Introducing TV for speech?

[funnygrace]

Hi. My 21 month old hasn't yet watched TV--he has seen it a few times at other people's houses and we have watched a youtube video with him on occasion at our office computers (horse jumping, toddlers riding scooters, soccer tricks). We have a TV in our living room where he plays and I don't think he knows that it turns on.

He is a late-talker and has been going to speech therapy for a few months and he has been adding sounds and partial words to his communication (he also signs). I'm thinking about introducing speech therapy DVD to see if that sparks his interest and gets him repeating sounds. But I'm afraid that TV might cause power struggles, of which we have few at this point. I don't want to have to deny it and I only want him to watch about 20 minutes a day or every other day. I'm not in a rush to get him talking but he is delighted by communicating and I'd like to help him out. (He is going to speech therapy at the request of another of his health care practitioners and he enjoys it... I don't think I would have yet sought it out on my own and his pediatrician says he isn't out of the range of normal development.)

So my question: Do any of you have toddlers that watch only occasional TV and do not ask for it all the time? Can you think of ways that I could introduce it that would make it seem like just another activity instead of a possibility all the time? I was thinking about seeing if he could watch it at a neighbor's house instead of ours--but watching it at home would be easier and perhaps not a problem...

And my other question: Do you have experience with any toddler DVDs that have enhanced your lo's vocabulary and range of sounds? Thanks so much!

[Nicole730]

Before I had DD, DS watched tv very occasionally with no problems. It was once every few days or so, sometimes I would get him an Elmo DVD from the library or else put on Sesame Street in the morning. But...once I had DD, TV became a lot more regular here and not we do have some screaming fits when I won't put it on when he wants to. They are usually over pretty quickly.

[tankgirl73]

I wouldn't. No need for it. Kids learned to talk juuuuust fine before TV was around anyway. And if it did happen to accelerate his speech development by, what, a month or so? So what? By the time he's 4 you'll not realize the difference.

I'd also tend to think that 21mo is not that much of a 'late talker' requiring therapy. Especially if he is making signs and using some words. It's the "later end of the normal range" but that's still within "normal", you know? If there's no signs of real problems like hearing deficiencies or oral issues, then I'd just let him develop at his own pace without stressing about any particular schedule.

My daughter was a "late" talker, I think her first word was around 16mo and that was only one word... by 21 mo she would have had just a few. She had lots of signs, though. Then she EXPLODED just around that age, and started adding literally 3 words every single day. By a little over age 2, she was indistinguishable from the 'early' talkers. She's now 3.5 and is considered a "precocious" talker, with a LARGER vocabulary, BETTER pronunciation, and BETTER grammar/syntax than most kids her age.

She never did ANY therapy, nor did we push or coax her to talk. I think often times, people see their kids start talking a lot while undergoing speech therapy and assume the therapy is 'working', but really, they were just going to have that explosion then (or very soon) anyway!

It was sometimes a little strange for us, especially since her older brother was a VERY early talker and that's what I was used to. But I was reassured by her signing and she obviously was UNDERSTANDING language appropriately. I really don't understand this fear that an otherwise normal child, who is listening well, understanding and responding appropriately, is somehow not going to WANT to speak sooner or later??

What helped me relax and understand all this is the experience of my younger brother. He was almost 3 and still hadn't said a word. Our parents were starting to consider getting something done... speech therapy wasn't nearly as over-prescribed then as it is today! But by age 3, they thought really shouldn't he be saying SOMETHING by now?

Then one morning he got up, came into the kitchen and said "hi mom, I'd like some breakfast please, I'm very hungry." BOOM.

We think he was just waiting until he had the WHOLE THING figured out before farting around with silly little sounds and individual words, right? LOL...

ANYWAY. My point is this... even if you do decide that therapy is still the right thing for your child, I really wouldn't worry too much about providing SO MUCH stimulation and 'encouragement' for speech that you're contemplating adding TV when you're primarily a TV-free family. It's just not necessary, at BEST it would only speed things up a tiny bit, and a little speed-up is NOT going to mean a thing at all in the grand scheme of things. If he says the same things a couple months later, you really won't know the difference a few years down the line. Plus, there is a risk of creating TV battles... so it's just not worth it IMO.

[funnygrace]

Thanks both of you for your input. Nicole730—it's good to hear that your DS was able to watch a bit of TV without desiring more of it. I think my DS might be the same way. And tankgirl 73, I tend to agree with you, and I do like hearing other's anecdotes about their later talking children. But I also don't rule out that speech therapy has benefits for some children. I was on the fence about sending him to the speech therapy he is getting, but I feel fine about doing it now. I agree that it is probably over-prescribed. But it's play time with another person, and he is a social guy. The reason we are watching his language development this early is because he has a cleft that may affect his speech. I feel like we are pretty relaxed.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has introduced DVDs on signing, speech, etc. to their toddler (even though we may decided not to do it--I'm interested...)

