Bettering communication with kids at home
In recognition of better hearing and speech month, we focus Wednesday on data showing the negative impact technology is having on children and their speech development.
Speech & Language Pathologist Angie Hill of Portneuf Medical Center (PMC) says it’s as simple as limiting a child’s technology usage at home. And by just doing more activities together with them.
It’s a technological world and we just live in it. But where does human interaction begin and technology end? That’s something Hill explains for parents and children at home.
“Putting boundaries and guidelines on the amount of time that their spending and the types of apps and things they’re using. Some of them are educational, but limit that time to use them. It depends on the child,” said hill.
Among the top concerns for surveyed speech-language pathologists is that excessive technology use is replacing human interaction. For example, the smallest things will work such as, taking a walk in the park or even taking a drive together.
People like Brandon Bangerter and his wife don’t have kids yet but are already limiting their usage of technology at home.
“Just a few weeks ago we were reading articles about this and one thing we read about is, kids using tablets at an early age can affect them later,” said Bangerter.
When Bangerter and his wife do decide to have kids, He says it’ll be hard but worth it.
“It’ll probably be trial and error thing but when i was talking to my wife, I think she had some plans to say limit to an hour or two.”
Seventy-three percent of pathologists say the solution to tech overuse with children is, to also model safe and reasonable technology usage as parents as well.
Speech therapists at PMC say never hesitate to schedule an appointment if your child indicates a speech delay or disorder.
