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Videos won't make baby smart (Baby Einstein)
Seattle P-I ^ | 8/7/2007 | Paul Nyhan

Posted on 08/08/2007 9:40:14 AM PDT by mngran

It turns out that popular baby videos don't create geniuses, and may even hinder development.

University of Washington researchers warned in a report released Tuesday that Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby and other videos for infants may make a child slower in picking up vocabulary in the first two years of life.

Every hour babies spent watching videos, they understood an average of six to eight fewer words than a baby who didn't watch the programs, researchers found.

Babies who watched the videos scored 17 percent worse on language-skills assessments than babies who didn't, said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, co-author of the study.

"We don't think there is any evidence that it is good for development at all," said Andrew Meltzoff, another co-author of the study.

The hindering of development wasn't even. Overuse of baby videos may slow the growth of vocabulary among babies 8 months to 16 months old, but didn't have an effect on children from 17 months to 24 months.

(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: baby; development; education
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I always did think sticking a little kid in front of the TV couldn't be good for them. Just another product for lazy parents masquerading as something good for kids.
1 posted on 08/08/2007 9:40:16 AM PDT by mngran
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To: mngran

LOL!


2 posted on 08/08/2007 9:42:19 AM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: mngran

Oh I don’t think a blanket assement like that is accurate. Sure creating a couch potato is not in the best interest of a child, but engaging them in interactive TV in moderation is not such a bad thing. Every day, nope. Once in a while, not a problem. Funny thing, my 3 year old avoids the TV. He would rather do other things.


3 posted on 08/08/2007 9:42:41 AM PDT by Bruinator
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To: mngran

Oh I don’t think a blanket assement like that is accurate. Sure creating a couch potato is not in the best interest of a child, but engaging them in interactive TV in moderation is not such a bad thing. Every day, nope. Once in a while, not a problem. Funny thing, my 3 year old avoids the TV. He would rather do other things. My 1 year old hasn’t been exposed to any DVD’s, and tv is just a distraction to her other interests.


4 posted on 08/08/2007 9:44:03 AM PDT by Bruinator
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To: mngran

Correlation ain’t causation.

More likely, the types of parents that think they can abdicate child-rearing to a DVD raise slower kids.

Or, stupidity being a heritable trait, stupid parents tend to buy DVDs to teach the kids (perhaps honorably knowing their own teaching limitations) and their kids are genitically slower.

So the videos may indeed may make the kids better off than they would have been.


5 posted on 08/08/2007 9:46:06 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed
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To: mngran
Is it about making them smart or keeping them away from the trash on TV?
6 posted on 08/08/2007 9:46:22 AM PDT by elizabetty (The funding dried up and I can no longer afford Tagline Messages.)
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To: mngran

The TV of my grandson is severely restricted but he seems to like the Mozart Baby Einstein.

It was learned that for reasons totally unknown and certainly not understood, when placed in his blue chair in with Baby Einstein on, within only a few minutes, he relieved himself of a big poop.


7 posted on 08/08/2007 9:47:11 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Happiness is a down sleeping bag)
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To: mngran

My guess is that a baby who is held by her parents while the parent interacts with the video will reap some benefit from the experience. But a baby has not developed to the point that she can be placed by herself in front of a video and get anything out of it. It is a noise making box and that is it. She might gain something from any music on the video. She might be drawn to picture flashes. But sooner or later she will learn to zone out. The participating parent could make a huge difference because then she is taught how to take in the information from and interact with the video. Next time she hears it she will remember what she learned. It will start as imitation.


8 posted on 08/08/2007 9:47:36 AM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: mngran
I have a soon-to-be 2 year-old little girl. We bought one of those Baby Einstein DVD's for her to watch - she got bored watching it after five minutes and didn't care for it.

She'd much rather sit down with Mommy or me and have us read one of her childrens books to her.
9 posted on 08/08/2007 9:52:12 AM PDT by reagan_fanatic (Stop that!)
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To: mngran

If the parents are lazy or “strong silent types” who say few words even to their babies/toddlers, and there are not siblings, then maybe a little TV is necessary to expose the kids to language.

If the parents are good parents who converse with their kids constantly, then TV will simply mean less parent time.


10 posted on 08/08/2007 9:54:02 AM PDT by dinoparty
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To: mngran

I’ve never been a big believer in the whole “set your kid in front of the TV and turn him into a genius” thing. At the same time, I still question this “study”, at least to a degree. I don’t really believe that it’s the videos alone which are responsible for these results.

I have a six year old who watched these as a child and he speaks and reads like a child several years his senior. If the videos have a negative effect on kids, he is definitely an exception. At the same time, he has two younger brothers who also watched the videos (though less of them) and they seem to be progressing normally in their language abilities as well.

