Baby Einstein DVDs may be harmful for baby's vocabulary

[jl8s]

Check this article out:

http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=35898

[jray]

Interesting! My oldest son (age almost 3 now) had a slower time speaking. Of course, he was obsessed with Baby Einstein movies as a baby and toddler. Interesting coincidence or possibly true!

[westamp]

You know, we played the BE dvds to DS when he was a bit older (maybe when he was 12 mos). Anyway, I do think the dvds helped because he's a pretty good speaker now and he can pick out items from books and identify them.

Of course, we talk to him all the time since he was born (whether he understood or not) so that may have helped.

On the other hand, one of our relatives provided absolutely no stimulation to their DS, who's about a couple of weeks older than ours. That means, they don't talk to him, he doesn't watch tv, he doesn't play w/ toys (whatever, I don't agree w/ this but the father wanted to raise a brainiac. I suppose that's the way he thinks he'll get it done! :(

So I think if parents show the videos and reinforce it by talking to their kids, the kids will be ok.

I guess this is my longwinded explanation that I don't buy the study! :D

[Globetrotter]

I think this is alarmist.

An occasional viewing won't hurt. However, nothing takes the place of lots of direct communication with your baby - as long as you have that and don't regularly use the TV as a babysitter, why should this be a problem?? Personally, I wouldn't worry.

ETA: My kids watched them and they were both very early talkers, but I also talked to them all the time :)

Kris

[mama4jc]

>I think this is alarmist.
>
>An occasional viewing won't hurt. However, nothing takes the
>place of lots of direct communication with your baby - as long
>as you have that and don't regularly use the TV as a
>babysitter, why should this be a problem?? Personally, I
>wouldn't worry.
>
>Kris

I agree with Kris. My son and I (haha!) watched 30 minutes of Baby Einstein almost every other day for a while starting from 3 months because he was fascinated with the animals shown on the different DVDs and really enjoyed the music. He ended up talking better than a lot of the girls his age. I definitely agree that it is the way DVDs are used and how often they are used that might affect language development.

[dogmom]

There's supposed to be educational??? I thought they for me to make dinner! ;)

Of course that was with my DS, my DD gets a good dose of Curious George when my son watches it.

Jeanne
Mom to Harvey
1/16/03
& Eve 6/18/06