Tech Shout!

Parents who are hoping to raise “baby Einsteins” by utilizing infant educational videos such as “Brainy Baby” and even “Baby Enstein”, should avoid doing so, because rather than helping babies, these DVDs tend to slow down infants when it comes to picking up languages.

Researchers at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute have said that the over-use of such productions may actually slow down infants who are between 8 to 16 months of age when it comes to acquiring vocabulary.

The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching such educational DVDs, infants understood a mere average of six to eight fewer word than infants who did not watch them.

The research says that baby DVDs and videos had neither positive or negative effects on the vocabularies on toddlers aged 17 to 24 months of age.

“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 bottom line is the more a child watches baby DVDs and videos the bigger the effect. The amount of viewing does matter,” said Frederick Zimmerman, lead author of the study and a UW associate professor of health services.

The research paper is part of a much larger project that looks at the effects of media in the first two years of life. It also examines the content of what is being watched and its effect on young minds.

Parents until now have been naïve to this issue. The makers of baby educational DVDs and videos have sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth to parents who aim to put their baby’s on the fast track.

Unfortunately, by making toddlers watch such educational videos, parents have unknowingly been creating baby Homer Simpsons and not baby Einsteins!

Dr. Dmitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washing in Seattle and co-author of the paper said, “I would rather babies watch ‘American Idol’ than these videos.”

Christakis said that children whose parents read to them or told them stories instead of showing them videos had much bigger vocabularies.

In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children who are younger than 24 months.

It looks like parents need to find the time to get back to traditional modes of teaching.