The findings came from a survey of 6,000 people by the Communication Trust for the launch of the Hello campaign – the national year of communication.

One in three parents said they’d been concerned about the way their child communicated and many thought it was because children spent too much time in front of screens.

The Trust say that around two or three children in each class have difficulty with communicating and that the problems are normally something they have been born with.

A separate Ofsted study found young children were starting nursery school unable to speak and listen properly.

It said televisions that were on all the time, noisy brothers and sisters and raised voices were getting in the way of children’s language skills.