Learning Tablets for Toddlers: Benefits, Pitfalls, and Guidelines
The allure of a shiny, colorful screen that responds to a toddler's touch with lights, movement, and sound is undeniable. It's no surprise that tablets, like iPads, have become commonplace tools for captivating and occupying young children, whether during doctor's office waits or long car rides. While the rapid integration of these devices into the lives of toddlers may raise concerns, understanding the benefits and potential pitfalls of tablet use is crucial for parents.
The Prevalence of Tablets in Early Childhood
It's now commonplace to see kids as young as 1 and 2 years old adeptly navigating touch screens with their tiny fingers mere months after they've mastered the pincer grasp. A 2017 study from the nonprofit group Common Sense Media found that nearly 80 percent of children have access to an iPad or other type of tablet. The study also found that about two-thirds of parents have downloaded apps specifically for their kids to use. Since those percentages have only increased over the years, it’s important for parents to know both the pros and cons of toddlers’ tablet use - and to put some rules in place.
Potential Benefits of Tablet Use for Toddlers
Beyond mere entertainment, some studies suggest that tablets can offer real educational advantages for young children. Research sponsored by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop discovered that specific apps might enhance children's vocabulary and math abilities. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting that iPad apps can promote language use and social interaction in children with cognitive delays.
Tammy and Rose, age 4, have been studying sunflowers with their classmates. They want to sing and record a song about sunflowers while creating a drawing, using an application (app) on the tablet. The girls problem solve to coordinate their efforts and are thrilled with the result. To help the class learn more about sunflowers, Kathryn, Tammy and Rose’s teacher, used the tablet to find online sites with photos and facts. She then took the children on a virtual tour of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings. They read and discussed an electronic picture book about Van Gogh’s life. The children had already examined real sunflowers and their parts, made sketches, read informational texts and stories, counted seeds, and participated in a variety of investigations touching on every learning domain. The teacher’s use of the tablet alongside hands-on early learning activities expanded the children’s horizons.
Interactive Engagement vs. Passive Consumption
While excessive screen time is a valid concern for parents due to its potential link to attention and conduct problems in children, a 2013 study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood offers a nuanced perspective. The study suggests that digital games, which are interactive and can foster creativity, may affect children differently than TV, which is typically a passive activity. Researchers found that excessive TV watching slightly increased a child's risk for conduct problems, while age-appropriate digital games did not.
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Fun and Enjoyment
Of course, iPads can also be just plain fun for kids. You wouldn't feel guilty about letting your toddler have fun playing a game like Candy Land, so why feel guilty about letting her have fun with the Candy Land app on your iPad?
Potential Pitfalls and Guidelines for Responsible Tablet Use
Despite the potential benefits, it's crucial to recognize the potential pitfalls of excessive or unregulated tablet use. Overreliance on tablets can hinder a child's ability to occupy themselves with their thoughts and imagination.
Limiting Screen Time and Prioritizing Real-World Experiences
iPad use should not replace other essential activities such as playing with traditional toys and games, engaging in physical activity, fostering creative free play, and cultivating face-to-face social interaction. A screen offers a limited sensory environment and no physical exertion. Your child can’t feel an app the way she can feel her stuffed animal or her dress-up clothes. She can’t smell an app the way she can smell the cookies you bake together. She can’t hold and manipulate an app the way she can hold and stack blocks or Legos. She can’t run with an app the way she can romp in the fresh air, and she can’t connect with an app the way she can when she hugs you. All of these real-world activities offer rich opportunities for your toddler to use her body and experience her environment and human relationships. So while you don’t need to feel guilty about letting her use your iPad in moderation, make sure it’s just one of many activities she gets to learn from, explore and enjoy.
Following Expert Recommendations
When it comes to kids and iPads, your best bet is to follow the guidelines that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has set regarding other screen time. Unless your child is video chatting, the AAP recommends avoiding digital media (including TV, computers and video games) until she's 18 months old to 2 years old. Children aged 18 months to 2 years old can watch digital media with you, while those age 2 to 5 years old should limit their screen time to 1 hour per day. More strategies: Keep screens out of your child’s bedroom since they are stimulating and can interfere with sleep, monitor your child’s viewing and apps to make sure content is appropriate and talk to your child about the programs and apps she’s using. You can check out Common Sense Media for recommendations from digital media researchers and experts.
According to a recent study from the National University of Singapore, screen time harms the development of children’s brains under the age of two, leading to a decrease in high order cognitive skills like decision making, thinking and creativity. The World Health Organization has also noted that increased sedentary screen time leads to obesity, which has been linked to countless diseases. “It can still be hard for infants to learn from screen media because of the video deficit effect,” said Dr. Tiffany Munzer, Developmental Behavioral Pediatrician at University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. “They have trouble translating what they see on a screen to real-life before they are 18 months of age. “Infants and toddlers benefit most from interactions with their loved ones, time for free exploration, movement, play and reading,” Munzer said.
