DVDs Won't Turn Babies Into Einsteins

(CBS)  While educational videos such as "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby" claim to help your baby learn, they may actually do the opposite.

Medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay stopped by Wednesday's The Early Show to discuss why you may want to pull your infants and toddlers away from the TV screen.

A research team from the University of Washington surveyed 1,000 parents over the phone and asked them questions about their children's age and the amount of time their child spends watching various television programs, as well as infant DVDs and videos.

They gauged each child's vocabulary by determining how many words on a list of 90 the child knew or had used. The plot thickened when the researchers compared how often the children watch videos with the sophistication of the children's vocabulary.

For children between the ages of 8 and 16 months, they understood an average of six to eight fewer words for every hour per day watching the videos than infants who didn't watch them. Researchers found that the videos and DVDs have no effect, positive or negative, on the vocabularies of toddlers between the ages of 17 and 24 months.

According to Senay, it is important to note that this research is consistent with previous findings that suggest children should avoid watching television. Prolonged time in front of a TV for children under the age of 2 will not help them. In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendeded that children under the age of 2 avoid television altogether.

Senay said, "The way that babies learn language is not passively, but actively. Sit and talk to the baby. Read a book to the baby."

The researchers who conducted the study agree that more research is necessary. The long-term effects of these videos and DVDs have yet to be determined.

[sempilethe]

There is a very serious problem with drawing the conclusion that watching these videos lowers language skills. It's a matter of causation vs. correlation (read Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt for some background). As a trite example, a very high correlation can be observed between buildings being on fire and having firefighters at the scene. However, it's highly unlikely that by firing all of your firefighters [pun intended], you will stop the building fires from occurring.

Let's say that there is an actual causal relationship between the effort spent by a parent and the expanding vocabulary of eir child. If that effort takes a lot of time, the child will logically have less time available to watch television. Is watching less television increasing the child's vocabulary? Only inasmuch as it frees up time to work with the parent. Any other unguided activity may be just as detrimental to the learning process.

Or let's assume that some people have a tendency to exaggerate. It is possible that most people who make big claims about their children will want to take credit for said claims--admitting to a large number of TV hours doesn't further that cause. Are the parents' claims accurate? Possibly. Without further study, it's impossible to know for sure.

Only one of the scenarios explaining the correlation is direct causal link. Without additional evidence to support this claim, it is irresponsible to imply that reducing TV time will make your child more learned.

[waller53]

this is kinda scary.i have a 3 year old grandson that has been watching these videos since he was born,he doesnt speak hardly any words he talks in all sign language or something it's weird.we all used to say he had his own way of speaking.she even asked his baby doctor if she should be worried about his speech. i called her yesterday to tell her to stop on the videos and why and she said she had one on right then that her 7 month old was watching like he also does every day. she has all the baby einstein videos plus baby brainy.i'm very interested in finding out more about this.

[ecuadoriana]

It's amazing how many of these so called "Baby Einsteins" end up being the out of control monster throwing tantrums in the cereal isle while Mummsie says "Now Johnny, why don't you try using your words to tell me what you're feeling..."

I'm feeling like I want to strangle them both. Then I feel like I want to go to their house & shove their TV & all their Baby Braniac Wanna-Be" DVDs out the window.

Note to Type A Super Parents: Lose the DVDs & "learning aids" that promise to "improve your infant's cognitive skills". Spend real time, away from the TV, with your kids. Talk WITH them. Read WITH them. Do things WITH them.

You may learn something as well.