But now a survey by researchers at the University of Washington, just published in The Journal of Pediatrics, has found that for every hour of baby-video viewing per day, children ages 8 to 16 months knew six to eight fewer words than those who watched no videos.... But the alarming finding from the University of Washington survey applied only to baby videos. Television time, in contrast, seemed to have no effect, good or bad, on babies this young.
I can't think of any plausible reason that watching videos would retard children's verbal development, but watching t.v. would not. If anything, babies watching videos are likely watching videos geared specifically toward their needs and interests, like Baby Einstein, while babies watching t.v. are likely watching whatever animated nonsense happens to be on at the time.
Conflict of interest watch: Unlike most of my peers with kids the same age, Natalie watches videos sometimes. She especially like Teletubbies (English and Hebrew), Barney, Sesame Street 1-2-3 Count With Me (prefers the Hebrew version), and Yuval Ha'mibulbal, an Israeli video. Nevertheless, she's extremely verbal, and in three languages.
How about the fact that a lot of parents have their kids watch the same videos 50+ times. At least with TV they're watching different things every time.
They learn not by being catered to at their level but by participating in what is so much beyond their level their young brains race to advance into maturity.
What is animated nonsense or casual conversation to us might be more thoroughly rich in language, just because of sheer amount of content.
I become a much better basketball player by playing with those who are way better than me, and more slowly advance by playing with those who are as good or not as good. Maybe language is the same way. Total immersion and all that works.
How many words do most children now at 8 or 9 months in the absence of videos? And by the time they are 16 months? (I expect the answer is in the journal article.)
Professor Bernstein, your daughter's 3 languages would be English, Hebrew, and (...)? Spanish per the nanny? A language per a grandparent? Maybe Latin like John Hume or one of those other preternatural geniuses?
We don't know exactly how they do it, but however it's done, it involves lots and lots of observation. Babies' brains get rewired to understand language through extensive exposure to it.
The problem with videos like Baby Einstein is that they don't feature people talking like people. They feature bright colors, and individual words, and all kinds of entrancing objects and whatnot... but no opportunities for learning natural language.
So it does make some sense that babies who spend lots of time watching videos that don't give them an opportunity to learn english in fact don't learn english as well as babies who spent that time observing english being spoken.
Ok, ok, fine, personal anecdote- I used baby videos (Baby Einstein, mostly) when my now-3-year-old was a baby to help him relax and sleep. When he got a little older, I let him watch TV, but skipped anything geared directly at infants/pre-speech toddlers like Teletubbies, Beebo, etc. and had him watching anything else that didn't use baby talk (Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Clifford, Caillou, etc.). Now he reads, writes, and talks like a 6 year old.
First order: videos don't interact with the kids; interactive verbal and facial response may contribute to the language learning experience.
Second order effect: dumb parents are more likely to have dumb kids, and are more likely to do dumb things like routinely use the same few videos over and over as babysitters, rather than interacting with their kids.
Post at Language Log by Mark Liberman.
Your uncritical assumption that Baby Einstein videos are designed for children and therefore likely not to harm their development is particularly silly.
I'm just confused about the 'Hebrew' 'Teletubbies.' Aside from 'Time for Tubby bye-bye,' I there ain't too many acual /words/ in that show. Plus it /hurts/ to watch it.
Anecdotally, it appears to me that less-educated parents have /more/ videos than better-educated parents. (They may spend more time in front of the tube in general.) So variety of words may not be the answer to this riddle.
The paragraph above /doesn't/ indicate snobbery on my part, since I admit that Hoosierwife and I give our kids what would appear to be the worst of both worlds. Our children watch mostly videos, and we don't have all that many.
I didn't read the times article, but I've =heard about this study (on NPR recently.) Doesn't this vocabulary differential disappear in grade school?
A lesson for all of us today.
FWIW, I didn't watch TV regularly until I was about nine, and I really think that helped my early reading skills. I doubt we'll be able to hold off that long with the current generation, but so far the only TV he has seen was part of one Simpsons episode. Unfortunately, he immediately ratted me out by blurting "Watch more Simpson's, Daddy?" repeatedly in the presence of his mother
I certianly wouldn't expect someone to plop their kid in front of videos all day long but for us it is an added resource that helps him. The repetitive nature of using words with different visual queues and even the sign language all seem to help (he busts out some sign when he doesn't think you are understanding what he is trying to say as a reinforcer on us).
The latest favorite is elmo's potty training video. I could do without him shouting "dookie" periodically though. On the other hand he is really gung ho about the whole potty thing.
When adults are choosing shows that they can stand to watch, there is much more variety of shows, with more conversations, and often at a higher level. The variety by itself ensures the kids are exposed to more words, and probably they actually learn faster from listening to adults converse (like kids have learned to talk since speech first started) than from dumbed-down kiddie shows. Even if the adults aren't controlling the dial, watching cartoons on broadcast or cable TV is going to throw much more variety at the kids than re-starting the same CD over and over will.
I think when you combine that with the likelihood that at least some of that content has more complex dialogue than children's videos, you have a plausible theory at least for why this could be true.
And I'm also curious, what's the third language?
Anyway, it wouldn't surprise me tremendously if children pay more attention to, and learn more vocabulary from, actual people in the room with them.
Nope. If so, the green Teletubby would be "Bling-Bling." And the yellow one "Ho". That's how TV works.
On the other hand, I did get read to on a very regular basis, even before I was able to talk.
I picked up a deep-seated love of reading and my vocabulary was far ahead of my peers until sometime in college.
Anecdote? Definitely. Data? Maybe. IMO the average child could do with a LOT less TV and computer time, and a lot more old-fashioned book learning. They'll have their entire life to browse the Internet and watch movies; but only a few formative years in which to develop basic social graces and inteligence.
In fairness, your daughter probably has more free time to watch videos than do your peers.
"I CALL IT A PIDDLE!!!!!!!"
Yeah... buying that was a mistake. Where did that honky-tonk Elmo's dad come from, either?
Best thing for my kid's potty training was telling him that he would go back to the 2-year old room at daycare and he wouldn't get to see his flame-haired (literally- BRIGHT orange) girlfriend, Cadence. That got him motivated.
?? Why is that a "conflict of interest"? It seems that David uses "conflict of interest" as a way to brag (though here it's not really bragging).
His post on how he made money by betting a federal court wouldn't buy the FTC's blocking the WholeFoods/WildOats merger was a perfect example of using a conflict of interest "disclosure" as an excuse to show his intelligent stock buy, without looking like he was bragging. Silly. He should be proud of his moves and not need to hide under "conflict of interest" statements.