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The Importance of Context and Parental Involvement
Let’s face it. Parenting littles can be exhausting. “These findings do need to be interpreted in the context of reality,” she said. “ Parents are busy, and so watching educational media short times during the day is likely not going to adversely impact infant or toddler development. Things parents can consider might include watching together with a young toddler or viewing educational content such as that found on PBS. “Our societal supports for parents and children in the United States are really suboptimal, and so families need to get creative with how to do it all,” Munzer said. “The reality is that parents may need to occupy children, especially when they are getting work done, or parents themselves need to take a much-deserved break. “They may have a really fussy infant or toddler who might need help soothing, and so that could be one reason why the parent offers a device. These infants and toddlers really can be tricky to parent. Dr. Tiffany Munzer, developmental behavioral pediatrician at University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s
Personalizing Learning and Supporting Diverse Learners
Tablets can personalize learning for diverse learners, including dual language learners. Yiannis is anxious about riding the bus to school, but he is unable to express his thoughts or ask for help in English. His teacher realizes a personal story can help and uses the tablet to take and combine recorded phrases with photos of Yiannis, the bus, and the bus driver. At lunchtime, Maryam does not know the names of unfamiliar foods and cannot ask for or discuss them. Using an app with pictures of food, however, she can look at the food item, listen to the English pronunciation of its name, and record herself repeating it. For children with minimal exposure to technology or limited English proficiency, the tablet can help increase comprehension and vocabulary.
Supporting Children with Disabilities
The unique qualities of tablets can be used to help diverse learners, including children with disabilities. Caleb, who has cerebral palsy, lacks the motor skills to play with blocks, but he can stack digital blocks using an app on a tablet. While the goal remains to use real-world materials, the tablet offers Caleb valuable play experiences not possible before. Pia, a child with autism, cannot tell her parents about her day. After seeing Pia use a tablet in the classroom, her parent remarked, “I was not originally sold on the tablet idea. In fact, I was highly resistant to it until I saw what it could do for my child.
Documenting and Assessing Learning
Some apps can track and record an individual child’s activity. When observing children using different apps, such as educational game apps to practice counting, reading with e-books, or creating art, teachers might note something new about their abilities. Digital documentation forms can streamline the data collection process. Forms can include drop down boxes with a number of prepared comments, such as knows the difference between living and nonliving things.
As the only adult in her program, Nadia usestechnology to help her document children’s activities and experiences. This allows her to communicate with families and meet accreditation requirements for documentation needed to maintain state licensing and National Association for Family Child Care accreditation. Nadia later reviews the video on the tablet and dictates comments about Colin’s persistence in problem solving into an app on her smartphone that transcribes words into text.
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Practical Strategies for Tablet Integration
Strategies for ensuring safe and effective use of tablets vary depending on the number available and the educational setting. Plan how to set up the device (as you would for other kinds of learning). Discuss careful and respectful use of the tool. Remember-more isn’t necessarily better.
Explore the entire app. Look for apps that allow for audio and photo input. Consider the feedback options. In some apps a feedback option tells children immediately whether their choice is correct.
Addressing Concerns about Attention and Play
Should we be concerned about the amount of time children spend on digital devices like tablets? What is the impact of these devices on attention and play? SH: I study children’s play and imagination in the digital world. I became interested in this topic while collecting data as an undergraduate research intern. KB: Children’s screen time is a concern for many parents. SH: There is a lot of conflicting evidence. These inconsistent results can be explained, in part, by how researchers measure tablet use and attention. Some use simplistic measures like screen time, while others look at how specific apps or programmes are used. There are also a number of different ways to measure attention, which yield different results. For example, “sustained attention” refers to how well a child can pay attention to one thing, whereas “attention shifting” captures how well a child can shift attention from one thing to another.
The Nuances of Attention
Does tablet use undermine attention, have no effect, or boost attention? The answer depends on how the tablet is used and the type of attention we’re measuring. KB: Are tablets potentially good for some types of attention and bad for other types? SH: Both things are true. It’s difficult to control for everything outside of tablet use that might influence attention- for example, sleep. We want to know whether increased tablet use has an adverse effect on attention. It is difficult to test this premise, and we lack clear evidence. We would need to test the same children over multiple years to understand long-term outcomes. Yet if we started testing a group of young children now and continued into their teenage years, we would probably find at some point that new technologies had made tablets obsolete.
Tablets as Tools for Learning and Social Interaction
SH: Lots of research has looked at how educational games or apps promote children’s learning of the curriculum. For example, 16 of 23 studies found a positive link between playing educational games on a tablet and learning outcomes. From my own research, I’ve learnt that when children are with another person, they tend to benefit from playing on a tablet much as they do from playing with traditional or physical toys. There is some consistency between physical and digital behaviours in other ways, too. When teachers report that a child is highly pro-social or aggressive in the classroom, we also see this reflected in the child’s video game play. And children use similar types of imaginative language when playing with physical toys and when playing with video games.
But the situation is different when children play with tablets and toys while they are alone. Children playing alone speak less and talk about thoughts, feelings and desires less often when they play with a tablet than when they play with a doll. Independent play with a tablet seems to offer them less opportunity to practice skills related to understanding others and navigating social situations.
Cognitive Development and Executive Function
SH: It is possible that video games promote executive function or spatial reasoning development, but again the evidence is mixed. In one study of 18- to 35-year-old adults, video game players scored higher on various measures of cognitive ability than non-players - and there are similar findings with 9- to 10-year-olds. But when the researchers looked at the adult data without distinguishing between players and non-players, there was no overall link between the time spent playing video games and cognitive ability. It is difficult to capture any long-term effects.
The Importance of a Holistic Perspective
SH: There is no one specific factor that has an unambiguous effect on any given aspect of child development. It is good to be aware of how children are using a tablet. When children are interacting with another person, playing with a tablet is similar to playing with a doll or an Etch A Sketch. Sometimes tablets can open up new ways of communication. For example, my grandmother (or nanima) and her great-grandson like to sit together and colour by numbers using her phone. As children grow into young adults, they will need to use and be proficient in technology. We must make sure that appropriate safety restrictions are in place and that children understand the rules. Adults need to understand how data sharing works, and how the devices children use might track patterns of activity, such as how they move from one app to another.
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