According to a report published this Tuesday, January 14 by Public Health France, the screens would multiply by three the language disorders in young children.
Excessive use of screens would modify the structure of children’s brains. This could also have negative consequences on their morale, their ability to concentrate or even their weight. In April 2019, the WHO published a press release recommending avoiding all screens for one-year-old children and limiting exposure for older children. Today, a study published this Tuesday, January 14 by Public Health France in its Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin delivers new disturbing information on the subject. According to scientists, screens would multiply by three language disorders in young children.
To arrive at these conclusions, a team of researchers from the University of Rennes, Public health France and Inserm followed 276 children aged 3.5 to 6.5 living in Ile-et-Vilaine in Brittany. Among them, 167 were diagnosed with primary language disorders (dysphasia, stuttering, lack of vocabulary… not related to illness or deafness) and 109 did not present any delay. During the study, parents gave information about their children’s screen consumption and language disorders.
In detail, 94.2% of children in the two groups had access to television, half (53.5%) had access to a tablet and a third to a computer (32.4%), a game console ( 34.9%) or a smartphone (30.2%). “During a typical school week, 44.3% of cases [enfants diagnostiqués] and 22% of controls [enfants non diagnostiqués] were exposed to screens in the morning before school. In both groups, they were alone in front of the screen 40% of the time”, also explains Public Health France. Result: a child exposed to screens in the morning would be three times more likely to develop language disorders.
Do not leave your child alone in front of the screens
“The exposure in the morning will exhaust the concentration of the child, less able to acquire. He will respond reflexively to this very important stimulus, which has nothing to do with voluntary attention in front of a teacher. The adult is able to control this reflex, not the toddler, he is absorbed, hypervigilant, excited”, explains Manon Collet, co-author of the file, without however indicating that watching TV in the evening would be less serious.
“For those who, in addition, would not speak with their parents after consuming screens, the risk would be six times higher”, she specifies, therefore insisting on the need for interactions with adults.
“It quantifies the risk and shows a cumulative, additional effect of exposure risks. Studies, American in particular, had already shown the impact of screens on attention difficulties. Our work confirms them, and deserves further in-depth study”, continues the researcher. And to detail: “Our study cannot say that screens are 100% responsible for primary language disorders, but it clearly establishes a link”. Since the average time of exposure to the screens of the children concerned was 20 minutes, “it is therefore not the duration that counts, but the fact of being exposed or not”, concludes the expert.
Impose limits
According to a recent study conducted by Inserm and Ined, in France, one out of two children starts watching television before 18 months. Two out of three two-year-olds watch it every day, and the lower the level of education of the parents, the more the situation tends to worsen. Thus, in families where the parents have a level of education below the baccalaureate, four out of five children watch television daily.
“Inserm, Ined and the Directorate General for Health are working to change the recommendations of the authorities on the subject, which remain unclear. What we observe for the moment is that this time spent in front of the TV is done to the detriment of other activities and socialization time important for the development of the child”, commented on Franceinfo Jonathan Bernard, epidemiologist at Inserm and author of this work at the time of their publication.
However, the screens aren’t all bad either. Indeed, it all depends on how you use it and what you show your child. “The use of screens can be useful to help develop certain learning skills such as languages for example. It is possible to have the youngest listen to cartoons in English, Spanish or even German to help them become familiar with different languages. Certain quality television programs can also be an additional means of promoting the language of children from 2 years old. There are also interactive applications for learning to read that help them recognize sounds and learn new words”, explains in particular Dr. Claire Lewandowski, psychiatrist and addictologist, in an article published on Why Doctor on the subject. The most important thing, of course, is to succeed in imposing limits.