Monday, June 20, 2011

Baby Einsteins: Not So Smart After All

Claim always seemed too good to be true: park baby in front of the video and, in no time, he or she will be talking and getting smarter by neighborhood children...

In the latest study on the effects of popular videos such as "Baby Einstein" and "Intelligent Child" series, researchers found that these products may be doing more harm than good. Indeed, it has been delayed language development in young children. 
I learned infant led Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, both at the University of Washington, and the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, below 6-8 new vocabulary of children who had not seen the video. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on children 8-16 months of age, an age at which language skills began to form. "The more videos watched, and they knew fewer words," says Christakis. "These children scored about 10% less in the language skills of infants who have not seen these videos."
It's not the first blow to baby videos, and probably will not be the last. Increasing evidence suggests that the negative screen sucking not only does not help children to learn, but can also be set back their development. Last spring, I found Christakis and his colleagues that three months, and 40% of children who are viewers of regular videos and DVDs, television, and by that time, two years, and almost 90% of spending two to three hours each day in front of the screen. Three studies have shown that watching television, even if it includes educational programs such as Sesame Street, delays language development. "Children require a face-to-face interaction to learn," as you say, Dr. Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, the spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. "They do not get that interaction from watching TV or videos. In fact, it may interfere with watching the wire being decisive set forth in their brains during early development."Previous studies have shown, for example, that children learn faster and better than the original language of the language when interacting with that speaker instead of watching the same speaker talk on a video screen. "Watching live up to someone speak to you via television is not the same thing as the person in front of you," says Christakis. These mounting evidence for the Academy to issue its recommendation in 1999 that no child under the age of any TV monitor. May the new study's authors suggest reading instead: children who got daily reading or storytelling time with their parents and showed a slight increase in language skills. Designed in spite of videos and DVDs popular child in the study by Washington to stimulate the infant minds, and not necessarily to promote language development, parents generally assumed that these products promise to make their babies smarter include improvement of speaking skills. But, says Christakis, "the vast majority of the videos do not try to promote the language; with minor changes to the scene fast, fast, and do not see the kind of" parents and south-east "of speaking that parents use when talking to their children." Read "Parenting Advice: What should learn from the maternal parents.") Christakis and his colleagues as far as can be determined, and the only thing being done by video baby produce a generation of children are overstimulated. "There is an assumption that stimulation is good, more is better," he says. "But this is not true, and there is such a thing as excessive." His group has found that more children watch television, and the shorter their attention spans later in life. "Minds come to expect a high level of motivation, and that as usual," says Christakis, "For comparison, the reality is boring." 

No comments:

Post a Comment