According to a recent study, even having the television on in the background can harm children’s speech development. It’s not the TV itself. The key factor is that parents who are watching the tube are not talking to their kids as much.
A study of children and babies from two-months-old to four-years-old found that for every hour the television was on, parents said between 500 and 1,000 fewer words to their children.
The more TV children were exposed to the fewer vocalisations they made and they also had fewer conversations with adults, the study by a team at the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development in Seattle, found.
I’ve always figured it all depends on what’s on the television. We watch a ton of TV in my house, and yet my 3 year-old son is amazingly verbal. Of course, he also sounds exactly like Regis and often stops in the middle of a game or puzzle to take questions from the studio audience.
