Reuters AlertNet - Educational DVDs don't help toddlers' language-study: "NEW YORK, March 4 (Reuters Life!) - Putting children in front of educational DVDs does not help boost their language skills, according to a U.S. study that focused on one product, the Baby Wordsworth from the Walt Disney Company's Baby Einstein series.
While The Baby Einstein Co does not make educational claims, it notes on its web page that the Baby Wordsworth DVD is a 'playful introduction to words and sign language.'
A study by researchers at the University of California, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, put the DVD to the test with one and two-year-olds.
For six weeks, 88 children were randomly assigned to either watching the DVD a few times a week or not at all. Researchers then tested the language skills in each group based on how many words the children knew according to their parents and how well they did in a lab test.
At the end of the period, toddlers who had watched the DVD fared no better than those who hadn't.
Children in both groups understood about 20 of the 30 words highlighted in the DVD, on average, and spoke 10. Their general language development showed no difference, either.
The researchers also asked parents about their childrens' television viewing before entering the study. The earlier a child started watching Baby Einstein DVDs, it turned out, the smaller his or her vocabulary was.
The Baby Einstein Company emphasized in an e-mail to Reuters Health that it 'does not claim educational outcomes.'
On its web page, it notes that its products 'are not designed to make babies smarter,' but rather 'to engage babies and provide parents with tools to help expose their little ones to the world around them.'
The study's finding is in line with earlier research, said Rebekah Richert, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, who led the study, but it is unclear if the DVDs themselves are responsible.
Parents who place their kids in front of the screen could be trying to remedy slow language development, or they could be using the DVDs as baby sitters, cutting back on social stimulation.
'A lot of children, particularly when they're young, seem to have these kinds of (DVDs),' Richert told Reuters Health. 'My take-home message would be to encourage live interaction between parent and child.'
Although it is not well understood how watching television affects language, Richert and colleagues wrote in their report that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children younger than two stay away from the screen.
Some experts have even suggested that baby videos might be harmful by impeding social and cognitive learning.
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Monday 7 June 2010
Teach Baby to Talk
Many people don't realise that the time to start to teach baby to talk is from the moment baby is born.
Speaking to a baby automatically fires up the brain cells within the baby. As the child hears more words and is exposed to more ideas, brain connections are made which leads to better understanding. Although your baby can't speak when he is born, he can hear, has emotions he needs to express and has desperate need to hear voices and learn about the world he has arrived in. Everything you say to your baby from the moment she is born is being stored in baby's brain for later use, until the muscles in the mouth are developed enough for her to actually make the right sounds.
Babies learn to pronounce words by listening to words. They also learn how to put together simple sentences by listening to others. Talking to your baby from day one is actually teaching him or her how to talk. sets up a good base for later communication skills development such as reading and writing. It has been shown that the more a child is spoken to up to the age of three years, the larger the child's vocabulary grows. Children with the largest vocabularies at age three go on to make the most progress at school in later years. A child exposed to early vocabulary will often have a deeper level of understanding of words and ideas than those who did not.
Communication skills are also important at a social level. As your child grows, he or she will need to be able to express thoughts, feelings, goals, and other important issues with you and with others. By helping your child early on to learn words and ideas, he or she will be better able to express those thoughts to others.
The time you spend with your baby helping him or her to learn to talk is time invested in your relationship with each other. Because you are spending time with your child, he or she will feel loved and secure. This can lead to higher levels of confidence and self-esteem later on in life. This effect is longlasting. It lasts a lifetime. Learning to teach baby to talk isn't difficult or complicated
Speaking to a baby automatically fires up the brain cells within the baby. As the child hears more words and is exposed to more ideas, brain connections are made which leads to better understanding. Although your baby can't speak when he is born, he can hear, has emotions he needs to express and has desperate need to hear voices and learn about the world he has arrived in. Everything you say to your baby from the moment she is born is being stored in baby's brain for later use, until the muscles in the mouth are developed enough for her to actually make the right sounds.
Babies learn to pronounce words by listening to words. They also learn how to put together simple sentences by listening to others. Talking to your baby from day one is actually teaching him or her how to talk. sets up a good base for later communication skills development such as reading and writing. It has been shown that the more a child is spoken to up to the age of three years, the larger the child's vocabulary grows. Children with the largest vocabularies at age three go on to make the most progress at school in later years. A child exposed to early vocabulary will often have a deeper level of understanding of words and ideas than those who did not.
Communication skills are also important at a social level. As your child grows, he or she will need to be able to express thoughts, feelings, goals, and other important issues with you and with others. By helping your child early on to learn words and ideas, he or she will be better able to express those thoughts to others.
The time you spend with your baby helping him or her to learn to talk is time invested in your relationship with each other. Because you are spending time with your child, he or she will feel loved and secure. This can lead to higher levels of confidence and self-esteem later on in life. This effect is longlasting. It lasts a lifetime. Learning to teach baby to talk isn't difficult or complicated
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