Just found this article by Jan Hunter of the University of Western Sydney on speech delay. Supports all my findings explained in my book “Teach Baby To Talk and Make Reading Fun”
Are parents using technological devices as pacifiers rather than talking to them?
A parent with a small child in a stroller is walking along the footpath with headphones in. The child is crying, the parent is oblivious.
A parent walks into a cafe engaged in conversation on the phone, with a child tagging along. The parent orders a coffee and a drink for the child. The parent sits down and continues talking on the phone. A tablet computer is pulled out of the parent’s bag and passed to the child. The parent continues talking on the phone.
A parent enters a doctor’s waiting room with child in arms, sits down; the child is placed on a nearby chair. The child is handed a mobile phone to play with, while waiting.
Is technology the villain?
As a parent and educator I encourage teachers to integrate technology in learning at schools. I have done a number of large studies in the area, and studies show educational programs on computers and other devices have great potential to improve early learning.
But primary school principals and early years’ teachers have expressed concern to me about the increased numbers of kindergarten students with obvious speech delays – so much so that in many schools speech therapists have been called in.
One inner-city Sydney school principal said:
From 62 kindergarten children this year, 11 require speech therapy. That is almost 18% of the cohort. While I am an advocate for using technology in education, I am very concerned about basic human skills like speech not being as developed as well as they could be when young children start school.
Are parents relying on technological devices to entertain their children – known as “pass ‘n’ play” – rather than direct conversation, story reading, playing games and make-believe, and other forms of quality interaction?
There aren’t enough studies on the effects of parents’ use of technology on children’s speech development to make definitive claims, but the fact that it has been raised by teachers and principals suggests we need to look into the issue more closely.
This is just as it sounds: the parent passes the child a technological device to play with while in the café or in the doctor’s waiting room. While technology certainly has its place in childhood development, devices should be used as active tools providing quality interactions, not as pacifiers.
Parents should use the device with an educational app or game to question and talk about what is happening on screen. If technological devices are just “inbuilt babysitters” or “moment fillers” they are not fulfilling the educational capacity for which they could be used.
teachbabytotalk 
Wonderful blog you have here but I was curious if you knew of any
forums that cover the same topics talked about here?
I’d really love to be a part of group where I can get comments from
other knowledgeable people that share the same interest.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
Bless you!
Thanks for commenting on my blog. I’m afraid I have not found any other Blogs or other forums which only discuss this problem. There are lots of parenting blogs but topics are wide and varied depending on the needs of parents viewing blog. I have found that many parents are unaware of the problems in speech development in young children which I cover in my blog and in my book. Cheers Sandra Smith