Smartphone and tablet use and the Denver Developmental Screening Test-2nd ed Article Summary
Title: The association between smartphone and tablet usage and children development
Reference: Chaibal, Supattra, and Salinee Chaiyakul. “The Association between Smartphone and Tablet Usage and Children Development.” Acta Psychologica, vol. 228, 2022, p. 103646., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103646.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between smartphone and tablet usage and typical child development.
Study population: The participants included 85 healthy full-term children from 2 to 5 years old from Thailand recruited with convenience sampling. Inclusion criteria also included birth weight between 2500 and 4000 grams and gestational age between 37 and 42 weeks.
Methods: This cross-sectional study consisted of obtaining information from the primary caregiver about their child through questionnaires. The main topics were about the children’s characteristics, the caregiver’s characteristics, and smartphone and tablet usage of the child. The caregivers were asked to record data, such as how many minutes a day the child spends on their smartphone or tablet and what kind of device they use, twice a day within 5 to 10 minutes for 7 consecutive days.
Outcome measures: This study used the Denver Development Screening Test (Denver II) to assess for developmental delays from birth to 6 years old. This outcome measure has 125 items under 4 categories of gross motor, fine motor-adaptive, language, and personal-social. If a child doesn’t pass a skill that 75-90% of the same-age children did pass, they receive a caution label. If a child doesn’t perform the skill at all, they receive a delay label. They were assessed in their homes by a trained physical therapist. The Denver test classifies children in the normal group and suspect development group.
Intervention: There were no interventions provided. They used the Denver test to analyze and detect developmental delays.
Results: There is a highly significant correlation between the amount of time a child is on their smartphone or tablet and their gross motor development. Other factors including family income, the father’s medical history, and the caregiver’s time spent on their smartphones or tablets, were also shown to have significant correlations to their child’s development. This study found that children began using their devices on average at 2 years old spending about 83 minutes a day, 6 days a week on them. Most children in this study were placed in the normal group according to the Denver test. The suspect development group consisted of 32.94% of children for fine motor-adaptive, 11.76% for personal-social, 9.42% for language, and 2.35% for gross motor development.
Strengths of the article: The Denver test illustrated high test-retest reliability, which ensures that the results were consistent over time. This is useful when comparing data and potentially could be useful if comparing data years later to see if the child’s development has changed by using the same test. This study also looked at more factors other than smartphone and tablet usage time that can contribute to developmental delays, such as the caregiver’s smartphone usage time, medical history, and family income.
Limitations of the article: Since this study is only a cross-sectional study, it doesn’t follow up on how these children developed or look at their developmental trends. This study found that in early development increased smartphone usage is beneficial to gross motor development; however, long-term usage of smartphones can have a detrimental effect on development. Also, the sample size is too small to predict children’s development.
Overall conclusion: This study found that the gross motor development of children aged 2 to 5 years old increased with the amount of time spent on their smartphones or tablet. The Denver test is used to assess for delayed development from birth to 6 years old. Although this test showed positive results for gross motor development, it is important to consider fine motor-adaptive, personal-social, and language. These categories weren’t as high as the gross motor development, which suggests that caregivers should still be mindful of how much time their child is on their smartphones or tablets regarding their development.
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Great review! I am curious how this study could be implemented in other social or cultural groups where screen time may be longer or shorter. I am also curious how development will change over time as increased use of technology will increase. I hope that longer term these children will be able to meet the norms necessary for development, but I wonder how detrimental the effects of long term technology usage will change “norms” 10, 15, 20 years in the future.