This is topic Baby Einstein videos a total scam. in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
 
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-babyeinstein7aug07,1,590261.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

The makers, however, are brilliant in the way that fishing fly makers are brilliant - the videos attract the parents.

When my friend Molly had her first baby, she was showing the kid the Baby Einstein videos and asked my opinion. I told her - the American Pediatric Association reccomends no television at all for children under two, and very limited for older than that. And then I told her my theory about Baby Einstein videos = fishing flies.

She got off the phone quickly and hardly spoke to me for a week. I guess that was the wrong thing to say to a new parent.

However, I wasn't wrong.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
It wants me to log in. I don't think they are educational, but as entertainment I think they are better than some things kids could be watching. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find they lower IQ.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Funny, my pediatrician didn't need this study to say the same thing. Nice to have it confirmed by research, though.

There is some evidence that listening to music, especially classical music, is good for babies. Flickering images on the boob tube, no.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 

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US scientists say watching "educational" DVDs with titles such as Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby does not help a baby's linguistic development. What is more, overuse may slow infants aged eight to 16 months as they develop a vocabulary.

A study published this week in the Journal of Pediatrics showed that, for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them.

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Originally posted by pooka:
the videos of animals are good. Videos of cool toys is fun, but basically commercial in its nature. I think if watching the toy gets the kid to sit through the music, there might be benefit to that.

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Originally posted by pooka:
By the way, I really like Barney videos.

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Originally posted by Scott R:
What about Shark Week? Inkling, Super-K and I watched that for about an hour last week...

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Oooh, do the sharks factor in on the fishing fly angle above. I are confuoosed.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I think it's great if there are kids who never watch any videos. I also think it's great if there are adults who never eat chocolate. And I've had people try to tell me there are actually benefits to eating chocolate.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
When Sophie was about 10 months old, she really wanted to play Jade Empire.
 

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Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
 
It was Burnout for Thomas. He cackled mightily as the cars went flying.

Thankfully, in real cars he still advises Mommy when she's going too fast.
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Our kids have loved Baby Einstein. They grow out of them quickly, but when they're little they love them. I think the problem is letting the TV babysit your kids all day, not necessarily the individual videos. We allow our kids about 1 hour of TV a day and I really don't think that it stunts their development. It's a good break for them and a great break for Mommy and Daddy.
 

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Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
Even though I let my son watch TV, and have let him watch some TV for many months now, I am offended by a product TARGETED at 2 and under because, as you say, it's not a good idea to let them watch.

I won't defend the 1-2 hours a day my son and I spend watching TV (he's 20 months, btw). It's an awful thing to do. It's just addictive and I can't seem to break my own habit. I put in sing alongs and heavily musical movies for background noise. It's so quiet in this house with just the 2 of us.

scholar -- I don't know how old your kids are. I had the TV on my son's whole life. When he was a newborn I'd need something to entertain me while he needed to be constantly held and nursed. He didn't care at all about it until he was at least 10 months old, and then he would usually still play while he was watching. He still alternates between playing and watching anytime the TV on. I suspect that's a normal pattern for a child his age and that the fact that the TV is on is a bad idea. If the TV is on, I let it do the talking and I am not doing the appropriate one on one interaction with my son.

I don't think I'll ever eliminate the TV in my house, although I am hoping to keep it to one sing along video a day (we like Sesame Street).

I guess it's like pooka said...people try to eliminate chocolate from their diet too. And I need to lose about 15 pounds. And exercise.

We do the best we can and hopefully in the end we won't screw our kids up too much. I feel that I've done some things very well with my son and hopefully the TV won't counteract all the rest too much.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I can't believe he's that old. I remember when he was born and I'm still dragging my novel around like an albatross.

I think another thing it's like is speeding on the highway. We all know it's bad, and some people argue that you have to or you'll get run down. Well, I've argued that.
 

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Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 

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Baby Einstein videos a total scam.

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Originally posted by rivka:
There is some evidence that listening to music, especially classical music, is good for babies. Flickering images on the boob tube, no.

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I don't remember where I heard it, but I think this is junk science too. The study that originally tested this did it on college students, and the effect was very short-term.

edit: not that I think you shouldn't let your child grow up with an appreciation of good music
 

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Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
 
I think that the videos can be called scams because they are marketed as educational for babies and aren't. One t.v. commercial has a parent talking about how his baby is learning about the seasons by watching the videos and it shows him throwing silk leaves on a 6-month-old infant.

Aerin currently watches one episode (5-8 minutes) of Peep and the Big Wide World per day. This is because she is in the middle of a major separation anxiety phase and I need to leave the room sometimes. I have no illusions that she's learning anything and I don't think it's harming her development, either. And I need those 5-8 minutes badly.
 

