Video games are too good at keeping children quiet
Last Sunday morning, sitting at breakfast at a local cafe, I noticed an identical family sitting across from us. Husband, wife, three kids aged between six and 12.
Well, almost identical. There was one area of difference. While we sat and waited for our meals, we chatted about something so mundane I can't even remember the topic. While the other family waited, the husband and wife stared in different directions at various restaurant goings-on, while the three children played their Nintendo DSs.
It hit the nail on the head for me, a speech pathologist whose every working day is spent with school-aged children who can't string a sentence together. Take, for instance, the 10-year-old who wanted to tell me he lived a long way away from his school. "It's very early," he said. "To get here is very early."
Or the 12-year-old who, when asked to make up a sentence about a picture of some children in fancy dress and use the word ''best'' in the sentence, came up with: "The people are dressed up so they can tell the judges who are the best dressed in the dressing world."
Both children had a severe expressive language (spoken language) delay.
In the classroom they can fly under the radar by putting their hand up in class discussions and then saying, ''I forgot'' when the teacher asks for their contribution. On the playground they can come across as sullen in peer negotiations. Truth is, that when asked to efficiently express what they want to say, they flounder.
And it doesn't stop there. Spoken language provides a critical foundation for the development of reading, spelling and written expression, and this relationship is reciprocal. Evidence shows that children with a spoken language delay have increased difficulties learning to read and write.
It seems most children these days have a Nintendo or a PlayStation or an Xbox. And while not wanting to send them packing altogether, I do feel they hold some responsibility for what I am witnessing. The problem is that none of them engage the child in a conversation. Quite the opposite really - they are very good at keeping a child quiet.
A child can sit tapping away at some buttons for hours on end without expressing verbally how they feel about the different games they are playing. It gives us adults some time out from our busy lives where we don't have to think. But what's the consequence? How often are we engaging our children in a conversation that goes beyond asking them what they'd like to have for breakfast? Are we listening to what they're saying? What are their sentences like? Are they efficient, well-constructed and grammatically correct, or do they contain lots of fillers, like ''um'' and ''ah''?
Each working day shows me that our children's expressive language skills are another casualty of living a life on the run. Talking seems to have gone out of fashion. Many children aren't hearing well constructed sentence models, and they have little opportunity to practise using complex sentences. Children aren't describing any more how their school concert outfit looked - instead they just email the photos.
The wheeling and dealing that once happened in board games such as Monopoly have been superseded.
Speaking of board games, I always feel quite excited when my children come to me and tell me they're bored, because I know that they're about to begin a game which is much more interesting and fun than any computer screen can provide. A game played outside in the yard, that can last for days and where plots and plans are discussed in minute detail. Where the neighbours' kids are roped in (sometimes literally) and negotiations must take place. Where you share your imagination with the child in the tree branch next to you. Games where talking is integral. Remember those?
Annemarie Laurence is a speech pathologist who works as a clinical educator at Newcastle University.
