The Relationship Between Screen Time and Developmental Delays at 4 Years of Age.

    Past work, such as that done by Dr. Martha Ann Bell, has shown the importance of prefrontal cortex development in brain maturation and adolescent academic achievement. Dr. Bell’s research has primarily used data from a longitudinal cohort study of 410 typically developing children. In the 2020 article, Relations between frontal EEG maturation and inhibitory control in preschool in the prediction of children’s early academic skills, only data from 364 participants is used for analysis due to the exclusion of other participants. 

    Additionally, research, including work done by Takahashi and colleagues, has shown developmental delays in tasks related to prefrontal cortex functioning, such as abilities in problem solving tasks, due to increased screen time in childhood. The participants in this study came from the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study, with 7097 child/mother pairs being in the analysis in the article, Screen Time at Age 1 Year and Communication and Problem-Solving Developmental Delay at 2 and 4 years. The participants were all considered typically-developing. This study measured screen time at one year through a self-measure from the mother on how many hours of screen time a child was allowed on a typical day, and sorted into five response categories: no screen time, less than one hour, one to two hours, two to four hours, or over four hours of screen time a day. This study measured child development using the Ages & Stages Questionnaires, Third Edition (ASQ-3). Parents completed the questionnaire, and were questioned about child development at ages 2 and 4. 

    The Takahashi study found that there was an association between longer screen time at age one and developmental delays (specifically in communication and problem-solving) at both two and four years. Additionally, though not reported as a major finding, Takahashi and colleagues found that increased screen time at one year of age was associated with delays in fine motor and social skills in two years but not four years. Furthermore, the developmental delays found at both two and four years were most significant when more than four hours of screen time a day was reported at one year of age. 

    Altogether, while the Takahashi study does not use EEG data like Dr. Bell’s work, the fact that both studies look at development as a process, and the fact that both studies use longitudinal, cohort data for analysis makes the studies comparable. 

References

Takahashi, I., Obara, T., Ishikuro, M., Murakami, K., Ueno, F., Noda, A., Onuma, T., Shinoda, G., Nishimura, T., Tsuchiya, K. J., Kuriyama, S. (2023). Screen time at age 1 year and communication and problem-solving developmental delay at 2 and 4 years. JAMA Pediatr. 177(10), 1039-1046. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.3057 

Whedon, M., Perry, N. B., & Bell, M. A. (2020). Relations between frontal EEG maturation and inhibitory control in preschool in the prediction of children's early academic skills. Brain and cognition, 146, 105636. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105636