Study Finds DVDs Don't Help Babies Learn Language Faster
Baby videos, like the Baby Einstein videos, can certainly hold a babies attention but they may not help them become smarter or learn faster. An article on Forbes describes a recent study that found baby DVDs/videos had "no positive or negative effect" on toddlers vocabulary and found that babies aged 8 to 16 months actually learned a few less words than non-DVD watching infants.
The study, which included more than 1,000 families with infants or toddlers, was published Tuesday in the Journal of Pediatrics.
"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," lead author Frederick Zimmerman, an associate professor of health services at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute, said in a prepared statement. "The bottom line is, the more a child watches baby DVDs and videos, the bigger the effect. The amount of viewing does matter."
"The results surprised us, but they make sense," added study co-author Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of the University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, in a prepared statement.
"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," Meltzoff said.
The article also suggests this helpful link on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's website that describes some great non-DVD activities that can help stimulate language development. The jury is still out on the DVDs. The people behind the study said more research will be needed to determine what long-term effects these DVDs targeted at babies have. The answer may be that there are no short-cuts to obtaining knowledge. Experience is always the better teacher which is why kids need make believe, peek-a-boo, nursery rhymes and other creative activites to help spark their little imaginations.
