Study: Morning Screen Time Triples Language Disorder Risk in Children

According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) in April 2019, any exposure to screens, from television to smartphones, for children under one year old should be avoided, and its access controlled for older children.

This report is supported by another study by the public health agency Santé publique France (SpF) which explains that children exposed to screens (television, game console, tablet, smartphone, computer) in the morning before school have three times more risk of having language disorders. This risk is multiplied by six if these children "rarely, if ever" discuss the content of the screens with their parents.

The new study was conducted on 167 children with language disorders and 109 who were free of them, all aged 3 to 6, except for children whose language disorder was due to pathologies or disabilities and those whose parents did not speak French. The results of this study revealed that 44.3% of the children were exposed to screens compared to 22% of those who were free of them (the "controls" for comparison).

"It’s not the time spent in front of screens, on average 20 minutes in the morning, but the time of day that has an impact. This will exhaust their attention and make them less able to learn," notes Manon Collet, one of the researchers. The use of digital media has increased over the past decade, including for young children who have access to television, computers, game consoles, tablets and smartphones, the authors recall.