THURSDAY, May 4, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Letting a baby or toddler use a smartphone or tablet may lead to delays in talking, a new study suggests. 
 
 "Handheld devices are everywhere these days," said principal investigator Dr. Catherine Birken, a staff pediatrician and scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. 
 
 "While new pediatric guidelines suggest limiting screen time for babies and toddlers, we believe that the use of smartphones and tablets with young children has become quite common. This is the first study to report an association between handheld screen time and increased risk of expressive language delay," she said in an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) news release. 
 
 Expressive language is the ability to convey feelings and information, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. 
 
 The findings support a recent AAP policy recommendation to discourage any type of screen media in children younger than 18 months, Birken said. 
 
 The new research included nearly 900 children from Toronto, ages 6 months to 2 years. At their 18-month checkup, 20 percent of the children used handheld devices such as smartphones, tablets and electronic games an average of 28 minutes a day. 
 
 Birken and her team said that the more time a child spent on these devices, the more likely he or she would have delays in expressive speech. Specifically, for each 30-minute increase in handheld screen time, there was a 49 percent increased risk of expressive speech delay. 
 
 The researchers didn't find a link between use of these devices and other communication delays, such as social interaction, body language or gestures. 
 
 The current study did not prove a direct cause-and-effect link between the devices and speech delays. Further research is needed to learn more about the issue, the researchers concluded. 
 
 The study is scheduled to be presented Saturday at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting, in San Francisco. Findings presented at meetings are generally viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. 
 
 More information 
 
 The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has more on speech and language development. ||||| Using a smartphone or iPad to pacify a toddler may impede their ability to learn self-regulation, according to researchers. 
 
 In a commentary for the journal Pediatrics, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine reviewed available types of interactive media and raised “important questions regarding their use as educational tools”, according to a news release. 
 
 
 
 The researchers said that though the adverse effects of television and video on very small children was well understood, society’s understanding of the impact of mobile devices on the pre-school brain has been outpaced by how much children are already using them. 
 
 The researchers warned that using a tablet or smartphone to divert a child’s attention could be detrimental to “their social-emotional development”. 
 
 “If these devices become the predominant method to calm and distract young children, will they be able to develop their own internal mechanisms of self-regulation?” the scientists asked. 
 
 Use of interactive screen time below three years of age could also impair a child’s development of the skills needed for maths and science, they found, although they also said some studies suggested benefits to toddlers’ use of mobile devices including in early literacy skills, or better academic engagement in students with autism. 
 
 Jenny Radesky, clinical instructor in developmental-behavioural pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, published her team’s findings. She urged parents to increase “direct human to human interaction” with their offspring. 
 
 Radesky encouraged more “unplugged” family interaction in general and suggested young children may benefit from “a designated family hour” of quality time spent with relatives – without any television and mobile devices being involved. 
 
 The researchers pointed out that while there is plenty of expert evidence that children under 30 months cannot learn as well from television and videos as they can from human interaction, there has been insufficient investigation into whether interactive applications on mobile devices produce a similar result. 
 
 Radesky questioned whether the use of smartphones and tablets could interfere with the ability to develop empathy and problem-solving skills and elements of social interaction that are typically learned during unstructured play and communication with peers. 
 
 Playing with building blocks may help a toddler more with early maths skills than interactive electronic gadgets, she said. 
 
 “These devices may replace the hands-on activities important for the development of sensorimotor and visual-motor skills, which are important for the learning and application of maths and science,” Radesky said. 
 
 There is evidence that well-researched early-learning television programmes, such as Sesame Street, and electronic books and learn-to-read applications on mobile devices can help vocabulary and reading comprehension, the team found, but only once children are much closer to school age. 
 
 Radesky recommended that parents try applications before considering allowing a child to use them. 
 
 “At this time there are more questions than answers when it comes to mobile media,” she said. 
 
 This article was amended on Monday 2 February 2015, to correctly identify the source cited. The headline and text were extensively rewritten to better reflect the nature of the article. We originally said the article was based on scientific research; in fact it was based on a news release, dated 30 January 2015, about a commentary on previous research and possible new areas of study. Links in the article have been changed to correctly identify sources.
– Time on a tablet may slow speech development in young children, new research shows. Pediatricians at the Hospital for Sick Children in Canada who examined the effect of screen time on 900 children between 6 months and 2 years old found a 49% increased risk of delayed speech for every additional 30 minutes spent using a touch screen, Time reports. While previous studies have reported negative effects associated with screen time, including sleeping problems, the research presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies was the first to establish a link between handheld devices and expressive language delay. Expressive language refers to the ability to convey feelings and information, per the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Screen time did not affect other types of communication, such as social interaction or body language. Led by Dr. Catherine Birken, the team found that by 18 months, one-fifth of the children studied used tablets, smartphones, or other handheld devices an average of 28 minutes a day. With devices "everywhere these days," Birken says in a news release that all screen time for children under 18 months should be discouraged, a suggestion echoed by the AAP. That even goes for apps marketed as educational. One expert tells Time that the littlest ones can't understand the connection between what they see on the screen and what they see in the real world. “Symbolic thinking and memory flexibility is something that apps haven’t been able to overcome, no matter how interactive they are," says Dr. Jenny Radesky. (This app can help grown-ups get smarter.)