<![CDATA[Smartphones and gadgets are considered as one of the main factors in children's speech delays, especially those under three years. This delay is also accompanied by a child's social impairment like the symptoms of the autism spectrum. This article attempts to demonstrate the statistical correlation between smartphone usage and children's speech delay. Employing a mixed method design by combining statistical inference and qualitative descriptive methods with 70 respondents who were parents of children 1 - 5 years old in Indonesia, the researchers collected data using questionnaires and interviews and further thematically analyzed the responses. This article could show a negatively significant correlation between the duration of gadget use and speech habits, which means that the longer a child spends time playing with gadgets, the worse his/her early-stage language proficiency will be. Thus, it can be concluded that the excessive usage of gadgets has a detrimental impact on children's cognitive and verbal growth. In addition, the researcher found that children with autism spectrum attributes had a relationship with the duration of gadget usage. Further implications on parenting and language teaching are discussed to examine the novelty of the findings.]]>
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