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Early Habits
Children age 2 and younger spend two hours per day watching the tube. The average age at which infants begin watching programming designed for their age group (like Baby Einstein) is five months. Those who create and sell those DVDs often claim that they can encourage, or even jump-start, various aspects of cognitive and language development in children. A new study (read it in full) from the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, conducted by researchers at UC Riverside, on children 12- to 24-months old found that there was no evidence that children learned new words from the DVDs. More frightening, children who began watching those DVDs at an earlier age actually scored lower on a vocabulary test.
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
