Development of a parent education module for screen-dependent preschool children with social communication deficit

Technology and its advancements have significantly impacted the quality of life for humans. With the progress in technology, screen dependency has also progressed in people of all ages. Despite available guidelines recent surveys indicate that the screen time in children is beyond the recommended levels. Excess screen time is known to create behavioural issues, delayed language development, poor expressive language, poor social skills, and traits like autism (aka virtual autism) in young children. Children with such traits demonstrate significant improvements in their social and language skills when screen time is reduced with adequate guidance and stimulation. The present study, thus, aimed to develop a parental education module to reduce screen time for preschool children with social communication deficits. At first, the contents of the module were developed through a parental in-depth interview conducted to find the issues faced by parents due to screen time in children, in addition to a focused literature search. A panel of experts rated the contents of the module in terms of relevance, age appropriateness and feasibility of implementation. Expert rating showed a high consensus (80%) among the raters and appropriateness of its contents. Furthermore, feedback received on the revised module revealed acceptance by the parents. The module is expected to improve the parental awareness, knowledge and attitude about the challenges of screen time in children and thereby control the effects of screen time in this group.