Videos hardly creating baby Einsteins

Sensational non-news. Overly dramatized for your panties in a bunch pleasure…

By Amber Dance
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - Page updated at 02:06 AM
Los Angeles Times

Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos instead might be creating baby Homer Simpsons, according to researchers.

I just love how they more than insinuate that you might actually be making your child dumb by showing these videos.

In a study published today in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that, among babies ages 8 months to 16 months, every hour spent daily watching programs such as “Brainy Baby” or “Baby Einstein” translated into six to eight fewer words in their vocabularies as compared with other children their age.

Oh NO! Jr. isn’t ever going to make it to college *eye roll* I can see how a child might be delayed in learning if their parents/caregivers use TV as a babysitter and never interact with the kid, but they can pick up those eight words later on. Hell, Einstein himself didn’t speak until he was about five years old.

The video makers have sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth to parents aiming to put their babies on the fast track.

Unfortunately, it’s all money down the tubes, according to Dr. Dmitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington.

I don’t think it’s money down the tubes if you just want to entertain your kid while you do the laundry and dishes without Jr. underfoot. I just wouldn’t rely on it getting your toddler into medical school – that requires more advanced videos.

Christakis and his colleagues surveyed 1,000 parents in Washington and Minnesota. They determined the babies’ vocabularies using a standard set of 90 common baby words, including “mommy,” “nose” and “choo-choo.”

Note to self, must teach baby Sophia the word “choo-choo” so that should we ever participate in a study she’ll appear intelligent.

The researchers found that 32 percent of the babies watched the videos; of those, 17 percent watched more than an hour a day, according to the study.

So what are you saying? 32 percent of Sophia’s classmates will be dumb and 17 percent of those will be truly dee-dee-dee? Let’s blame the video those are always easy targets and then when the kids are teens will blame other TV shows, violent computer games, and their music.

The videos, which are designed to engage a baby’s attention, hop from scene to scene with minimal dialogue and include mesmerizing images, such as an active lava lamp.

Christakis said children whose parents read to them or told them stories instead of showing them videos had bigger vocabularies.

Is reading truly the key ingredient here? Maybe it’s the fact that reading a child means that someone is spending time interacting with her. I understand that if you leave the kid with a video that doesn’t have many words the child is just watching shapes and sounds with no meaning and probably won’t be picking up a lot of vocabulary for that hour or so that the TV is babysitting. What if the parent watched the video with their toddler and pointed out different objects, colors, number of items, or whatever? How would that be so different from reading to them?

“I would rather babies watch ‘American Idol’ than these videos,” Christakis said, explaining that there was at least a chance that the parents would watch with them, giving the babies contact and perhaps interaction that would have developmental benefits.

Oh good GOD NO! Anything but “American Idol” - Why on earth can’t Christakis just suggest that parents spend some time watching the silly videos with their kids and point out stuff – like I said above. I bet Christakis kid didn’t get into the prestigious preschool. He just has it in for the creators Baby Einstein videos.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children younger than 24 months.

What?! Why the hell not? Aside from most babies not having the attention span to watch the History channel go on and on about WWII and Hitler why *shouldn’t* they watch TV?

The Brainy Baby Co. and Walt Disney Co., which markets the “Baby Einstein” videos, did not return calls Monday.

You called on Monday and published this article on Tuesday - was that really enough time?