CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO. (KFVS) – 98% of Americans have a smartphone, according to the Pew Research Center.
With a high prevalence of technology in daily life, it is almost impossible to prevent young children from being exposed.
This is bad news for parents who hope to follow the CDC recommendation without screens for children under the age of two.
Those who have the National Institute of Health say that screen time has an impact on the development of the language of the little ones and, at the most critical moment for these skills to be formed.
Emily Obergoenner with the SEMO speech and audience center said that the exact impact is difficult to describe, because different circumstances give different results.
“When we think of the screen time, we think it’s an application, is it YouTube, is it a television program, is this faces of facilization with grandparents?”, Said Obergoenner .
Obergoenner has cited studies that reveal that the time spent around screens can be less a problem with what is presented on these screens.
“This is the content with which they are committed. For many children, they miss these opportunities for face to face, and it is finally there that we learn the language, the back and forth between you and another speaker, “said Obergoenner.
Obergoenner said that showing young children contained with lots of flashing lights and colors and fast change scenes leads to shortened attention.
“If we have children with a shorter period of attention due to being on a device, this kind of reduction in our opportunity to learn words and learn language,” said Obergoenner.
Obergoenner said that providing comments on what’s on the screen can help, as noted similarities between a television car and a parent’s property.
“Try to engage in this dialogue shared with your child,” said Obergoenner.
Sometimes parents may judge necessary to briefly distract young children with a smart device in exchange for a productive moment. Obergoenner said that she had experienced this with her children.
“In the end, if we can move away from screens, children benefit so much from the practical game, because we are now stimulating not only their hearing system and their visual system but the practical tactile system. This will help for global development, ”said Obergoenner.
One way to develop the vocabulary of a child is to ask fewer questions and rather comment on what he is already able to say.
“If your children use one by two words, repeat in a way, but add a word to it. So if the child says the car, you could say: “A red car, this car goes fast!” Simply develop what they are doing, ”said Obergoenner.
Parents can also help by telling their daily routine so that young children can hear them, helping them take new words.
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