Abstract
Increasing Screen Time in Preschool Children
Children’s average daily time spent watching television or using a computer or mobile device increased from 53 min at age 12 months to more than 150 min at 3 years, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the University at Albany, and the New York University Langone Medical Center. By age 8, children were more likely to log the highest amount of screen time if they had been in home-based child care or were born to first-time mothers. Children were classified into two groups based on how much their average daily screen time increased from age 1 to age 3. The first group, 73% of the total, had the lowest increase, from an average of nearly 51 min a day to nearly an hour and 47 min a day. The second group, 27% of the total, had the highest increase, from nearly 37 min of screen time a day to about 4 hr a day. Higher levels of parental education were associated with lower increases in screen time. In addition, girls were slightly more like to be in the low-increase group. Children were more likely to be in the highest percentile of increase if their parents had only a high school diploma or equivalent (more than twice as likely) or were children of first-time mothers (almost twice as likely). Compared with single-born children, twins were more likely to belong to the highest screen time group. Compared with children in center-based care, children in home-based care, whether provided by a parent, babysitter, or relative, were more than twice as likely to have high screen time.
Trinh, M., Sundaram, R., Robinson, S. L., Lin, T., Bell, E. M., Ghassabian, A., & Yeung, E. H. (2019). Association of trajectory and covariates of children’s screen media time. JAMA Pediatrics, 174, 71–78. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.4488
Speech Delay and Tantrums
A study from Northwestern University found that toddlers with fewer spoken words have more frequent and severe temper tantrums than their peers with typical language skills. It is the first study to link toddlers’ delayed vocabulary with severe temper tantrums, including children as young as 12 months old, which is much younger than many clinicians typically believe problematic behavior can be identified. Both irritability and language delays are risk factors for later language and learning disorders. About 40% of delayed talkers go on to have persistent language problems that can affect their academic performance. Many studies in older children indicate that language problems and mental health problems occur together more frequently than would be expected. The study surveyed more than 2,000 parents who had a toddler between the ages of 12 and 38 months. Parents answered questions about their children’s number of spoken words and their tantrum behaviors, such as how often their child has a tantrum when they are tired versus when they are having fun. Toddlers were considered to be a “late talkers” if they had fewer than 50 words or were not putting words together by age 2. Late talkers were predisposed to have severe and/or frequent temper tantrums at nearly double the rate of their peers with typical language skills. Tantrums were classified as severe if the toddlers were regularly doing things like holding their breath, and hitting or kicking during a tantrum. Toddlers who have these kinds of tantrums on a daily basis or more may need help promoting their self-control skills.
Manning, B. L., Roberts, M. Y., Estabrook, R., Petitclerc, A., Burns, J. L., Briggs-Gowan, M., . . . Norton, E. S. (2019). Relations between toddler expressive language and temper tantrums in a community sample. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 65, 101070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2019.101070