RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARENTAL NEGLIGENCE, SCREEN TIME AND EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE DELAY AMONG YOUNG CHILDREN

Abstract

The parents’ attention isconsiderably important during the developmentalperiod of children. It is a matter of concern that parents remain busy in theiremployment and daily routine, where they have no time to interact with thechildren. Hence to compensate parents’ unavailabilitychildren use screen to passtheir time which is drastically affecting their language skills. The present studyinvestigates the “Relationship between parental negligence, screen time andexpressive language delay among young children”. Three Questionnaires i.e.Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire short Form, LanguageUse Inventory and Child Technology Test are used to collect data from 150mothers of young children 1 ½ to 4 ½ years who were visiting speech pathologyrehabilitation centresof Islamabad. A half portion of the sample is collected viaonline due to pandemic COVID-19, and half by direct interaction when lockdownpartly subsided. The convenient sampling is used. The study shows significantrelationship between parental negligenceand screen time but no relationshipfound between parental negligence and expressive language delay amongyoung children. Further, it concludes that screen duration remained high in theyoung male children than in females while the expressive language delay is moreprevalent in the children belonging to nuclear families.

.