Color me surprised. Another study has come out saying that educational videos for infants are not helpful, and in fact might be harmful. This latest study is set to be published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in May — and says that educational DVDs aimed at infants are not likely to help boost their word power.
Yes, I too am shocked (shocked!) that sticking your 1-year-old in front of the DVD player for an hour a day will not, in fact, turn her into a prodigy.
But, the APAM study is not the first of its kind — a study done almost three years ago by researchers at the University of Washington found similar results. Add that to an offer for refunds for the Baby Einstein videos this fall which, The New York Times notes, came after Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood complained to the Federal Trade Commission about marketing the videos as educational.
The better question may be not whether infant educational videos are beneficial, but why parents keep buying them.
One possible reason is that they seem to work.
Here’s why: The videos are recommended for babies 12 to 24 months old, and 18 months is generally when a child’s vocabulary naturally picks up and he starts learning and using more words. At 18 months, a child’s grasp of language expands at a markedly faster clip — so much so that researchers from the University of Iowa who looked at language acquisition during that age termed it the period of “vocabulary explosion.” So, it’s likely parents do see their baby’s vocabulary beginning to build, even if it had nothing to do with the videos.
Researchers in the APAM study did note at least one correlation with vocabulary scores: Infants who watched DVDs scored lower on a vocabulary test as children. Next vocabulary word up: irony.
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