But here’s the thing. My wife and I did NOT use the vids as electronic baby sitters. We would sit there with the kids and talk to them about what as on the screen. “Look at the green frog. See the red dog jump.” That sort of thing.

My wife made the comment when we first saw the report about this that if kids were suffering because of the videos it was probably because the parents were dropping their kids in front of the TV for hours and not interacting. I’ve certainly been guilty of letting them watch for half an hour or so unattended while I picked up the house, but no matter what you do, if you ignore a child for hours on end, they will develop much more slowly than a child who is nurtured and loved.


11 posted on 08/08/2007 9:54:03 AM PDT by Syco
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To: mngran

Hah! What scam those videos were. $20 for a half-hour video of a baby sitting in front of toys to music.


12 posted on 08/08/2007 9:55:15 AM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote.)
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To: mngran

I could have told them that. How much did this study cost them? It should be obvious that babies interact with other people and thus learn everything.
The baby is not stupid. The baby knows that the TV is nothing. Even my cat knows the difference between cat food on TV and real cat food.


13 posted on 08/08/2007 9:58:36 AM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: mngran

My son is now 19. From the time he was 9 months old, he would sit and watch a Kid’s Sing Along Video. They had a whole series of them back them. It had to be a music video (with live people, not cartoon figures) to keep his attention, but he loved them. (I’m not sure what the Baby Einstein series is because I’m not familiar with them.)

Anyhoo, he still loves music, took piano lessons, and continued with them until this year, also took up other instruments (he didn’t choose music as his vocation, however, just for enjoyment.) His math skills were always above average, and I think I’ve read there’s some link between music and math.

But my point is, did he like the music videos because it was part of his natural tendancy, or did the music video spur an interest in the music? I don’t know. But I see nothing wrong with letting kids watch the right kind of videos. I think they offer things that the child might not get in interaction with the parents. However, interaction with the parents is the most important thing.


14 posted on 08/08/2007 10:00:56 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: mngran

The Baby Einsteins are okay, but I have even caught myself “zoning out” while we were watching them.

Right now our little one is into the Wiggles and that’s not so bad because he loves to try and jump around and “dance” with the songs.


15 posted on 08/08/2007 10:03:47 AM PDT by pnz1 (Pray for baby Ethan)
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To: Bruinator
engaging them in interactive TV in moderation is not such a bad thing.

From what I've seen of Baby Einstein, it isn't "interactive" at all. Quite the opposite, actually - it's all about passive observation. I wouldn't let my son watch them even if he was interested.

The closest to "interactive" that television can get (that is to say, not very) is Sesame Street, with sing-a-longs and the like. But unless the Baby Einsteins I've watched are somehow anamolous, the line doesn't qualify.

16 posted on 08/08/2007 10:08:14 AM PDT by highball ("I never should have switched from scotch to martinis." -- the last words of Humphrey Bogart)
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To: highball

My parents said that I learned my numbers from stock reports on tv. I certainly didn’t learn stock tips from it.


17 posted on 08/08/2007 10:14:09 AM PDT by weegee (NO THIRD TERM. America does not need another unconstitutional Clinton co-presidency.)
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To: reagan_fanatic

My now 7 year-old son was reacted to those DVD’s as a tot...boredom. He liked building with blocks, playing with trucks, painting pictures and reading books.

I didn’t even show my now 4 year-old the DVD’s.


18 posted on 08/08/2007 10:15:03 AM PDT by jnygrl (A big mouth coupled with a small mind is a dangerous combination)
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To: mngran

My child must be the exception. She watched many of those videos as an infant. By 17 months she knew all letters of the alphabet including their phonetic sounds after watching Leapfrog’s Letter Factory many times. I highly recommend that video. Her vocabulary is not limited either. Of course she insists we read to her every single night.


19 posted on 08/08/2007 10:16:18 AM PDT by Round 9
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To: Bruinator
I can remember my mother putting on the TV and watching the Apollo space launches, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, some PBS shows with me. (Remember this was 1972 +/- into early 80s).

These shows ingrained in me an interest in space, science, wildlife, and adventure that I still enjoy today. The right exposure, to the right topics, in the right amount can have a significant impression on kids. That is why we must protect our young children from porno and violent shows, mags, and songs, to give them a chance to grow and think without a perverted view of life and social interactions.

I watch the new shows with my boys now, The History channel, Discover, animal planet ect. They both have an interest in all these things and more due to our parental prodding, and can pick out the sick and twisted elements of our culture and reject them for what they are.

They still are game addicts but that time is earned and portioned out sparingly.

20 posted on 08/08/2007 10:23:21 AM PDT by enraged
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