As a speech pathologist, Annemarie Laurence spends her working days dealing with school-aged children who struggle to string a sentence together. Recently she wrote a fascinating column pointing to some of the common causes of speech problems in children, and among the causes she named, was game consoles. Nintendo DS's,  Playstations... Those all-absorbing electronic devices that keep kids glued to a screen, and tuned out from the world around them. Annemarie is also a clinical educator in speech pathology at Newcastle University and she spoke to us on Open House this week.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

• If you're a parent of small children, or a teacher, do you ever notice your children or students struggle putting sentences together?

• Have you noticed observed things like the internet and console games affecting their speech development or their level of conversation?

• Have you seen this happening in your family and made changes to improve things? What was the result?
 
• Do you agree with Annemarie Laurence that kids that play video games and engage less with their friends through verbal communication are missing out on something that we used to get by playing board games for example? 

• Or perhaps you think that kids are gaining equally important skills playing video games?

• Do you make time for conversation a priority in your family? If so how?