Introduction
There have been concerns on the amount and duration that television viewing has on the language development and cognitive abilities of infants and toddlers. The American Academy of Paediatrics has actually recommended that children who are below two years should be discouraged from watching television while the ones who are older than two years should only watch television for two hours. Several studies have been carried out on children and have yielded significant and alarming results.
Chonchaiya, W. &Pruksananonda, C. (2008).Television viewing associates with delayed language development. ActaPædiatrica, 97, 977–982
A research was conducted by Chonchaiya and Ruksananonda in 2008 to examine the correlation between television viewing and delayed television viewing. The study was conducted in King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thailand where 56 children with language delay and 101 normal children were examined. All the children were between 15-48 months of age. The children caregivers were interviewed by a development paediatrician either face to face or through the telephone. The paediatricians examined the children’s characteristics such as joint concentration, cognitive ability and hyperactive behaviour. The doctor also examined the child’s play behaviour, language, sociability and head circumference movement.
The caretakers were questioned on the family home environment and the TV viewing habits of the family. The Denver II manual was used to determine the language development level for the children’s age by looking at the 75th percentile of language developmental milestones. The data collected was analysed using the ANOVA and chi-square tests. The results showed that those children who started watching television at 12months for at least two hours each day exhibited delay in language development delays at least six times more than those children who watched television at a later age. In the sample, it was only one child, a girl at eighteen months who had not yet started to watch television. The normal children had started watching television after they had spoken their first words. However the children who had language development delays had started watching television on average at 10 months of age(Chonchaiya&Pruksananonda, 2008). The caregivers were not concerned with the effect the television had on the children. The language delay rate was more in children who watched the television alone than in those who watched with their caregivers. The children were not encouraged to engage more in play and social interaction which is healthier.
Zimmerman, F., Christakis, D. &Meltzoff, A. (2007).Associations between Media
Viewing and Language Development In Children Under Age 2 Years. J Pediatr, 151:364-8.
In another study, researchers in 2006 interviewed the parents and guardians of 1008 children through the television on aspects such as television and DVD viewing and child parent interactions. All the children were between 2 to 24 months of age. The researchers selected the children by getting the birth certificates in Washington and Minnesota. The States were considered a good representation of the region. Those children who had significant disabilities such as deafness, blindness and mental retardation were excluded from the study. Each parent could only give data on one of his or her children. The parents were advised by the researchers to fill the short forms of the MacArthur-Bates. Communicative Development Inventory (CDI).This is an instrument that has proved to be valuable in the measurement and analysis of language development in children. It analyses the relationship between the child’s language and neural, cognitive and social development.
The correlation between the CDI scores and media viewing by the children was examined using multivariate regression. The results showed that in children infants 8 and 16 months for each hour that they watched the television, there was a decrease of 16.99 decreases in CDI scores(Zimmerman, Christakis &Meltzoff,2007). However, among the toddlers, who are 17 to 24 months, there was no significant relationship between the CDI scores and media viewing. There was also no significant impact of parents viewing the television with the children in either the infant or the toddler groups.
Christakis, D. (2009).The effects of infant media usage: what do we know and what
should we learn? ActaPædiatrica, 98, 2-16.
The research noted that there has been a rise in infant television viewing. On average children spend 3-6 hours watching the television. A considerable amount of time almost the same time spent in sleeping activities. The time estimate mentioned however is the one given during the interviews with parents however it does not include the time that the children watch television when they are in the day care centres. Babies are formed when their brain is not fully developed. The study therefore observed that the external stimulations and early life experiences have a profound effect on the child’s development (Christakis, 2009).
Children have been found to learn language better through live presentations than DVD or screen performances. According to the study, there were parents who though language learning would be faster for their children if they watched DVD however this had a detrimental effect causing the children to experience language delays. Children who watched less television at an early TV actually had no language development delays. Television viewing also had a detrimental effect on bigger children. Findings showed that children at 3 years of age, for every hour they watched television there was a decrease in the child’s score in terms of comprehension, recognition and intelligence scales on the Peabody Individual Achievement instruments. Further, the author recommends that research should also be carried out on the effect that television viewing could be having on the attention span of children. There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of ADHD in children and it could be caused by the increased media viewing by children.
Conclusion
The research studies conducted have reached the same conclusions. Television viewing by children who are below two years should be discouraged. It has a detrimental effect on the language development and cognitive abilities of the children. The parents or guardians instead should endeavour to encourage the children to spend more time playing and interacting with their peers or older children.
References
Chonchaiya, W. &Pruksananonda, C. (2008).Television viewing associates with
delayed language development. ActaPædiatrica, 97, 977–982
Christakis, D. (2009).The effects of infant media usage: what do we know and what
should we learn? ActaPædiatrica, 98, 2-16.
Zimmerman, F., Christakis, D. &Meltzoff, A.(2007).Associations between Media
Viewing and Language Development InChildren Under Age 2 Years. J Pediatr, 151:364-8.
