This is one of those ultra polarising subjects! It’s right up there with “breast is best”, vaccinations, and whether ABA is good or bad. But I feel it’s worth a post, and welcome any discussion that may arise from it.
It is generally accepted today that too much screen time is a very bad thing. And it’s something the modern mama has to manage carefully in this Age of Technology. Our kids are getting ahold of devices younger and younger, and even if you are very strict about usage in your own home, they may still be accessing technology at school, or at break time, or even in other people’s homes. I think it’s far scarier when your kiddo is a tween or teen, because then you’re managing things like social media, exposure to porn, and cyberbullying. But there is also heated debate around how young our kids should be watching things like ‘Cocomelon’, and how long for.
When our babes were little, our Antenatal Group WhatsApp chat was busy. There would be multiple posts to scroll through on every conceivable subject every day. And I remember that one day, a mom asked the others how frequently their kids watched TV at home. And as the responses rolled in, I realised we were definitely the exception: “20 minutes a day”, “an hour a day”, “two hours a day max!” Not only that, but many moms were limiting access to certain shows, and some were only allowing nature documentaries or background music. Well, I decided not to weigh-in on this particular discussion… as we had to pop Aidan in front of the TV at every meal time, or else he wouldn’t stay still in one spot to get enough nutrition in. And in the afternoons he would have ‘Cocomelon’ or ‘Little Baby Bum’ on in the background almost constantly.
We found that the shows seemed to calm him, help him to regulate, and made him happy. They also allowed him to develop his independent play skills because he played best in front of a show, and even began to act out scenes he was watching with his toys. We also noticed that he would focus on the songs he most liked, and would reach out to try to touch the screen with whatever he had to hand. He particularly loved songs about colours, shapes, numbers, and the alphabet. Those episodes could hold his attention for a long time, and he’d watch them on repeat. As he grew older, we found that he became more discerning about the episodes he’d pay close attention to. He’d either completely ignore the TV, or he would run back into the room from wherever he was in the house, when the opening notes of a favourite song began.
We had no idea how much he was understanding of these shows, if anything at all, until he began his ABA program at just two-years-old. His therapists worked hard to develop his receptive language from the outset and he was a very quick study! Within three to four months, he was understanding a lot of different words and even some basic language concepts. Being nonverbal, we had no idea just how much he had learned from all the series he watched, until a therapist decided to test it. And oh boy did he blow us all away!
Aidan’s therapist noticed that Aidan loved to scribble on his chalkboard, then rub everything out with a damp sponge. She decided to write the alphabet on it in random order and asked him to wait while she gave him the sponge. She asked him to erase “W”, and he did. Then she tried “T”, and he did! She went through the entire alphabet in a completely haphazard order and he got every letter correct! She tried it with lower case letters, and he knew them all too. Then she tried numbers and he knew them up to 20. It wasn’t long before he knew them up to 100! And he knew all of his shapes too, even some of the trickier ones that not even I could name. He also knew all his colours like the back of his hand. These weren’t things studied in class. These were things he learned solely from watching his favourite episodes of his preferred shows. Music and animated babies had taught him more than we ever would have guessed! We were all so excited about this discovery, and celebrated this big little moment – one of many along the way!
Aidan’s therapist jumped ahead in her lesson plans to catch up with what he’d demonstrated he already knew, and worked on deepening his understanding of all four subjects. She got out the laminator and cut up different colours of triangles and asked him to hand her the “red triangle”, then the “yellow triangle” and so on. The next level of learning was asking him to do the same activity from a selection of coloured triangles of different sizes. Soon he was picking the specific colour of triangle from a group of all different, coloured shapes. She did the same with all the shapes you could think of until he fully understood the exercise, and got each one right with ease. Then they moved onto picking “small” and “large” shapes, matching shapes of the same size, then matching shapes of different sizes. This is the level of systematic learning Aidan has been getting for 1.5 years now. And he’s been a super keen learner, who catches on quickly!
Screens did one other big thing for him. They helped to hugely develop his visual memory. When asked to complete a shape sorting exercise against the clock, he would pick and fit shapes in the exact same order as they appeared onscreen in his current favourite shapes song. It was absolutely amazing. He got it right every time, even though he didn’t have a screen in front of him, and wasn’t getting any prompts.
His neurological development took another big leap when we invested in an iPad for Aidan. At first there were endless tears because he wanted to touch the screen and would inadvertently click out of YouTube Kids. He needed me to click on things on his behalf and he guided my finger. But that wasn’t going to be sustainable, so hard as it was, I left him to figure it out. Within a week he had, and was minimizing the screen and rewinding songs back to his favourite parts! His navigation around the app was almost entirely self-taught and he became glued to his new device.
Aidan brought his iPad everywhere with him, and you could hear the quiet tinkle of ‘Cocomelon’, ‘Simple Songs’, and ‘Pepper Pig’ in the car, at the supermarket, at the park, and on top of his jungle gym. We didn’t restrict him at all, but did take the device away from him with lots of distractions and redirections when it needed to be charged. With his device becoming more of a fixation by the day, his ABA therapists wanted to harness it as a reinforcer for learning on his program. In order for them to do that, they had to build it up as a very desired item that he only received when he had completed more complex educational tasks. They asked us not to use it as much in our time with him which caused some arguments back and forth. At that time, Aidan’s behaviours were extremely hard to manage, and we leaned heavily on his iPad for help with his emotional regulation. It was also the only means we had of getting him out of the house to visit friends, or to go to new places that made him anxious. I became quite upset that the program organisers wanted to hijack an important tool of ours and restrict it to learning only. The debate went on for months, with me sticking to my guns until the decision was made to buy a program-specific iPad with an orange cover, that his therapist loaded fun learning games onto. This worked well, and both camps were happy. It also began an obsession with gaming that persists to this day. We have loaded non-program games onto his family iPad and he plays them in the evenings. We’ve had to buy a lot of different games over the months, because Aidan masters games quickly and becomes bored of them. But we foster this particular interest because he’s learning so much from them, including social stories, care routines, and even life skills!
Just recently we’ve downloaded an incredible app called ‘Let Me Talk’ onto Aidan’s iPad, and he uses it as a means to communicate with us. His ability to fully connect with us and make his needs understood, has vastly reduced his tears of frustration and adverse behaviours. His ABA therapist is once again systematically teaching him how to use it to communicate different levels of thoughts and feelings, and I’m really excited for the day when he can tell us how he’s feeling physically as well as emotionally!
As time has gone on, it’s become clear to me that while screens may be considered “bad” for neurotypical children, they can be extremely important learning tools and regulators for neurodivergent children. At three, Aidan has become less attached to his iPad and doesn’t watch TV at all anymore. We never limited his access to either, he simply grew out of both. He now far prefers to play with us and his toys. If you are a special needs parent worrying about screen time, I think it’s important to remember that we do not follow the same guidelines or rule book as most typical families do, and our kiddos have a completely unique way of learning. Please do not feel any shame whatsoever for liberally using screens for different purposes in your daily lives. Our kids not only love them, but it’s my very firm belief that they benefit them in a lot of different ways. Your child is learning a lot of foundational skills from the shows they watch, and you may not even know it. When it comes to having a child on the spectrum, I’m a big believer in giving them as many resources and tools as possible to build their knowledge base, grow their confidence, develop their communication capabilities, and help them to understand the big wide world. In my personal opinion, screens are vital for neurodivergent individuals, and I will always credit them with Aidan’s advanced learning skills.