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Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
 
My little one is only 7 months, so maybe things will change as she gets older. I actually have started watching less tv since she was born.
We do "watch" the computer screen when I have her at work and need to do stuff. I put something moving on in the background and she sits on my lap while I type away. She has trouble being in her play pen sometimes and I can't work when she screams non stop.
 

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Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
 
Lego and I recently watched a Baby Einstein movie for the first time. He loved it. Mind you, I watched it with him as if we were reading a book together. I would say the names of the animals just before the video did. He would point to the screen and try to say the names of the animals.

I have no illusions that this movie will make my child smarter. At the same time, he did learn something from it, and he enjoyed it. I see no problem with letting him watch it again occasionally.
 

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Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 

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Originally posted by Nato:

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Originally posted by rivka:
There is some evidence that listening to music, especially classical music, is good for babies. Flickering images on the boob tube, no.

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I don't remember where I heard it, but I think this is junk science too. The study that originally tested this did it on college students, and the effect was very short-term.

edit: not that I think you shouldn't let your child grow up with an appreciation of good music

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Originally posted by Nato:

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Originally posted by rivka:
There is some evidence that listening to music, especially classical music, is good for babies. Flickering images on the boob tube, no.

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I don't remember where I heard it, but I think this is junk science too. The study that originally tested this did it on college students, and the effect was very short-term.

edit: not that I think you shouldn't let your child grow up with an appreciation of good music

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Led by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, both at the University of Washington, the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months old, the age at which language skills are starting to form. "The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew," says Christakis. "These babies scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos."

It's not the first blow to baby videos, and likely won't be the last. Mounting evidence suggests that passive screen sucking not only doesn't help children learn, but could also set back their development. Last spring, Christakis and his colleagues found that by three months, 40% of babies are regular viewers of DVDs, videos or television; by the time they are two years old, almost 90% are spending two to three hours each day in front of a screen. Three studies have shown that watching television, even if it includes educational programming such as Sesame Street, delays language development. "Babies require face-to-face interaction to learn," says Dr. Vic Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. "They don't get that interaction from watching TV or videos. In fact, the watching probably interferes with the crucial wiring being laid down in their brains during early development." Previous studies have shown, for example, that babies learn faster and better from a native speaker of a language when they are interacting with that speaker instead of watching the same speaker talk on a video screen. "Even watching a live person speak to you via television is not the same thing as having that person in front of you," says Christakis.

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Isn't it likely that kids who are watching that much television are also not getting adequate face-to-face interaction such as reading with parents, playing with siblings, or even just being carried around and talked to while mom works? So tv itself might not be the problem; it might be that the watching tv interferes with what they should be doing.

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Originally posted by MrSquicky:

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Isn't it likely that kids who are watching that much television are also not getting adequate face-to-face interaction such as reading with parents, playing with siblings, or even just being carried around and talked to while mom works? So tv itself might not be the problem; it might be that the watching tv interferes with what they should be doing.

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If these are reputable studies, they almost definitely controlled for that.

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the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.

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But from that they can't assert that tv in itself damages language development without first seeing if kids who had no social interaction but no tv during that time learned words at the same rate or faster.

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Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
Okay, MrSquicky, they're welcome to assert it but I won't believe it.

I have kids. I have seen how important time with other people is to their development. I am not sure that kids stuck in a room with toys and no interaction except when they needed to be fed or changed would do any better than kids stuck in front of a tv and no interaction except when they need to be fed or changed.

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Actually, between the two terrible options, I'd have to venture a guess that the TV is still worse. TV doesn't just take time away from interaction. It also takes time away from exploring, touching, testing, and doing. Right now my son is attempting to get a square peg in a round hole. Won't work, right? He'll figure it out sooner or later. If I turn on the TV he may not get the chance. Interaction isn't the only way he learns. In fact, my son is pretty independent and not too big on interaction. He's much bigger on moving and problem solving.

But children, especially young children, do not learn from having images and sound blasted at them, filling their senses.

TV also has the trouble of creating the couch potato who doesn't move and therefore gets fat.

It has also been shown to be bad on vision...especially peripheral vision because you're spending so much time focused on one point.

(I'm not flip flopping...I just see both sides of this issue...everything in moderation, right?)
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Oh, no one in this thread did, but I hear it often enough.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
There's an issue as to whether or not under 2 year olds watching TV delays language development by taking time away from other things only or if there is some harmful aspect of television itself. I honestly don't know. I haven't read the research.

These people (assuming that the presentation here is accurate) are claiming that it is at least partially due to television exposure itself. There are actually ways of showing this and if they are going to make a claim like that, a reputable journal is going to make sure that they have done one of them.

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I'm not really sure what Elizabeth or kq's latest posts have to do with that though.
 

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Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
 
Eh, I find it is easier to have a discussion if I confine my rebuttals to what people have said in the conversation.

