Few topics make parents feel judged quite like screen time. You've probably read a headline saying screens are wrecking children's brains, then another saying it's all overblown, and then handed your toddler the tablet anyway because dinner needed cooking. We hear this from families across Brisbane's south side and Logan all the time, and we'll say it up front: this article isn't here to add to the guilt.
It's here to lay out what the research actually shows about screens and early language, which is more nuanced, and more useful, than either headline.
One thing to be clear on first: we're talking about recreational screens here, the telly, tablets and phones for watching and playing. If your child uses a communication device or app to talk, that's their voice, not screen time, and none of this applies to it.
Time, content and company all matter
The most thorough look at this question is a 2020 meta-analysis in JAMA Pediatrics. Madigan and colleagues pooled 42 studies covering nearly 19,000 children and asked whether screen use is linked with children's language skills, and in which direction.
The answer came in two parts. More time on screens, and starting earlier in life, were both associated with lower language scores. The associations were real but modest. On the other side of the ledger, two things were associated with better language: educational, age-appropriate content, and a parent watching alongside the child (Madigan et al., 2020).
That second finding is the one we'd love every parent to hold onto. An hour of fast-cutting video watched alone on a phone and an hour of Play School on the couch with you, chatting about what's happening, are not the same hour.
One honest caveat: these are correlations. They describe what travels together across large groups of children, not what causes what in yours. Families who lean on screens often have plenty else going on, and the research can't untangle all of it. So please don't read a study and conclude your choices caused anything. That isn't what the evidence says, and it isn't how we think about the children we see.
The TV nobody's watching
Here's a finding that surprises most parents: the screen that affects your child's language most might be the one they're not even looking at.
Kirkorian and colleagues brought one-, two- and three-year-olds into a playroom with a parent for an hour. For half of it an adult program played on a TV in the corner; for the other half it was off. The children mostly ignored the TV. The parents were a different story. With it on, they said fewer words to their child, responded more slowly, and were less involved in play (Kirkorian et al., 2009).
A larger study backed this up using small recorders worn by children through ordinary days at home. Every hour of audible television in the background was linked with fewer adult words near the child, fewer vocalisations from the child, and fewer back-and-forth conversational turns (Christakis et al., 2009).
None of this means you can never have the news on. It does mean background TV quietly eats into the thing that builds language best: you and your child talking to each other. Switching it off when nobody's watching is often the easiest change a family makes.
Why toddlers struggle to learn from a screen
There's a second reason screens and real life aren't interchangeable for very young children, and the research has a name for it: the video deficit.
Across many studies, children under about two and a half learn noticeably less from a screen than from seeing the same thing happen in front of them. Show a toddler where a toy is hidden via video and they struggle; show them live and they get it. The same gap appears with words. Anderson and Pempek's review concluded that for the youngest children, video is a thin substitute for a real person who responds to them (Anderson & Pempek, 2005).
Toddlers seem to learn language from interaction that's contingent: someone noticing what they're looking at, naming it, waiting, and reacting to what they do next. A recording can't do that. It's also why a video call with Grandma sits in a different category from television, which we'll come back to in the companion article.
What the Australian guidelines say
Australia's 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years cover sleep, activity and sitting still for children from birth to five. On screens they're brief: for children under two, sedentary screen time isn't recommended. For two- to five-year-olds, it's no more than one hour a day, and less is better (Australian Government Department of Health, 2021).
The Raising Children Network, which translates these guidelines for Australian parents, adds the sensible exception: video-chatting with family is fine at any age, because your child is interacting with a real person (Raising Children Network, n.d.).
We'd gently add that these are targets, not pass marks. A sick day that blows past them undoes nothing.
It's about what screens replace
If there's one idea to take from all this, it's this. Screen time in itself may not be the main issue for language. One likely explanation for what the research finds is what screens tend to displace.
Young children build language in ordinary moments: being talked to while their nappy's changed, babbling back and forth at the kitchen bench, sitting on a lap with a picture book, having a point answered with a word. When screens crowd those moments out, or a background TV dampens the conversation that would have happened anyway, there's simply less of the raw material language is made from. That's why shared reading matters so much, and why parents are such a big part of any language support a child receives.
Seen that way, the question isn't "how many minutes?" so much as "what's happening in our house around the screen, and when it's off?"
When to seek support
If your child is slow to use words, hard to understand, or doesn't seem to follow what you say, screens are rarely the whole story and never a reason to wait. The research on late talkers is consistent: we can't reliably tell in advance which children will catch up, and early support helps. A speech pathologist can gather information about where your child's communication is at and help you work out the next step, without anyone pointing a finger at the tablet.
If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch. Speaking Speech Pathology offers mobile speech pathology across Brisbane's south side and Logan, visiting families at home and in early learning centres, with video sessions by Zoom when that suits better.
Ready for practical strategies? Read our companion article: Making Screen Time Work for Your Child's Language: Practical Tips
Alexandra Bouwmeester is a Senior Speech Pathologist (MSPA, CPSP), certified in Hanen's It Takes Two to Talk, with over 14 years' experience and a mum of two boys. She offers mobile speech pathology to families across Brisbane's south side and Logan.
This article is general information and not a substitute for individualised speech pathology assessment or therapy. If you have concerns about your child, please speak with a qualified speech pathologist.
References
- Anderson, D. R., & Pempek, T. A. (2005). Television and very young children. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(5), 505–522.
- Australian Government Department of Health. (2021). Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years (Birth to 5 years): Fact sheet. www.health.gov.au
- Christakis, D. A., Gilkerson, J., Richards, J. A., Zimmerman, F. J., Garrison, M. M., Xu, D., Gray, S., & Yapanel, U. (2009). Audible television and decreased adult words, infant vocalizations, and conversational turns: A population-based study. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 163(6), 554–558.
- Kirkorian, H. L., Pempek, T. A., Murphy, L. A., Schmidt, M. E., & Anderson, D. R. (2009). The impact of background television on parent–child interaction. Child Development, 80(5), 1350–1359.
- Madigan, S., McArthur, B. A., Anhorn, C., Eirich, R., & Christakis, D. A. (2020). Associations between screen use and child language skills: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 174(7), 665–675.
- Raising Children Network. (n.d.). Screen time and digital technology use for babies and toddlers. raisingchildren.net.au
