Researchers from Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and Harvard Medical School found that watching television does not make babies smarter, which added to the existing research suggesting that the usefulness of baby educational videos are obsolete.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers monitored 800 children from birth to 3 years of age. The team found no evidence showing that educational videos aided brain development. The study even went on and said that “Baby Genius,” “Brainy Baby,” and “Baby Einstein,” had no benefits.
Evidence gathered from the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute showed that not only did the DVDs and videos fail to aid baby development, but it also could be harmful to the infants.
“I always thought it would make kids smarter because it helps them learn at a young age. I’m very surprised,” said Linda Billotti, sophomore.
Dennis • Mar 19, 2009 at 4:57 pm
If you are going to blog about this topic, please get the facts correct! First of all I am a big Brainy Baby fan and my kids love the products (and learn from the DVDs).
Everybody keeps talking about the AAP and this so called “study”. Actually, the “study” was nothing more than a phone survey! (It’s buried in the fine print of the “study” and available to anyone who will do a little research). This phone survey has been called “Junk Science” by leading scientists and completely debunked. See: http://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20070823.html
The more recent Harvard study didn’t study content or specific baby video titles. Just general media. You can’t say that a video has no value, if you did not study it. I wish everyone would realize the positive impact media has on children!
Please do not draw conclusions without doing the research. The phone survey asked a small sample of parents if their children had seen videos “LIKE Baby Einstein or Brainy Baby”(it could have been any senseless video). From the parents response on the phone, a less than scientific comparison was made and of course, the lingering headline that the media has promoted (and parents hear) is that baby videos are bad and there is a loss of vocabulary for children.
Nothing could be farther from the truth and I implore you as parents… do not succumb to the hidden agenda of a popularized media article under the guise of a scientifically endorsed “study”.
This story regarding the “study” and the erroneous facts surrounding it, have been promoted as a fear based agenda for far too long. There are scores of positive and real scientific research available to suggest that media viewing for children can actually have a very positive influence. In fact, when you count and look at all the research on this subject, there is an overwhelming amount of positive research that other Universities have performed, in contrast to this one “phone survey” that gets all the media attention.
The key is content. My children were raised on quality, educational videos. DVD’s are just one more tool in the parent’s learning bag and should be viewed as a healthy component to assist in developing a “love of learning” for their child. I believe in parental interaction and other forms of imaginative play, however to completely dismiss DVD’s in view of all the positive research is really throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I wouldn’t exactly cut the cord off the TV yet.