How excessive screen time is delaying speech among Kenyan children

When little Amani from Bungoma, now three, first stretched out her arms for her father’s smartphone to replay a nursery rhyme video, her parents did not think they were doing anything harmful.

The videos kept her calm as her mother cooked, cleaned, or attended to guests.

 But as time passed, her parents noticed that other children in her age group were forming full sentences, asking questions, and singing clear words, while Amani remained limited to single-word utterances like “milk,” “go,” and “mama.”

The turning point came when her pre-school teacher quietly asked whether the family had considered a speech assessment.

After speaking to a paediatrician, the parents were confronted with a difficult truth: their daughter’s daily video routines, which often stretched to nearly three hours, were associated with a speech delay.

“We finally stopped it, and she has started to speak more,” her mother says. “But I keep thinking of how much time we lost.”

Amani is not alone. Across Kenya, paediatricians and speech therapists are reporting a sharp rise in children with delayed speech, many of whom are exposed to screens for long hours in their earliest developmental stages.

In many Kenyan households, screens now serve as silent babysitters. The pressures of urban life, demanding work schedules, and limited childcare options make televisions, tablets, and smartphones feel like harmless helpers.

 A parent can cue Cocomelon, Baby Shark, or Peppa Pig, and enjoy forty minutes of uninterrupted time to wash dishes, prepare supper, or answer emails. Yet beneath the convenience lies a hidden developmental cost.

 According to Consultant Paediatrician Dr Lubanga Dickens, who practices at Bungoma County Referral Hospital and Bungoma Children’s Hospital, says the trend has become impossible to ignore.

Lubanga notes that screen time during infancy is a major contributor to the increasing number of young children arriving in clinics with speech delays.

He explains that some three-year-olds he sees can barely form phrases and instead imitate cartoon voices or repeat memorised lines.

His warning is grounded in global research: children learn language not simply by hearing words, but by engaging in two-way interaction—eye contact, turn-taking, imitation, and responsive conversation.

 Screens, especially when watched alone, provide sound and colour but do not offer meaningful back-and-forth communication, the very foundation of speech development.

What parents often view as harmless entertainment is now emerging as a major developmental disruptor.

Globally, studies are piling up, and one of the most cited is a 2018 Canadian study published in JAMA Pediatrics, which tracked more than 2,400 children and found that increased screen time at ages two and three was significantly associated with delayed speech and poorer developmental outcomes by age five.

 The findings mirror what many Kenyan clinicians are now seeing on the ground.

“We are now seeing more children with speech delay linked to excessive screen exposure,” he explains.

“Between ages zero and four, the brain develops extremely fast. At this stage, children need live, face-to-face human interaction, not screens.”

He says many parents assume that educational cartoons count as learning. In reality, the child is only receiving sound, colour and fast-moving imagery, not language practice.

“Speech is built through turn-taking, the child speaks, you respond, they speak again. That back-and-forth trains the brain. A screen cannot provide that,” he said.

In Nairobi’s Kasarani neighbourhood, 29-year-old Nyawira learned this lesson too late. Her son, Ethan, attended daycare from the age of one.

To keep him calm through the day, the house-help played cartoons for hours.

“By age two, I became concerned that he wasn’t talking, he only said ‘tata’ and ‘cup’. I assumed he would eventually catch up,” Lydia recalls.

 When she finally sought medical advice, she was told the screen exposure had replaced critical interaction time.

Lydia has since eliminated screens on weekdays and enrolled Ethan in speech therapy.

“Progress is coming, but slowly,” she said.

Lubanga believes modern Kenyan household dynamics are partly to blame.

 “Unlike the 80s and 90s where children were raised in communal settings—with grandparents, cousins, songs, stories and outdoor play—today’s children are being raised alone with screens. Parents are busier, and many rely on house-helps who, overwhelmed with chores, use screens as digital babysitters,” he explained.

He calls it ‘convenient parenting’ which according to him comes with long-term consequences,” he said.

What many caregivers do not realise is that reducing screen-based stimulation can determine whether a child speaks on time or struggles for years.

The JAMA Pediatrics study that documented delayed expressive language among toddlers is backed by global policy as well.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends zero screen time for children under two, and a maximum of one hour per day for ages two to five.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also prohibits screens for children under 18 months—except video calls, which still involve real human interaction.

In Kenya, however, these limits are almost unheard of. Television runs in the background from morning to evening.

Parents hand toddlers’ phones in matatus, during meals, at restaurants and in waiting rooms, believing it keeps them ‘calm’ or ‘occupied’. Yet every hour given to a screen is an hour taken away from the one ingredient speech needs most: conversation.

Speech therapist Jacinta Naliaka in Eldoret sees the same pattern and says parents often arrive in denial.

“They say, ‘But the cartoon is educational,’ or ‘He knows letters and colours,’ yet the child cannot ask for water or express discomfort,” she says, adding, “That is not language. That is memorization.”

Screens create silent learners—children who absorb words passively without ever practicing them.

 And unlike a parent, a tablet never pauses to say: “What is this?” “Can you repeat that?” “What do you want?” 

Without that feedback loop, Lubanga warns there is no linguistic growth.

The consequences go beyond speech. Excessive screen exposure has also been linked to poor attention spans, reduced eye contact, sleep disruption, and weaker social interaction skills.

Lubanga explains that emotional learning and speech develop through studying faces, expressions and reactions.

 “A child must learn to read emotions—smiles, anger, curiosity, surprise. A fast-moving cartoon face cannot teach that. Only a real human face can,” he says.

Still, experts insist the situation is reversible for most children—if action is taken early. When parents remove screens and increase social interaction, many children catch up. Play, song, conversation and storytelling remain the most powerful therapy for the human brain under age four.

“Every minute of talking helps. Narrate what you’re doing. Respond to the child’s sounds. Read aloud. Sing. Play outside. It is not complicated. It is consistent presence,” says Dr Lubanga.

For many parents, the bigger challenge is breaking their own digital habits. Some confess that screens are the only way they manage household chaos. Others use devices to quiet tantrums.

 Yet experts argue that what feels like a short-term fix becomes a long-term developmental trap.

“We must choose interaction over convenience. Screens will always be there. Speech milestones, once missed, are much harder to recover,” Said Lubanga.

Back in Bungoma, Amani is making progress. She now attends weekly speech sessions and her parents have replaced cartoons with books, puzzles and pretend play.

 “She is talking more. The first time she asked me a full question, I cried,” said her mother.

Her story reflects a growing Kenyan reality. In homes across the country, screens are silently replacing parents, siblings, songs, play and language.

And while the effects are subtle at first, the developmental cost is becoming too large to ignore.

As Dr Lubanga warns, “If we truly want our children to speak, connect and thrive, we must put the screens down and pick the children up.”