Associations among exposure to television or video, language development, and school achievement in childhood: a prospective birth cohort study

초록

Purpose Exposure to electronic media, which begins in early childhood, has been gradually increasing. This study investigated the associations between time watching television or video (TV time), children's language development, and school achievement using a large prospective design. Methods The participants underwent annual assessment from birth (T1; 5.5 months) toT8 (87.9 months). We used a parental questionnaire to evaluate TV time annually fromT3 (2.2 years) toT8 (7.3 years), by the item asking "How many hours does your child usually spend a day watching TV or videos?". Children were grouped by TV time using group-based trajectory analysis. Among 2150 participants, 1087 were included in the final analysis. The Korean version of the Denver II and the Korean-Ages and Stages questionnaires were administered to evaluate early childhood development (T1 toT3). The Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test was used to assess children's language development atT8. Questionnaires completed by both parents and teachers were used to evaluate school achievement atT8. Results Participants were divided into "Low Descending" (LD), "Medium Flat" (MF), "High Ascending" (HA), and "Extremely High Descending" (XHD) groups. Early language development atT1 andT2 did not significantly differ among all groups. However, language development atT3 andT8, and school achievement atT8 differed significantly, and were the highest in LD and lowest in HA. Conclusion We found a negative association between greater TV time and children's language and cognitive development. Thus, unchecked TV exposure could be detrimental to childhood cognitive development.

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