Does Watching CoComelon Cause Speech Delay

Kids nowadays have the opportunity to grow in a world full of knowledge and expectations. The diversity of technology provides our kids with different ways to use it, from education to entertainment.

One of the platforms children often use is YouTube because there are a lot of child-friendly channels that successfully entertain your child.

You’ve probably noticed your little one singing or playing along to some nursery rhymes on their phone.

What is CoComelon?

Have you seen your child watching a channel on YouTube that has a cute melon as its logo? Have you heard the little CoComelon jingle on your child’s phone? You probably have.

CoComelon is the biggest channel for children on YouTube. Their content is mainly children’s nursery rhymes accompanied by colorful animations.

Due to the content’s simplicity and childish character, parents often connect it with several disorders and disabilities, such as speech delay.

What is Speech Delay?

Speech delay is when a child can’t express themselves with words and can’t be understood by others.

According to Nemours Children’s Health, speech delay can be caused by several factors, such as oral problems (mostly involving the tongue) or hearing issues. The symptoms are recognized when the child is young. Children that have a speech delay:

• Can’t use gestures by the time they’re one year old;
• Can’t verbally communicate and imitate sounds by the time they’re one and a half years old;
• Can’t produce understandable sentences and phrases until the age of two;

Treatment of speech delay is a long process that requires help from both parents and professionals. If your child has symptoms of speech delay, seek a speech therapist and increase your communication with your child.

Experts also state that reading can greatly help in overcoming speech delay.

Why is CoComelon So Attractive for Kids?

Let’s start with a brief history of the roots of CoComelon. It was created by Jay Jeon, with the help of his wife, in 2005 to entertain their children.

Today it is the second-largest channel on YouTube, with a staggering 155 million subscribers! The target group CoComelon aims its videos at is, of course, children. The colorful animations, joyful sounds, and catchy songs are perfect child-friendly entertainment.

But a lot of people debate over its educational value. Although CoComelon features many jingles your children can sing along to, it doesn’t offer much room for improvement.

If you scroll through their channel, you can see that they often repost the same nursery rhymes. So, our children hearing the same thing over and over again can’t have that much educational value.

Link Between CoComelon and Speech Delay

If you’re a parent and are active on social media, you’ve probably seen posts claiming that CoComelon can cause speech delay and other health problems.

So is this true or just a myth? There is no real evidence that can support the claim that causes speech delay.

But there are a lot of experiences that parents have shared on the Internet, saying that their child suddenly started talking more when it stopped watching CoComelon.

So, logically the answer should be somewhere in the middle. Although CoComelon doesn’t directly cause speech delay (like a virus causes the cold), it does divide children from their parents.

You’ve probably had that situation at home where everyone is sitting together, but you aren’t talking. Instead, everyone is staring at their phones, living in their own world.

So, supported by studies, we can say that technology as a whole contributes to children separating themselves from the real world, ultimately making them talk less.

How Can Parents Help in Language Development

We, as parents, can and should do everything to ensure our children grow into intelligent people. In the following paragraphs, we’ll go over ways parents can engage children in developing their language and speech skills.

Reading and Creating Stories

Teaching children to read and reading stories to them can greatly improve their language skills. You can read a different story every day and discuss the details with your children. Why join a book club when you have your family?  

Let your children express their thoughts about the contents of the book and create their way of thinking.

Another great way to stimulate the growth of your children’s speaking skills is by playing a rather simple game. Every day, pick a random topic, and every member of the family should come up with a story related to the topic.

How to Reduce the Risk of Speech Delay

Although earlier we discussed that CoComelon can only indirectly cause speech delay, studies show that low-quality programs can directly contribute to your child having speaking problems.

Our job as parents is to ensure our children are safe and grow up healthy. Constant communication and time spent with your children are crucial.

Try talking with your toddler, encouraging it to use words by stimulating them with treats, and letting your toddler vocalize its emotions.

Furthermore, you can try out several other engaging methods to reduce the chance of your child having a speech delay, such as:

• Playing games that involve speaking;
• Dancing and singing together;
• Reading books and vocalizing words together;

Tips for Using CoComelon

After reviewing everything connected with speech delay, we can finally form a decision about letting your children watch CoComelon.

Forbidding your children from watching CoComelon won’t do much because your child can always find another channel to watch.

Instead, try setting up a habit of limited tech usage from a young age. Studies show that children younger than 2 years old shouldn’t use tech at all, and children between the ages of 2 and 5 should limit their tech usage to only an hour daily.

So, set strict rules and boundaries regarding your children’s use of tech.

Conclusion

Technology offers countless ways for children to entertain themselves. One of them is CoComelon.

Parents often mark it as a direct cause of speech delay, but that is not quite the case. CoComelon and generally technology can indirectly affect children’s ability to speak by separating them from the real world.

Practice some tech-free activities in your household, and make your children see that life without CoComelon is much better.

FAQ

ALSO READ: Benefits of No Screen Time for Toddlers