Is Screen Time Stealing Your Child’s Words?
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Screens, screens, screens…they are everywhere! Screens dominate our world — everywhere we turn, there’s another glowing display. Whether it’s phones, tablets, video games, computers or television, our world is digitally saturated. Unfortunately, these screens have a huge, negative impact on our children’s development. It has been known for many years that screen time is detrimental to children’s speech and language development as well as to their social skills. Children need personal, contingent interaction from the real people in their lives in order to develop communication and social skills, and screens just cannot provide this. Recent research out of Sweden examined the vocabulary and grammar of five-year-old children in relation to their screen time. As reported in the Journal of Cognition and Development in 2025, the researchers found that screen time was negatively associated with both vocabulary and grammar at age five. As well, some people believe that when parents participate in the digital activity with their children, the negative impacts are diminished, but that finding did not hold true in this research. Nothing can match the rich language stimulation children gain from the everyday conversations, play, and meaningful interactions they share with parents and the other important people in their lives.
Thanks for reading,
Cindy McCallum, B.Sc, M.Sc. (Speech-Language Pathology)
Founder and Managing Director, WiseOwlSpeech
References: Sundqvist, A., Koch, F. S., & Barr, R. (2025). Beyond Words and Time: Investigating the Association Between Screen Use, Vocabulary and Grammar Development in Five-Year-Olds. Journal of Cognition and Development, 26(4), 539–557. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2025.2456816