An association between auditory responsiveness of children and duration of entertainment screen time in the early years of life.

Objective: To examine whether the responsiveness of young children to simple sounds was associated with entertainment screen time (EST), opportunities for social interaction, and social and communication skills.

Design: Parents completed a questionnaire covering, for years one and two, the number of times the child met with other children; the number of words the child spoke; and the daily amount of EST. Social, attention and communication skills were assessed.

Study sample: Participants were 118 children, aged 15 to 46 months. They were initially assessed behaviourally using simple sounds. Children who responded to such sounds were denoted the Responsive group. Children who did not were assessed using familiar songs and denoted the Unresponsive group.

Results: The two groups did not differ significantly in mean age or the number of opportunities to meet other children. The Unresponsive group had significantly fewer words than the Responsive group at 12 and 24 months and had significantly higher EST than the Responsive group for years 1 and 2. The Unresponsive group showed lower social, attention and communication skills than the Responsive group.

Conclusions: High EST was associated with poorer auditory and social skills. Hence, it may be wise to limit the EST of young children.