We all want our children to be smart. Why else would parents spend millions of dollars on videos and DVDS designed and marketed specifically for infants and young children every year? But do they work? NBC’s ‘Today’ show recently suggested that claims from the manufacturers of baby media products may be overblown, and now a new study published in
Psychological Science presents empirical evidence that infants who watched an unidentified baby video did not actually learn the words that the video purported to teach.
The researchers, led by Judy S. DeLoache of the University of Virginia, recruited 96 families with children between 12 and 18 months of age to participate in a month-long study. Some children watched a best-selling infant-learning DVD several times a week, half of them watching alone and half with a parent. Another group had no exposure to the DVD, but their parents were asked to try to teach them the words from the DVD in everyday interactions.
Before and after the month of vocabulary work, all of the children were tested on their knowledge of a list of words that appeared in the DVD.
