Birth order or screen time: What stronger predicts executive function skills development in preschool children?

Elena Chichinina ^1* Olga Almazova ¹ Veraksa Nikolay ^1,2

• ¹ Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
• ² The Federal State Budget Scientific Institution “Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Multidisciplinary Research', Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Russia

Most screen time recommendations differ for parents of toddlers, preschoolers, and schoolchildren. In families with more than one child, it becomes more difficult for parents to apply these recommendations to each child individually due to the age difference between the siblings. At the moment, it has been poorly studied how screen time is affected by the birth order. Therefore, the current study was aimed to study birth order and screen time as predictors of executive function skills development. Executive function skills were assessed in children twice, when children were 5-6 years old and one year later. The study sample consisted of 271 children (51% boys) from two-child families. Half of the participants were first-born children and the other half were second-born children. The age difference between the siblings was not more than five years. From all executive function skills, only development of verbal working memory over a year was shown to be predicted by the birth order. Namely: in 5-6-years-old second-born children, the development of verbal working memory over a year was less than in 5-6-years-old first-born children. Active and passive screen time were not predictors of executive function skills development. Also, it was shown that second-born preschool children were exposed to active screen time more than first-born. Based on the results obtained, in two-child-families, at age 5-6 years, being second-born may be less beneficial for verbal working memory development than being first-born. So, for second-born preschool children, parents should be especially careful to adhere to screen time recommendations.