Toddlers ‘Screened Out’: Less Talk, Interaction With Parents, Study Finds

Every minute toddlers spend glued to screens at home results in them hearing fewer words, speaking less, and having fewer conversations with their parents, according to new research. Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute monitored 220 Australian families over two-and-a-half years, during which toddlers wore a device capturing 16 hours of audio daily in their homes. Listening to over 7,000 hours of recordings, researchers found that toddlers aged 18 to 36 months spend about three hours a day on screens and miss out on important, language-rich interactions at home during their critical early years. The biggest decline in language skills was seen at 36 months, with a decrease of 6.6 adult words for each additional minute of screen time, adding up to a loss of 1,139 adult words, 843 vocalisations, and 194 conversations per day....