I have to admit it, I succumbed to the Baby Einstein marketing gimic and bought some classical music cds for my first babe. I have never watched the Baby Einstein dvds, but I hear they are strange: your child watching another child play. Of course, the marketing of Baby Einstein is genius, appealing to every parent’s desire to have a smart child, however, pre[K] now, an early childhood education advocacy group, has given the makers of Baby Einstein the stooge award for 2007.
In a very close contest, the makers of Baby Einstein and similar “early” learning products take home the Pre-K Stooge award. Pre-K Now will present them with a wealth of reports and other resources to help them learn about the science behind early childhood development and high-quality pre-k.
So how do young children learn? It is not from passively watching videos, but from interacting with their environment and loved ones. Playing with open-ended toys, such as blocks, exploring nature, reading books, etc. benefit children in ways a Baby Einstein product never can. In fact, a research study reported on in Time magazine states,
…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.
Babies learn through interacting with other humans, not through mass marketed products. As Dr. Dimitri Christakis of the University of Washington states, “Every interaction with your child is meaningful. Time is precious in those early years, and the newborn is watching you, and learning from everything you do.”
Speaking of Einstein, there is an excellent parenting book that debunks the whole “edutainment” industry. Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn–and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less confirms what every observant parent knows. For most children, learning unravels naturally. Less toys actually means more learning for children, which is also good for our environment. If we can slow down our consumerism, the planet and our children will benefit.
Image courtesy of Time.
Einstein… right, a child who didn’t speak until he was eight years old, was refused university because he was under-educated and worked as a grade 3 patent clerk for 15 years because his education was so s**t. Was eventually recognized as a genius 40 years after his work, and that was when he was 20 to 27 and never acheived anything after that. Admitted that he had no head for maths and had to have other people help him with it.
Yeah, I want my child to have his education.. fuck no.
You obviously don’t have the intelligence to do even the most cursory research on Einstein. Nothing you said is correct.
Somewhere, I read that Einstein may have had Aspergers.
As a business consultant who uses the statistical techniques employed in this research, I have to say that this study is a complete joke. It almosts borders on academic fraud.
The results were based on a very weak sample and the data was collected in a phone survey, which just does not pass the credibility test right out of the gate.
Disney rightly pointed out that the study only focuses on a narrow age group, and is at best an anomalous statistical result and at worst simply shoddy research.
I have reviewed the regression formula and it fails to control for the amount of interaction a parent has with the child. This is such a horrendous methodological gap as to be unconscionable. It is quite possible that parents who do not spend time interacting with the child park them in front of the TV. This I can believe. But under such circumstances is it the video that limits language development or the lack of parental attention? The fact that this study cannot answer that question, yet claims to in the press release smacks of a desire to publish anything that will get picked up in the mainstream media. They then offer caveat after caveat once the bold claim in the headline is out there.
The result effectively claims that placing the child in front of a plain white wall with no stimulus is better for development than seeing a baby video. The very suggestion is, on its face, absurd. Yet we are asked to trust this on the basis of weak methodology and poor statistical control variables.
The researchers have thus far refused to post their data, which tells you something. My guess is they ran several hundred regressions and left out the right variables to sieze on a statistical anomaly to get a cheap headline. If they released the data, this would be obvious, but they have not. Hmmmmm.
Shame, shame, shame. The bar for “research” is as low as it has ever been and this proves it.
This study is a farce. And poorly done in my opinion to even remotely make a definite conclusion that Baby Einstein harms children. First the test group was so small it was almost irrelevant. And they did it via PHONE SURVEYS! No serious researcher in his or her right mind would be able to determine what is or what is not detrimental to the education or vocabulary of children with information coming only from phone surveys.
There was no control group, there was no contained study. Who knows how much interaction the parents had with their children or what the quality of that interaction was? What other factors besides the Einstein videos were involved?
This seem to me to be more of anti-television anti-consumerism hysteria or from people that are mad because someone found a way to make themselves financially successful by creating a product no one else thought of but people want.
And if Einstein didn’t speak before he was 8 years old, I guess it wasn’t television that caused it.
thanks for this great contact for parents. I am currently working within the early learning community and have read “Einstein never used flashcards”. I particularly like to the approach and also like to hear other parents who are not buying into the Einstein videos. E
Thanks for this great support for parents. I have been working in the early learning community and have been very impressed by the ” Einstein Never…” book. It is a primer in this area.
Also the Einstein video limitations are important for parents to understand as we try to explain to parents the true nature of learning to parents. Parents reliance on the television media for very young children is a problem. Children need to play, interact and speak with real people in order to learn. Play: The Roots of Reading is another title you may be interested in, sorry no author name today. I could submit at another time if you are interested. E
While Baby Einstein sounds good in theory, I agree with this study. Passive learning such as watching TV will never replace active learning such as counting cheerios. Thanks for the article.
My child is a non talker of almost three. The nursery rhymes have really helped my little learn to sing and dance in a way that her interactions with me haven’t. Used with moderation ( I play them half hour in the morning and half hour in the afternoon), they have stimulated my daughter very beatifically. I am thankful to have stumbled across these gems. These DVD’s have there uses. I can see where they might be harmful if over used and/or are used as a babysitter but aren’t most things?