VIDEO. Delay in child learning: the case of screens

Some parents use them for the educational side, others to occupy their child during household chores or shopping, screens are increasingly left in the hands of children. A practice that prevents him from developing his language, his learning and creates an addiction, thereafter, which is difficult to manage for the parents.

An addiction that causes stress and unmanageable frustration

In her office, pediatrician-doctor Sylvie Dieu Osika receives parents in distress, faced with child victims of screens. Also a member of the CoSE screen overexposure collective, she weans children, some of whom have been used to the presence of these technologies since the age of six months, sometimes up to seven hours a day. “We are faced with a major public health problem, with children who are not doing well and who find themselves glued to the screen. The screen prevents the development of language and learning of the child”. In 2017, it was by learning about children with these delays that they found that they were used to screens very early and thus did not enter into language.

For her, children should not be exposed to screens before speaking. “Every week we see children who are doing very, very badly and we are creating a handicap that could have been avoided. Parents have this notion of pedagogy. They have the impression that the child, he still learns something since the child is doing the alphabet. We take things backwards”. Since 2018, it has been recommended in the health booklet not to expose children to screens before the age of three because they are considered bad for their health. According to the pediatrician, only 10% of parents apply this advice.