Although I seem to have replicated the event in the opening post. I'm guessing this is why Molly didn't talk to me for a week.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Christine, the study specified language development, though.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 

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Eh, I find it is easier to have a discussion if I confine my rebuttals to what people have said in the conversation.

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I am just awfully tired of both sides of the question. I am tired of people watching the shows that will make their children smarter, and I am tired of people telling me tv will make them dumber.

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Originally posted by ketchupqueen:
I don't know, based on this sentence:

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the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.

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The only way I can see that they would control for that is to put the kids in a silent room alone during the time the other kids were watching the videos. Otherwise it is likely they were getting social interaction.

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I think if watching the toy gets the kid to sit through the music, there might be benefit to that.

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You can put a CD (any CD) on while they're playing, painting, drawing, eating etc. This is not something you require a screen for. The child doesn't have to "sit and listen" to hear it.

I also find background music helps children concentrate on the task at hand. It can also make housework way much more fun.

I don't think music is a miracle cure for bringing your child up well, but I do know that playing a great variety of music and thus getting your child used to all kinds of music helps them become open-minded, educated and musically sensitive adults.

It seems obvious to me that parking your child in front of a screen instead of talking to them and interacting with them in a flexible, realistic manner is detrimental to their learning. There's nothing wrong with a bit of tv now and then, especially since it's a fairly staple part of our culture, but if you're hoping it will teach them to talk and to learn better than you can, you're probably out of luck.

I do think that trying to use television as a substitute for real interaction in the human world at the crucial ages of say 0-3 is probably damaging to the crucial learning and brain-pathway creating that goes on in that time. I should imagine that showing your baby tv is just like leaving them in a blank room for the same amount of time right at the crucial time when they need to develop their brains the most.

I certainly don't hate television, I love television shows.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
Let me clarify, kmb: I am dubious about the particular results in this particular study and the accuracy in this particular case.

Diet and exercise in children as it relates to obesity is a lot different from what a kid is doing during the day and how it relates to learning; there are so many different factors I have doubts that they were able to accurately control for all of them and assert that one factor is causative in this particular situation.
 

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Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
Right. I'm just not sure why. They seem to be from a reputable university. I don't know anything other than that about this particular study, but assessing many different factors and variables is an absolutely typical part of doing this kind of research.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I dunno, it just sets off my b.s. (be sure ) meter. Fair enough?
 

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Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
 
And let's not forget the fact that newspaper articles about scientific studies often botch a lot of facts and make unfounded claims.
 

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Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
Sure.

I don't really have a pony in this particulare race, I just thought I could clear up some confusion about research practices using human subjects.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
The questions could be asked about

1) how much face-to-face time with your child or baby
2) how much screen time the child or baby has
3) what language developmental milestones have been reached

Actually, these were all questions on the standard First Year Well-Child checkup forms in the clinic I worked at.

It would be a simple matter to sort the data so you looked at #3 in terms of different groups based on #2, in cases matched across groups to hold #1 constant.

That is to say, #1 could easily be controlled for, and this would be a very basic thing to do for this sort of study. If it would make a differnce to someone, I would go read the cited studies and verify that this simple, reliable control was performed (or one like it). However, I am extremely busy, so unless it is of real import, I'll leave it at the possibility existing for this to have been studied well.

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Edited to add: in the case I laid out, a claim could be made that regardless of amount of face-to-face time, the amount of screen time an infant or child has is/isn't correlated with a decrease in language skills (or whatever outcomes measure was being used). Correlation does not prove causation, but it is another link in the chain, and it does place some onus on those (in the reseaerch, treatment, and/or lay community) who disagree with causation to address what other reasons for the correlation there might be, other than causation.

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Edited again to add: As kmboots noted, this is common social sciences research.
 

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Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
Now see. I should have just waited for you CT. You explain things so beautifully.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Ah, well, thank you. Mind you, even if the studies were done well and established that increased screen time was correlated with a lower rate of development, that doesn't mean that screen time isn't sometimes the best option for a given family in a given circumstance. It may well be the best thing for a particular child in a particular circumstance.
 

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Posted by dawnmaria (Member # 4142) on :
 
I am not sure that I can say my daughter doesn't get a great deal from the TV we let her watch. I do not know many 2.5 year olds that can use stethoscope correctly in a sentence. She can. And every time she comes out with something like that I ask her where did she learn that and invariably she replies "Curious George". She's learned a great deal from Brainy Baby as well. She can count to 25 and knows her ABC's. We also showed her a potty training video and it brought the concept home to her in a way we couldn't. I think TV/DVDs are fine as long as you also interact with your child and talk to them about what they see. Nothing can replace face to face time but I see nothing wrong augmenting that with good stuff like Sesame Street and other educational shows.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
dawnmaria, I agree-- my kids learn a lot from tv shows they occasionally watch.
 

