Excessive Screen Media Exposure and Language Delay in the Development of Infants and Toddlers - Three Case Reports

Early exposure to digital media has become an integral part of everyday life, which is frequently being reported as one of potential risk factors for a number of developmental disorders, including language development in infants and toddlers. The current article represents introduction to a research study which will be dealing with a potential link between the risk of language delay and excessive screen media time in children. With this in mind, we will present three case reports involving young children who experienced a language delay, but did not have any health problems diagnosed, nor did they have any of the physical high-risk factors for language and other developmental disorders detected. What these three children have in common is the fact that they were all excessively exposed to digital media during the first two years of life. The existing empirical findings suggest that different forms of digital content may be overstimulating for the developing brain, which is true both for active and background screen viewing. Moreover, screen time may be seen as a distraction from other more developmentally important activities. Keeping parents informed about a potential negative influence of prolonged media exposure can prompt parents to make informed decisions about whether and to what extent they will expose their children to digital media in the earliest period of their development.