Differences between preschool children using tablets and non-tablets in visual perception and fine motor skills.
Ling-Yi Lin
PMID 32009863WHAT IT FOUND
Preschoolers who used tablets scored lower on visual perception and fine motor skills than non-users.
Tablet use time correlated negatively with motor precision. However, the study design cannot prove tablets caused these deficits, as other factors like lack of siblings may explain the differences.
Key findings
01Children in the tablet group had significantly lower scores in visual discrimination, memory, spatial relationships, form constancy, and figure-ground perception compared to the non-tablet group.
02The non-tablet group showed significantly higher scores in fine motor precision, fine motor integration, and manual dexterity than the tablet group.
03Within the tablet group, more time spent using the device was negatively correlated with fine motor precision, visual discrimination, and spatial relationships.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot determine if tablet use caused the lower scores or if children with lower skills were more likely to use tablets. The tablet group had a significantly higher proportion of only children (25.0% vs 5.6%), which is a potential confounding variable, though the authors controlled for this in the analysis. The study did not measure how much time the children spent watching videos on tablets, only games and educational apps, which may underrepresent total screen exposure. The sample size was small (72 children) and recruited from a specific region, limiting generalizability.
Declared interests
Funded by the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that tablets directly cause developmental delays. This is an observational study, and the lower scores in the tablet group could be due to other factors, such as less time spent in traditional play or the higher number of only children in that group.