Study Confirms Link Between Screens And Language Disorders

According to a study from the University of Rennes, young children who watch screens in the morning before school are three times more at risk of developing language disorders. According to Manon Collet, general practitioner and co-author of the file, the risk would be six times higher if the kids rarely or never discuss the content with their parents.

Study confirms link between screens and language disorders

For the purposes of the study, the researchers brought together children aged three and a half and five and a half, who were then divided into two groups. The first group consisted of 167 children with speech disorders unrelated to a known cause, and the second consisted of 109 children without any disorder. Through questionnaires completed by parents, the study confirmed the existence of a partial correlation between exposure to screens and speech disorders. The children who took part in this study spent an average of an hour and a quarter a day in front of a screen, and it turns out that it's not the time spent in front of screens, but the time of day that has an impact. This means that even twenty minutes of watching screens (television, tablet, smartphone, computer),can exhaust children's concentration and make them less able to learn. At this time of day, kids would be three times more likely to develop primary language disorders.

Over the past decade, young children have increasingly had access to television, computers, game consoles and smartphones. Studies have confirmed the link between children's exposure to screens and reduced emotional interaction with those around them, which is particularly necessary for language development.

It is interesting to know that this is not the first study to question the consequences of exposure to screens in children. For example, in a 2017 video, Doctor Anne-Lise Ducanda denounces the link between screens and the appearance of disorders identical to autistic disorders. The neuroscientist Michel Desmurget, alerted, in his book La fabrique du crétin digital. The dangers of screens to our children on a "large scale decerebration" as well as a "major public health problem".