[tankgirl73]

funnygrace, I agree that it has benefits for SOME children. It's just so overprescribed, as you say, and I think too many parents get too hung up on it.

Now that you mention your son has a cleft, it makes much more sense for your situation to be doing early intervention, even as a "just in case" thing. Like I said, "hearing difficulties or oral issues".

Now for full disclosure, we do let our daughter watch quite a bit of DVD's... more than I'm comfortable with, sometimes... but other times I'm okay with it. I go back and forth on this issue! Most of the time I see no apparent harm with her, other times she gets so ANGRY and she wants to watch KIKI NOW!! And then again, and again, and again... But we're careful to combine it with LOTS of outdoor time, free play time, creative imagination time, 'free range kid' time... And she watches no 'regular' TV, no sesame street or barney or dora or whatever garbage passes for kids' TV these days. Just movies we've approved of, or things like the Wiggles, or ballet dancing shows.

In terms of speech/sign, we never did anything specifically for speech, but we used the "My Baby Can Talk" DVD's, all 3 of them. She loved them, I loved how they are simple and straightforward, engaging without being overstimulating like other kids' signing DVD's (in my opinion). As I mentioned before, she knew LOTS of signs long before she was speaking out loud, and 99% of her signs, she learned from those DVD's.

Did we create a monster in terms of demanding to watch movies? We're still not sure on that... But I do think that if it does become a long-term problem, we'll still be able to "cure" her... heh... I hope!!!

I doth not always practiceth what I preacheth *sigh*

[Dynomite&Destiny]

I'd say DD averages less than 20 minutes of tv a day. Sometimes we watch nothing, and she rarely asks for it. Occasionally, on no nap days, Mommy might suggest a movie. We don't have any sort of broadcast or cable tv, so it's always something with a definitive end. She's knows when it's done, it's done. Occasionally she'll ask for more directly after one episode, but I can't remember having to argue with her to get her to move on.

[Girlprof]

We don't do any TV, but we did start with some DVDs for each kid right around when they turned two. Our TV is in the basement, which really helps. Out of sight, out of mind. They don't beg for it - I think they mostly forget about it unless we take them downstairs to help with laundry or something.

I wouldn't start TV as an aid to learning to talk. I think the most research says that it doesn't help, which doesn't surprise me. If you aren't doing baby signs yet, that would be one way to go. We did a lot of signing w/o any DVDs, but we also liked the Signing Times videos quite a lot.

[LDSmomma]

DS watches TV some. Sadly, we growups watch way too much TV. When DS was tiny, I read that one risk of tv at a young age is that parents don't do much talking, so the kids don't speak well, and with all the background noise, their hearing might suffer. So, I work hard to only use TV as a tool when I wouldn't be talking much anyway. Like when I need to empty the dishwasher, and don't need DS's help pulling knives out, etc. and it's pretty limited. I think he may be a later talker, but he's much much more of a physical guy, meeting all of those milestones way way early, but other milestones a little later.

[crunchy_mommy]

How about radio/CD instead? Or at least maybe an interactive computer game? Or, if you're set on the DVDs, could you play them on the computer so you have a bit more control of it to limit it? Maybe have him sit in your lap rather than take off, so he feels like this IS an activity not just 'something I do every day while mom does the dishes' and you can interact more...

I have a hard time believing TV would really help speech, 16mo DS doesn't watch any TV and talks tons... DH just invented a game with him where they echo each other & once they get going DH adds in a lot of different phonetic sounds. Wasn't meant to be educational but turned out that way ... I think he would learn a lot more about speech from real interactions with people, you can hear the sounds better and see their mouths moving more clearly and understand the context better as well. Just my opinion though!

[MusicianDad]

I wouldn't, my understanding is that TV/movies can actually impede a child's speech development. Since your DC is already behind in that department I wouldn't risk it personally.

I the the most effective thing you as a parent can do is talk to your child and encourage (but not force) your child to use what he has to respond to the best of his abilities. In other words, practice.

We aren't TV free, but the TV is usually off in this house.

[holothuroidea]

I like to watch TV, my toddler actually turns it off when she's tired of it.

She doesn't say as many words as her peers, either, at 22 months. That's probably because her father and I are not big talkers ourselves. I don't think TV really affects her one way or the other. Every child is different, though.

Also I had no idea that there was speech therapy for children that young.

[funnygrace]

Thanks everyone for your experiences. I may just hold off on the DVD idea. I was thinking specifically of something like "Baby Babble"--made by speech therapists. I'm only concerned because I don't want to introduce TV if it will cause us struggles (nor do I want a slippery slope kind of thing). We talk constantly with DS and play sound games. We read to him probably about 1.5 hours a day and its a pretty interactive time with songs and questions and signs. I was thinking that he might actually respond differently to TV than he does to us. We are so close to him. He tends to "talk" a lot when he is playing by himself (which isn't that often at this age--5-10 minutes tops).