concerns about the effects of very early screen exposure and language development. Research has recently started to shift, by looking closer at adults' screen-time and screen behaviors and how that may also impact child development. Some recent research (2017, Jessa Reed, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, and Roberta Golinkoff) has looked at word learning and showed that 2-year-olds did not learn a new word (receptively) when their parents were interrupted by a cell phone. I do worry about a possible negative correlation between distracted parenting and communication development. I don't think we have enough research to prove much yet, but we certainly have enough research to support parent education about the critical importance of face-to-face, uninterrupted, frequent, and ongoing interactions with their children. 

What are your top recommendations for managing screen time for kids? 

1. Introduce rules when you introduce screens – and stick to them. Don’t just hand kids an iPad. Give them an explanation. Who does this belong to? How does it work? When do we use it? What do we use it for? When do we put it away? 

2. Children learn by example – Parents can manage their kids’ screen time by managing their own. I’m a big fan of talking aloud. My kids hear me say things like “my phone is vibrating because nana is texting me. But I’m not going to text her back until after dinner because we don’t use screens at the dinner table.”

3. For infants, hold off on introducing screens - consider the YouTube algorithm. There’s something much more addictive about having access, unlimited options, and total independence. If you can, try to wait to introduce screens. It’s harder to take it away later than it is to avoid it altogether. 

4. Guided Access and setting limits - there are useful tools within devices that can help parents manage screens. 

5. Don’t isolate screen users – have kids share. Some studies have found that kids who share an iPad tend to learn more than those who are plugged in independently.

Anything else that we haven’t covered that you’d like to mention? 

We ALL learn best and retain more from real life vs. screens, especially very young children under age 3. The exception appears to be video chat from the studies we have so far. So, a Spanish speaking 2-year-old might learn some English words from TV, but they would probably learn many more words if they were being taught in real life, or exposed to real-life English speaking conversations. This is a good thing to keep in mind for helping children retain new words and information.

Interested in more?

Find out more about Stacey at speechtheraping.com

Check out her FB Page Media Mentorship for 0-36 month olds

Listen to her on the Talking with Tech Podcast

OVER TO YOU

What are your thoughts about screen time? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!