Baby Einstein DVDs: The Devil?

All of the hype surrounding these and other such DVDs got the gears in my head cranking. It all started the other day when my husband came home from work reporting that these type of DVDs were "bad" and as such, our 15 month old daughter was no longer allowed to watch them. I was intrigued as to what exactly these findings were, since these videos are a relatively new concept for babies.

As I'm sure you realize, right now there is a lot regarding Baby DVDs on the net. To sum up the substance-less news blurbs: Too much videos bad - positive interaction good.

Uh, duh?

I'm going to make a leap on this one but I'm thinking that most of us know this. The moms I know use these as more of a tool than anything else, either to keep baby engaged as she does something that would be tougher to do holding the little one, or to watch with baby as part of interaction.

But, if you are one of the moms who bought these because you thought they would raise a few IQ points, or if the media hype surrounding these has got you down in general take heart & read on.

The research findings as the media at large would have you believe them are misleadingly reported. See it for yourself. You can find the actual research paper written by Frederick Zimmerman, et al here. This is the research paper containing the findings on which the media buzz right now is based.

Just like you probably are, I am a mom that has too much to do in a given day. I'll be honest with you, I just skimmed the article. Here is some meandering about the bits that stood out to me most, I hope you'll get a chance to check the paper out for yourself to see what you think though :D

Research Methodology, flaw 1: Correlation Does Not Imply Causation!- First off this study is based on self-reported data. Basically, the researchers called families for a phone interview and ascertained the child's score using a standard language assessment test for infants (haw many words baby comprehends) or toddlers (how many words baby can say). While there is nothing wrong with this method per se, in research a study based in self report is generally regarded as one of the less reliable ways to get an accurate collection of data for a given population. Another problem with this type of study is that, without experimental manipulation it becomes very tough to control for all of the variables that would give you evidence that your findings are true or untrue. For example, even though the researchers found their data to suggest more time in front of the tube = lower vocabulary acquisition, did they take into account family history? What about parental interaction? To what degree and in what context? The paper itself states "The analysis presented here is not a direct test of the developmental impact of viewing baby DVDs/videos. We did not test through experimental manipulation whether viewing baby DVDs/videos has a positive or negative impact on vocabulary acquisition." The paper goes on to say that this research may serve as a starting point for future research in this field. With some background in research, this is what I had guessed that this paper would be all about, a preliminary basis for further research. But for someone who may have no experience in research, is the above stated what the media build had led you to believe? Bottom line: There is no way to know if 3-hour-a-day-baby-video-watcher little Johnny would have better, worse or the same level of language acquisition without videos. To truly evaluate the relationship between language acquisition and baby DVDs a different type of research methodology would have to be utilized. There are too many variables that cannot be controlled for. The paper covers this in more depth and cites another potential causal factor for their findings, being that a pre existing delay in language development may be an underlying motive for the purchase of these types of videos.

 

So is this type of programming geared at infants the devil??? Research has yet to actually prove these to be detrimental and to be honest, in short intervals, with verbal interaction re. what is going on in the video (I think kids staring at the TV with mouths agape is just plain scary!) I find these to be a good tool around here for our potty learning. I think that a more relevant study to us as parents would be on parental interaction/verbal exposure as it relates to language acquisition… Maybe this is all beside the point.

 

Let's face it- there will always be some uber-trendy item that people will fall back on in one way or another. The responsibility ultimately falls on us as parents to discern value, if any, in these for our family. Inform yourself! Don't fall into the habit of going with the hype one way or the other.

 

At the least you can look at it this way, if you now feel that those DVDs are totally useless for your family, you don't have to feel guilty for re gifting them!