These are the apps that can actually help children's development

A new study has found that while age-appropriate apps can help children with play and creativity, parents need to be selective, as some can be far less beneficial.

The study by the University of Sheffield, found that under-fives use tablets for an average of 1 hour 19 minutes on weekdays and 1 hour 23 minutes on weekends.

In households with tablets, 31 per cent of under-fives have their own.

The researchers found that apps such as Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds are less beneficial to pre-schoolers, due to pop-up notices for in-app purchases and adverts.

Research showed that under-fives can swipe the screen, trace shapes with their fingers, drag items across the screen, open their apps, draw things, tap the screen to operate commands, exit apps and enter other apps and turn the device on and off without any assistance.

Professor Jackie Marsh, of the University of Sheffield’s School of Education, said:

Apps that contain adverts and pop-ups for in-app purchases can limit children’s play. In addition, whilst children of this age want to play some of the same games that their older siblings or parents play, these are not age-appropriate and do not offer a great deal of value for pre-schoolers.

Parents should look for apps produced by broadcasters or companies that know a great deal about this age group.

Children’s top ten favourite apps are as follows:

1. YouTube
2. CBeebies (Playtime and Storytime)
3. Angry Birds
4. Peppa’s Paintbox
5. Talking Tom (and similar)
6. Temple Run
7. Minecraft
8. Disney (general)
9. Candy Crush Saga
10. Toca Boca

Of children’s top ten favourite apps, the CBeebies app ‘Playtime’ was found to be the most helpful to encouraging play and creativity in under fives.

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