Be Tech Wise With Toddler!

Parents and caregivers are inundated with often-conflicting recommendations on screen time and technology usage by children. To cut through the clutter, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the Screen Time Action Network at Fairplay (Action Network) have developed Be Tech Wise With Toddler!

This family-friendly handout is well suited for sharing in pediatrician, family practice, and other medical offices and outpatient therapy clinics; libraries, day care centers and preschools; and all other settings where information is provided to parents and caregivers of young children. The PDF can also be printed and/or distributed electronically through early intervention programs, parent support groups, and other networks.

Be Tech Wise With Toddler! focuses on children ages 1 to 3 years who are in a unique developmental period during which they build the foundational language, learning, literacy, and social–emotional skills they’ll need for life. This is also a time when many children begin to use tablets, smartphones, and other screens—which can interrupt their healthy development.

Available in English and Spanish, the handout covers

• daily activities that help parents and caregivers boost their child’s brain, communication, and social–emotional development;
• official screen time recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics;
• the benefits of screen-free time—and how excessive screen use can disrupt a toddler’s development; and
• tips and advice for creating a healthy technology environment in the home.

ASHA and the Screen Time Action Network grant free blanket permission for the handout to be reprinted in any quantity without modification—for educational purposes. Download the handouts:

English Version [PDF]

Spanish Version [PDF]

Note: Screens and technology in this resource refer to popular technology devices such as smartphones, not augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices that are used to enable communication. AAC devices should be used at all times, in an interactive way.

Be Tech Wise With Toddler! was developed by the following child development experts:

Mark Bertin, MD
Alice Hanscam, CPC
LeAnna Heinrich, MS, CCC-SLP
Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD
Diane Paul, PhD, CCC-SLP