Are Baby Einstein videos bad for kids?
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- August
- 7
Videos aimed at making your baby smarter might have the opposite effect, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Here are some highlights:
From USA Today: For babies ages 8 to 16 months, every hour each day spent watching videos marketed for brain-building translated into six to eight fewer words understood, compared with kids who didn’t watch. (For the full story, click here.)
From UW’s news office: “The results surprised us, but they make sense. There are only a fixed number of hours that young babies are awake and alert. If the ‘alert time’ is spent in front of DVDs and TV instead of with people speaking in ‘parentese’—that melodic speech we use with little ones—the babies are not getting the same linguistic experience,” said (Andrew) Meltzoff, who is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki endowed chair in psychology at the UW. (For the full UW release, click here.)
Do you buy Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby or similar videos? How does this study sit with you?
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 1:13 pm by Alice Gomstyn.
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Yes they are bad.
at that age. children need to learn to “play” and “socialize” more than anything. but talking to them in normal speech and not baby talk is the best thing you can do as far as educating them. and sesame street from time to time.
I don’t think the videos are bad. Just like anything, we have to monitor our children doing/watching, etc. If they watch videos a lot and not have parent interaction then it is not okay. If you watch the beginning of Baby E. it does suggest for parents to interact with toys and books WITH the video…all to often parents are plopping their child in front of the tube acting as the “babysitter”.