Abstract

Objectives: Children's use of television is an important environmental risk factor associated with speech delay. Although the relationship between television use and speech delay has been examined, there is no study in the literature investigating the relationship between parent's smartphone use and speech delay. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between speech delay and problematic smartphone use and to test the hypothesis that the rate of problematic smartphone use is higher in the parents of children with delayed speech compared to those parents of children with healthy development.

Methods: 20 children with delayed speech and their parents (patient group) and 20 children with normal speech development and their parents (control group) were included the study. The development of children evaluated with Ankara Developmental Screening Inventory. The problematic smartphone use measured by Problematic Mobile Phone Usage Scale.

Results: Problematic Mobile Phone Usage Scale score was significantly higher in parents of children with speech delay. This difference continues after controlling confounding effect of parent’s age, education, and income level.

Conclusions: In this study, problematic smartphone usage was found to be more frequent in families of children with speech delay. According to our knowledge this is the first study which investigates the association with speech delay and parent’s use of smartphone. While evaluating children with speech delay in clinical practice, it is essential that the smartphone usage of the parents is taken into consideration further prospective, follow-up studies can be conducted on this topic.

Key words: language, smartphone, development, communication, interaction