Development of a parental education module for screen-dependent preschool children with social communication deficit

Numerous studies report about the negative effects of screen time, including behavioural issues, sleep deprivation, speech and language delay, etc. Few studies also report about the parental knowledge and concerns related to screen time in children and its effects. Given the increasing trend of screen time and its impact on overall development of children in their early years, there is an immediate need for parental intervention programme to reduce screen time in young preschool children.

Despite the literature on the effects of screen time in children with or without social communication deficit and increasing parental awareness of its effects, there is only limited research focusing on intervention to address this issue.

This study aims to develop a parent educational module to educate the parents of screen-dependent typically developing preschool children with social communication deficits. The module will be developed based on literature search and parental interview for content development which will be reviewed by a panel of professionals for their opinion and changes. This module can be validated and will be a helpful tool in intervention for children having screen time-related social communication deficits.