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Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
dawnmarie, it looks like the study only was for babies 8 to 16 months.
 

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Posted by dawnmaria (Member # 4142) on :
 
Yes, but my daughter had been watching during that time frame and I do not think it effected her vocabulary development. If anything I think it helped it.
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
What they didn't mention is that watching TV makes kids better at watching TV...

I know, it sounds stupid, but what are we all doing right now, if not staring into a screen? I say kids today will need the ability to watch monitors and decipher what's going on.

Who talks nowadays anyway? Text is king!
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 

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Originally posted by dawnmaria:
Yes, but my daughter had been watching during that time frame and I do not think it effected her vocabulary development. If anything I think it helped it.

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Ditto.

Bridget learns words watching tv that we've tried and tried to teach her for MONTHS and she doesn't learn.

Emma learned some vocab from tv but more from starfall.com when she was 14-16 months old.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
There's always the possibility that babies who prefer watching TV had bad language genes to begin with. That's the way I think it worked with my anecdotal sample. Except for my one nephew who was very talkative and would get grumpy if the show were off. He was talkative, but I can't vouch for his vocabulary size. My daughter had a large vocabulary, by mysteriously disordered syntax as a baby. I think I studied language too much and screwed up my capacity to produce baby talk. Like when the baby would talk, instead of repeating back to her, I would yell "Honey, the baby produced a voiced velar trill!" Or, you know maybe her genes were messed up. She often demonstrated a reverse epenthetic insertion in her submoraic parsing.

[ August 07, 2007, 10:02 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
 

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Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
 
Pooka: Ha ha!!!!
 

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Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
I don't hold much store in anecdotal evidence, but if we're going to try it that way it's probably best to be fair and show it the other way. My 20-month-old has been watching some TV almost every day through the entire period in question and even now, hos vocabulary is small and his usage is smaller. We've got a list of some 30 words he has said before but when I go over the list, he hasn't used 20 of them in the last 2 months. Mostly, he says the same words he's been saying for a year...hi, mom, and dad. Oh, and hot. He really likes to tell me things are hot. Unfortunately, I must have given him too good a reaction on this word because now even his cold cereal is hot. :=)

He still does a lot of communication through baby signs, which I love because otherwise I wouldn't have any idea what he wanted.

Was it TV or something else? I don't know. He's always been hugely advanced in gross and fine motor skills. he was running well before 1 year old and using a spoon without help well before 1 year, too. Lately, he's busy learning to jump and balance and put things in very small holes. (Like the Mr. Potato Head) I like to think, then, that his uninspiring verbal skills are due to the fact that he's busy doing other things but for all I know, it's the TV.

I still don't think anecdotal evidence is good, though. There's just too much that goes into a baby's development. It is known that babies will often concentrate on one skill at a time as they develop and that they set their own priorities. They set their own schedule in general.

The truth is, TV watching or no TV watching, school aged kids can talk. I hear them all the time and I couldn't tell you who watched too much TV and who didn't. I would be far, far more interested in long-range effects of TV watching than in how many words an 8-16-month-old says. In my experience, they don't say much anyway. :=)
 

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Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
 
Christine, my daughter was talking clearly at two. She sang songs with dead-on pitch and tone.

Our son barely talked. He even went to speech in kindergarten, which was sort of silly.

When he was six, he started talking, but he is still a very quiet person, now almost eleven. He was a classic "late bloomer." And he actually ponders before he answers a question(which drives me nuts. I want an answer and I want it now!)

So, studies aside, there are people who are quiet, and people who are chatterboxes, and I am not sure how any study would be able to factor in personality.
 

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Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
If they're good, and they look at a large enough group, studies can account for a lot more than anecdotal evidence can. It doesn't make for as interesting a conversation, though.

But after giving it some thought, I still insist that the vocabulary of an 8-16-month-old isn't a very useful thing to look at. Everyone assures me that receptive language is much more important at this age anyway and in due time, they'll all talk. Even the stupidest adults can talk, after all.
 

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Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
 
I don't put a lot of stock into anecdotes in this case, especially with people's own children. Obvious biases aside, I sure hope there isn't any control studies being done.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 

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Originally posted by Elizabeth:
So, studies aside, there are people who are quiet, and people who are chatterboxes, and I am not sure how any study would be able to factor in personality.

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Originally posted by Elizabeth:
So, studies aside, there are people who are quiet, and people who are chatterboxes, and I am not sure how any study would be able to factor in personality.

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Baby Einstein videos enrich, stimulate, and provide boundless opportunities for you and your little one to interact with each other!

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Originally posted by Javert Hugo:
I don't put a lot of stock into anecdotes in this case, especially with people's own children. Obvious biases aside, I sure hope there isn't any control studies being done.

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