The many other causes of speech delay include bilingual children with phonological disorders, autism spectrum conditions, childhood apraxia, auditory processing disorder, prematurity, cognitive impairment and hearing loss. In addition, when children are addicted to screens, they aren't stimulated to be involved in conversations, causing speech delays.Broomfield and Dodd's (2004a)found out after survey that 6.4% of children who are perfectly normal showed speech difficulty while they lacked these disorders will often show early signs and are at times identified as "at risk" when the speech delay is diagnosed. However, a study done in Saudi Arabia showed no relationship between smart device use and speech delay, although 64.8% of the parents believed that the smart devices are a "problem". A review study from Indonesia points out the existence of contradicting results on that issue.
Does extended screen time cause speech delay in children?
There is no definite proof that extended screen time cause speech delay in children because there are contradicting study results.