The effects of screen exposure on developmental skills among children at two and three years of age.

The effects of screen exposure on developmental skills among children at two and three years of age.

Afrah Alazemi

2015

Previous research into the topic of children’s development has tended to take place in Western nations (Kuta, 2017; Martinot, 2021). One aspect of development is language development, and one aspect of research on that matter is the use of electronic devices, with the potential for consequent effects on children’s language abilities. This paper reviews and builds upon the scope of the available research, with its disparate findings, by offering research from the context of Kuwait, a non-western nation where parents tend to be in favour of their children having access to new technologies regardless of their age (Dashti & Yateem, 2018). The increasing number of children being exposed to electronic devices of various descriptions raises concerns regarding the possible adverse effects of screen exposure on their development, particularly through displacement of educationally enriching activities, which provides the motivation here (Haughton, Aiken & Cheevers 2015). Based on a review of the existing literature, the present research starts from the hypothesis that language development will be negatively correlated with media exposure. Valid data relating to 96 children of 24 to 36 months of age were collected using two questionnaires, one relating to the child’s knowledge of Arabic words on various topics (voices of animals, names of animals, vehicles, toys, food and drink, etc.) and the other quantifying the child’s daily screen time. Ordinary least squares analysis was performed using SPSS, version 26. While a statistically significant positive moderate correlation between language expression score and age was found – an increase in age was associated with an increase in language expression or the number of words understood and expressed – no significant effect of screen time on language expression was found after adjusting for age. This indicates, therefore, the value of employing non-western populations in research into cognitive development, and suggests the need for further research in order to attain generalisable findings.

Developmental Psychology

The parents of a total of 100 participant children) took part in a questionnaire survey. The reports of 4 parents were excluded because their child’s age exceeded 36 months and the inclusion criteria for the study were set at 24 to 36 months. Participants were selected by means of opportunity sampling. An announcement was sent via WhatsApp to those of my contacts who had children of an age appropriate for inclusion in the study. Parents were recruited by sending a link to the survey through WhatsApp. Family and friends were then asked to deliver the WhatsApp number to those who they knew who had children within the set age range.
Parents read information about the study and their informed consent to participate in the questionnaire survey was obtained via Qualtrics. The Lancaster University Psychology Department gave ethical approval for the present study.

Procedure
The data for the present work were gathered by means of an online questionnaire via Qualtrics between 7 June 2021 and 22 June 2021. During this time, participants submitted answers to two questionnaires: a) the Arabic CDI, which measures Arabic words arranged according to groups (for example voices of animals, names of animals, vehicles, toys, food and drink, etc.) to measure the child’s knowledge of the Arabic language (Abdel Wahab, 2020) and b) a questionnaire related to the number of hours the child spent in front of the screen , and their opinion of the appropriate amount of screen time which children can spend at their screens, as well as their control over their children’s viewing of the screens, and whether or not they are allowed to watch while sleeping and eating. The survey instruments were designed to measure the extent to which screen viewing is related to the language development of Kuwaiti children aged between two and three years.
Materials
CDI: The Arabic CDI language scale developed by Abdel Wahab (2020) is a questionnaire comprising a set of categories containing checklists for identifying variety and number of words. In front of each word there are three options (‘knows it’, ‘knows it and says it’, ‘does not know it’) and parents are asked to respond to each item according to their children’s knowledge of these words. The Arabic CDI questionnaire contains 100 words divided into the following categories: voices of animals, names of animals, transport, toys, food and drink, clothes, parts of body, home furniture, little things inside the house, things and places outside the home, people, games and daily routine, actions, time-related words, adjectives, pronouns, question words, prepositions, and number formulas.
Media exposure questionnaire: Following the language questionnaire, parents completed a second survey measuring their children’s screen viewing, stating how many hours per day they spent watching a screen. Parents were asked to report frequency of screen use by choosing among the following six options: None, 0 to 1 hour, 1 to 2 hours, 3 to 4 hours, 5 to 6 hours, and > 6 hours. Participating parents were then asked to state what length of time they would consider it appropriate for their children to watch a screen, with the same set of responses available to them. There was then an item asking the parents whether they were making any efforts to reduce their children’s screen time, such as setting specific days or times for viewing or preventing them from viewing their screens while eating or in the bedroom, for example.

Data

Kristy Dunn

100

correlation and regression.