Screen time isn’t linked to language delays in autistic children, large U.S. study finds

A recent study suggests that reading books together at home is associated with better language abilities in young autistic children. The research provides evidence that this shared reading time helps explain why children from higher-income families tend to have stronger communication skills, but finds that screen time does not have a negative impact on these abilities. The findings were published in Autism Research.

Language skills vary widely among children on the autism spectrum. Autism is a developmental condition characterized by differences in social communication and restricted or repetitive behaviors. Some autistic children experience challenges producing or understanding spoken language, whereas others develop abilities similar to or exceeding those of their neurotypical peers. To understand this variation, scientists are increasingly looking at environmental influences that shape early development.

Human development is shaped by different layers of a child’s environment. Broad, distant factors include a family’s socioeconomic status, which generally refers to household income and the parents’ education levels. Closer, everyday factors include the specific activities a child experiences at home, such as shared book reading and screen time. Shared book reading involves an adult caregiver looking at and reading a story with a child, encouraging them to actively participate.

Screen time refers to the hours a child spends in front of televisions, tablets, computers, or smartphones. In the general population, researchers have observed that reading together provides benefits for communication skills. For example, a 2026 study of early childhood development indicated that interactive home literacy routines, like reading books and discussing past events, directly promote language growth over time.

However, reading with an autistic child might look different. In fact, a study covered by PsyPost in 2024 indicated that autistic children tend to focus their attention differently during shared reading than neurotypical children, looking less at the reader’s face and more at background objects. Because autistic children might engage with their environment in unique ways, scientists wanted to see if the typical patterns seen in other children hold true for them.

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“Children with autism are likely to experience language delays and other challenges using and/or understanding spoken language that emerge early in childhood and sometimes persist into adulthood,” said lead author Meredith Pecukonis, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Smith College and director of the Autism & Neurodevelopment (AND) Lab. “Identifying how certain aspects of the home environment relate to language abilities in autistic children is an important first step towards understanding how children’s experiences at home are shaping their language development, and developing interventions that lead to stronger language outcomes for autistic children.”

“Prior to publication of our study, only three studies had looked at the association between screen time and language abilities in autistic children,” Pecukonis told PsyPost. “All of these studies were conducted in China, and therefore no studies had been done in the U.S. on this topic. This gap in the literature was surprising to us, given that several studies have linked excessive screen time to language delays in neurotypical children, and autistic children engage in more screen time than their neurotypical peers.”

To address this gap, the researchers aimed to map out how socioeconomic status, reading habits, and screen use connect to language development. They wanted to see if the broader impact of a family’s income and education might operate through the daily routines children experience at home. To investigate this, the researchers analyzed data from the National Survey of Children’s Health collected between 2018 and 2022.

They focused on a nationally representative group of 1,217 autistic children living in the United States. The children in the sample were between the ages of two and five. Data was collected through surveys completed by parents or adult caregivers who lived with the children.

The survey assessed socioeconomic status by recording the highest level of parent education and calculating the family’s poverty ratio based on their income. It also tracked daily habits, asking parents how many days per week they read to their child and how many hours per weekday the child spent on electronic devices. To measure language, the researchers looked at both expressive and receptive skills.

Expressive language included abilities like speaking single words, asking questions, and telling a story. Receptive language involved understanding instructions, pointing to objects, and recognizing the beginning sounds of words. The statistical models accounted for both the age and sex of the children.

The results showed that autistic children from households with a higher socioeconomic status tended to have higher expressive and receptive language skills. These children were also read to more often and spent less time using screens. The researchers found a direct association between reading frequency and communication abilities. Autistic children who experienced more shared book reading at home demonstrated better language skills across the board.

When analyzing the connections between these variables, the researchers found that shared book reading partially explained the link between socioeconomic status and language skills. This suggests that children from higher-income families experience more frequent shared reading, which in turn helps build their communication abilities. The daily habit of reading acts as a bridge connecting a family’s broader resources to a child’s specific developmental gains.

“Effect sizes are small, meaning that the environment has a small yet significant impact on language development in autism,” Pecukonis said. “Parents raising children in lower SES households may have less time and energy to devote to shared book reading if they are working multiple jobs to pay their bills. Lower SES households may also have reduced access to books in the home.”

“If we want to support autistic children’s language development, we need to acknowledge that children are shaped by various aspects of their environments,” she continued. While some aspects can be addressed through direct family interventions, she noted that others “will likely require systemic change through public policy (e.g., providing greater financial support and services to lower SES families).”

The study found that screen time was not statistically associated with expressive or receptive language skills in autistic children. This means that the amount of time these children spent on devices did not predict better or worse communication abilities. This lack of an association stood out to the researchers, as previous studies of neurotypical children frequently link heavy screen use to developmental delays.

“We were really surprised that the association between amount of screen time and children’s language abilities was non-significant,” Pecukonis said. “This contradicts with what has been reported in the literature on neurotypical children.”

“The non-significant association between screen time and language abilities doesn’t suggest that screen time is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for autistic children… it just shows that there is no association,” she added.

The results are in tension with research covered by PsyPost earlier this year, which found that replacing shared reading with screen time was linked to lower developmental scores. However, that earlier study looked at neurotypical preschoolers, whereas the new study focused exclusively on autistic children. Similarly, a 2024 study linked higher screen time to poorer language skills in the general population, which contrasts with the neutral effect observed here for autistic children.

As with all research, there are some caveats to consider. The study relied on parent surveys, which can sometimes be subject to reporting biases, such as overestimating reading time or underestimating screen use. The data also captured a single snapshot in time rather than tracking the children over many years. Because of this, it is not possible to declare that reading directly causes better language skills in this group.

“We only looked at two household activities (shared book reading and screen time) as our measures of the environment when in reality there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of other aspects of the environment that are shaping language development in autism that we just didn’t measure here,” Pecukonis explained.

“The purpose of this work isn’t to ‘blame’ parents for their children’s language delays, but rather to document trends, show that the environment does matter for language development, and find ways to support autistic children through modifications to their environment,” she emphasized. “Our hope is that these findings will ultimately help autistic children and their families by showing that there is a need for greater support for those from lower SES households.”

The study also measured the sheer quantity of screen time and reading without looking at the quality of those activities. It is entirely possible that autistic children with stronger language skills are more likely to request story time, leading to more frequent reading sessions. Future studies could use direct observation to see how the types of digital media and the specific reading strategies parents use shape language development.

“We just applied for funding to run a longitudinal study to see how screen time measured early in development relates to language abilities measured later in development,” Pecukonis noted. “This study will also measure both the quantity and quality of screen time.”

The study, “Socioeconomic Status and Quantity of Shared Book Reading, But Not Screen Time, are Positively Associated With Language Skills in a Nationally Representative Sample of Autistic Children,” was authored by M. Pecukonis and A. Geffin.