Screentime concerns over new entrants

WELLINGTON: Alarming numbers of children are starting school with poor language skills, some only speaking like 2yearolds.

Education specialists say screen time, timepoor households and poverty are all partly to blame.

More than 60% of new entrants in some lowdecile schools in Christchurch struggle to express themselves in words.

Of the 247 children tested by researchers at Canterbury University, 16% could not pronounce the few words they did know properly.

Child WellBeing Research Institute director Prof Gail Gillon, who is leading the study, said the root causes were complex, including household stress and parents working multiple jobs to pay for the necessities of life, leaving them no time to spend with their children.

Screen time was also a factor because it reduced talking time.

‘‘Children need to be interacting with language to learn language, so if we’re cutting down the amount of time we’re actually talking and sharing stories and talking with children . . . we want to be doing the opposite.

‘‘We want to be looking for plenty of opportunities to engage young children in language activities.’’

Children with poor language skills started school with a major disadvantage, she said.

‘‘They might have more trouble understanding the instructions in the classroom. They might have more trouble communicating with other children, therefore their social relationships will be affected.’’

Research by Auckland University oral language expert Dr Jannie van Hees found 80% of new entrants in some lowdecile schools were up to one and ahalf years behind in terms of their speech.

Some were three years behind — meaning they were talking like 2yearolds when they started school.

She said a child who had grown up in a languagerich environment usually had a working vocabulary of 5000 to 6000 words — but many of these 5yearolds had less than half that.

It was not just the words that were missing — but the ideas and concepts behind them.

Those children would struggle to ever catchup, because the others were also progressing, she said.

Dr van Hees agreed the causes were complicated and was reluctant to blame parents.

However, it was undeniable these children were not getting the quality conversations they needed to develop their language — and ‘‘digital dummies’’ were no replacement for facetoface talk.

‘‘It’s right frightening how even the tiny 3 and 4montholds know how to wipe and swipe. Devices are gobbling up huge amounts of time . . . That is a contributor.’’

The Ministry of Health recommends no screen time for under2s and less than one hour each day for children aged 2 to 5.

It was not just children’s device use that was a problem. Parents glued to smartphones were not giving their babies the eye contact and attention they needed. — RNZ