Touchscreen use improves toddlers’ motor skills
A new United Kingdom study has found that toddlers who use touchscreens may show improved fine motor control abilities. The use of touchscreens has increased massively in recent years, with statistics showing that in the UK alone, the number of touchscreen devices in the family home has increased from seven percent in 2011 to 71 percent in 2014. However there is significant concern that use of touchscreen devices could hinder, not help cognitive development in children.
Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics advise that children should not be exposed to screens before the age of two, with other countries around the world also adopting similar guidelines. However, despite the recommendations and parents' concern, many children are still allowed to use touchscreen devices. To look further into possible positive or negative effects of the touchscreen trend, researchers from the University of London and King's College London gathered data from 715 UK families with children aged from six to 36-months-old using an online survey.
Parents were questioned on whether their toddlers used touchscreens, when they first used one, and how often and for how long they used them.
The team also included specific questions to assess the development of the children, such as the age that they first stacked blocks, which indicates fine motor skills, or the age they first used two-word sentences, which indicates language development.
The responses showed that the majority of babies and toddlers are exposed on a daily basis to touchscreens, with 51.22 percent having access to a touchscreen at six to 11 months, with this number increasing to 92.05 percent at 19 to 36 months.
When it came to their effect on development, the team found no significant association, positive or negative, between touchscreen use and the toddlers' walking or language development.
However they did find a positive association in toddlers aged 19 to 36 months between the age that they started actively scrolling a touchscreen and the age that they were first able to stack blocks.
However although the positive finding could be due to touchscreen use boosting fine motor skills, it could also be that children with fine motor skills are more likely to use touchscreens earlier, with the team advising that more research is needed to look further into the effects of touchscreens on behavioral, cognitive, and neural development.
The results of the study can be found published online in Frontiers in Psychology.