Baby DVDs & Child Development
Language Acquisition Products May Do More Harm Than Good
Aug 9, 2007 Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen
A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics revealed that baby DVDs or language acquisition products (eg, Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein) don't necessarily teach your baby new words.
"Rather than helping babies, the over-use of such productions actually may slow down infants eight to 16 months of age when it comes to acquiring vocabulary, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute." – Science Daily.
The effects of baby DVDs and videos
The researchers studied baby DVDs and videos, educational tv programs,non-educational tv programs and child DVDs and videos such as Sesame Street, Sponge Bob Square Pants, Arthur, and Blue's Clues.
Babies who viewed baby DVDs and videos understood six to eight fewer words than babies who didn't watch them. Baby DVDs and videos didn't have a positive or negative effect on kids 17 to 24 months old.
Baby DVDs possibly harmful
Lead author Frederick Zimmerman stated that there's no clear benefit from baby DVDs and baby videos. "The most important fact to come from this study is there is no clear evidence of a benefit coming from baby DVDs and videos and there is some suggestion of harm."
The researchers were clear that they don't know for sure that baby DVDS and videos like Baby Einstein or Brainy Baby are harmful. They'll continue to research various language acquisition products, educational programming, and young children to learn more about the long-term effects of cognitive development.
The content of baby DVDs
Baby DVDs and videos is different from other types of educational programming. Baby DVDs tend to have little dialogue, disconnected pictures, short scenes and "linguistically indescribable pictures" (eg, a lava lamp). On the other hand children's educational programming are "crafted and tested to meet developmental needs of preschool children." – Science Daily.
Instead of baby DVDs and educational tv programs
Babies and toddlers learn the most from listening to their parents talk. Their "linguistic experience" is richer and deeper with real people having real conversations, not watching DVDs or tv – even if they're educational programs.
"Parents and caretakers are the baby's first and best teachers. They instinctively adjust their speech, eye gaze and social signals to support language acquisition….Old kids may be different, but the youngest babies seem to learn language best from people," says Andrew Meltzoff (psychology chair and co-director of the University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences).
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Baby DVDs & Child Development:Language Acquisition
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