We’ve known for a long time that increased television exposure during infancy (ages 2 months to 4 years) is associated with language delays and attentional problems, but we really haven’t known why. In this study, they discovered that when the television is on, there is reduced speech and communicative interaction in the home. Infants vocalize less and their caregivers also speak to them less. For each hour a child watched television or was near a television that was on, there were reduced vocalizations, reduced word use, and reduced conversational turns. The child also heard an average of 770 fewer adult words for each hour the TV was on compared to when it was off. The authors of the research study make some good recommendations for parents:
