'Baby genius' DVDs delay language skills

The article, “Baby Genius DVDs delay language skills,” reports on a surprising new study by researchers at the University of Washington: the DVDs designed to promote language and cognitive development, grooming babies for the Ivy leagues before they can even walk, actually might delay the very language development they’re attempting to accelerate. The study was conducted by means of a survey administered to 1000 families in the Seattle area. It found that for babies between eight and sixteen months old, the more Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby videos they watched, the fewer words they knew as compared to their fellow infants. More specifically, they knew six to eight fewer words than infants who watched no TV or other forms of television, with each hour of video viewing increasing this dichotomy between normal babies and infants force-fed a daily diet of these “educational” videos.

But is this causational? Do the DVDs themselves somehow impede language development with their bombardment of colorful words and images? Articles criticizing the Baby Genius phenomenon argue that the link is not causational; the DVDs themselves do not hurt a child’s natural language progression. Rather, it’s how much time spent in front of these videos that holds back the infant in the long run. Zimmerman, the main researcher in the aforementioned University of Washington study, argues that fifteen minutes a day in front of these videos is not going to make a difference in the baby’s development as compared to its fellow infants. It is the parents who guiltlessly plop their budding Einstein’s in front of a TV for hours and hours at a time whose infants end up with impaired language development. These hours could have been spent in ways much more vital and conducive to language and cognitive development, such as reading stories, playing games, and other vital parent to child interaction that is the true instrument towards and impetus behind learning.

But misguided parents, buying into the magical premise that a baby passively watching a DVD can be miraculously transformed into an academic mastermind, deemphasize the importance of this crucial interaction. Recognizing this misplaced emphasis on “educational” programming over in-person interaction, the American Academy of Pediatrics advises no screen time for children younger than two.

Dr. Vic Strasburger, a spokesperson for this academy, explains that, “Babies need face to face interaction to learn. They don't get that interaction from watching TV or videos. In fact, the watching probably interferes with the crucial wiring being laid down in their brains during early development.” In other words, children do not learn by passive osmosis, but rather active interaction.

A study by the University of Massachusetts found that one-year-olds who watched a video about how to use a puppet had to watch the video six times to grasp the skill, while babies who received a live lesson learned it immediately. This dichotomy between live interaction and passive instruction, and the latter’s inefficacy when it comes to infant development, is researchers’ main objection to these videos, rather than the content of the videos themselves. For not only do these DVDs impede critical language development, they can also reduce a child’s attention span later in life because of early over stimulation, as reality pales in comparison to the constant bombardment of sensory stimuli in these videos.

The picture these studies and articles paint is a scary one. Parents, sincerely wishing the best for their precious children, naively overexpose them to DVDs bearing names signifying future excellence: Baby Einstein, Baby Galileo, Baby Shakespeare. In turn, this overexposure hurts the very language development the parents were trying to enhance, also damaging an infant’s attention span as they grow older. This oxymoron—Baby Genius videos making kids less linguistically intelligent—is a testament to the importance of face to face interaction and parenting during infancy and early childhood. A DVD, even one with a grandiose title and overblown promises, can never replace reading a story to your child or the delighted expression on your face when he says his first word. Even in the digital age, language development is still rooted in a very primitive concept: human interaction.

Wishful Thinking:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502246.html

'Baby genius' DVDs delay language skills:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--radio/baby-genius-dvds-delay-language-skills/2007/10/17/1192300839626.html