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This is not at all surprising, but still worth mentioning since the Baby Einstein video series is so darn popular. A new study by the University of Washington found that babies ages 8 to 16 months who watched Baby Einstein and other videos marketed to infants actually had delayed vocabulary skills. They scored about 10% lower on vocabulary skills than infants who did not watch "educational" videos.
And it's not just Baby Einstein that is causing the developmental delay. Generally, babies who watch television tend to have fewer words than babies who don't. That includes Sesame Street!
Researchers say that kids learn best by face-to-face interaction, and that these DVDs and quickly-edited television shows are simply overstimulating children.
So, what can we do to help our little ones learn? Researchers for UW suggest reading. They found that babies whose parents or caregivers read to them every day had an increase in language skills.
I know that the recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics is that kids do not watch television before the age of 2... parents, is this reasonable?
I wrestled with this for a while, trying to decide if it was okay to have the TV on at all with my baby in the room. When she was very young, just a few months old, I found that she was often drawn to all the lights and colors and would get that glazed over look in her eyes, and it kind of freaked me out. So we eliminated most TV in her presence for a while.
Now, I've backed off, and we'll have it on in the room with her sometimes. She mostly ignores it, but if she starts getting that look again, we usually turn it off. I think TV can be fun and educational, but she's just 12 months old. I feel there will be plenty of time for active TV watching later, when she can actually absorb some of the positive lessons the shows are teaching too.
But that's just my opinion - I certainly don't know the right answer for everyone. But this seems to work for us - no hard and fast rule about TV, we just watch her behavior and modify the environment accordingly.
I think the bigger picture here is, don't let the tv become a babysitter. READ BOOKS to your babies...interact with your child.. YOU are the best teachers they will ever have...
Ginger, I was thinking about you as I wrote this because we bought Camille the Crab Dance DVD for her 1st birthday!
Ashley, I totally agree. There is great programming out there for kids (Sesame Street is a great example), but it seems as though children under 2 are less likely to get any sort of educational advantage out of it. The study only focused on kids ages 8 - 16 months.
Although we've received several videos in our daughter's first year, I have been hesitant to introduce TV for her. I figure there's plenty of time for her to be exposed.
I am a child of Sesame Street and learned my basic Spanish from Maria and Luis, so that will be something she'll watch when she gets older.
We haven't been as good about reading to her, but we make up for it in music and songs. We joke around that she'll think that her life is one big musical as we have songs for bathtime and jammies and eating.
I think the most important thing is just interacting with your kids and not expecting something else to take the place of face to face time.
We will have to make exceptions for Jon Stewart and Joel McHale.. The kid has a lot of catching up to do. :)
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Interactive shows, such as Blue’s Clues and Sesame Street, have had thousands of research studies over the years on their educational effectiveness. But when one study finds otherwise, it gets published in Time magazine!
Despite that, it scares me when kids under two years old watch a LOT of TV. When a one-year-old knows characters by name but can’t yet move away from the TV on his or her own … that’s not good. While preschoolers are able to decide for themselves if they want to watch a particular program, babies, on the other hand, can’t.
With the growing number of programs — and even networks — out there catering specifically to preschoolers and babies, a lot of content can slip through the cracks.
Thanks for pointing this out to your readers! It’s a good reminder for parent to analyze what (and at what age) their children are watching.