NO CHILD under the age of two should be allowed to watch television because of the risk of developing attention deficit disorders, according to scientists.

Parents who put young children in front of the television are leaving them prone to concentration problems, im- pulsiveness and restlessness by school age, research suggests.

A study conducted by scientists in America found that for every hour of television watched daily, toddlers faced a 10 per cent increased risk of having attention problems by the age of seven.

While children under two should watch no television at all, older children should be allowed to watch no more than two hours a day, the scientists concluded.

Dimitri Christakis, the report’s author, said that findings had shown that children could become mesmerised by the television screen, which appeared to affect the development of the brain.

Dr Christakis, of the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Centre in Seattle, said: “The truth is there are lots of reasons for children not to watch television.

“The newborn brain develops very rapidly during the first two to three years of life. It’s really being wired. We know from studies of newborn rats that if you expose them to different levels of visual stimuli, the architecture of the brain looks very different.”

The study, in the April issue of the US journal Pediatrics, involved 1,345 children. Parents were questioned about their children’s viewing and asked to rate their behaviour at the age of seven on a scale like the one used to diagnose attention deficit disorders.

The youngsters who watched the most television were more likely to rank within the top 10 per cent for concentration problems, impulsiveness, restlessness and being easily confused.

The findings suggested that television might overstimulate with its unrealistically fast-paced visual images and permanently “rewire” the developing brain, researchers said.

Among three-year-olds, 7 per cent watched no television, 44 per cent watched one to two hours a day, 27 per cent three to four hours, almost 11 per cent five to six hours, and about 10 per cent seven or more hours.

The researchers took into account other factors such as home life and their parents’ mental states.

While previous studies have researched the amount of television children watch, this was the first to link it to attention disorders. Other studies have shown television watching to be associated with obesity and aggressiveness.

Recent studies have revealed a worrying prominence of television in young children’s lives, a trend that has risen with the boom in pre-school programmes, including Teletubbies, Fimbles and Tweenies. The first is now thought to have a global audience of close to one billion.

One British survey found that parents of one in four children aged from six months to two years had installed televisions in their nurseries.

The latest findings come after a warning last year from David Bell, the Chief Inspector of Schools, that communication and behavioural skills among five-year-olds were lower than they had ever been.

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