In case you haven’t heard, researchers at the University ofWashington have published a new article in the Journal of Pediatrics regarding the effects of television viewing on language development in children under 2 years old. Frank Zimmerman and colleagues interviewed 1,000 parents in the Minnesota and Washington region and found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs (such as “Baby Einstein” and “Brainy Baby”), infants ages 8 to 16 months knew six to eight fewer words than other children who didn’t watch. Parents were given a standard inventory for measuring infant language development- they were given a list of about 90 words and asked to identify which their infant understood. They did not find these effects when children of the same age watched educational (such as “Sesame Street”), non-educational media (like “Spongebob Square Pants”) and adult television (think “Oprah” or sports). Parents were also asked about their reading habits with their children, and found- not surprisingly- that daily reading and storytelling were associated with slight increases in language skills.

The researchers did not find these effects in infants 17- 24 months of age.

Before you go and throw out the entire set of baby DVDs, let’s think about this for a minute. I’m a big fan of science leading the way for parents (and relationships), but sometimes a word of caution is in order. What this study does not show is whether these effects are lasting. The babies 8- 16 months of age were watching at most 1.5 hours of TV a day. A previous study by the same authors found that 90% of babies are spending two or three hours each day in front of a television screen by the time they are two years old (yikes!). And yet these language deficits weren’t found in babies 17-24 months of age no matter what they watched. Maybe younger infants are catching up linguistically by year two, or parents are interacting with the babies enough by year two that previous deficits disappear?

Since the videos were designed to “stimulate brains” is it possible this stimulation assists language development long term? I know some wonderful, bright, loquacious two and three year olds that watched Baby Einstein and Dora the Explorer regularly. I know their parents watched the videos with their children; I’m wondering if interacting with babies while they are watching these videos may counteract deficits in language acquisition.Plus it’s unknown whether they took any other measure from the parents besides TV watching and the language development measure. Were parents more tired, stressed, or frustrated with parenting when their children were 16 months (or younger)? It’s possible that as children age parenting skills improve! Maybe these improved skills result in better language outcomes for two year olds. These are all important things to consider. Of course babies learn language best from people and from reading. And I seriously doubt that using the TV as a babysitter is a good idea. But it’s possible that the effects of these videos are transient, and it seems their data may point to that fact. I’ve emailed the researchers to find out more. If you’ve been showing your kids Baby Einstein videos- don’t panic! More long-term study is needed before anyone could conclusively say that these videos are causing permanent harm. In the meantime, just make sure you’re reading and interacting with your baby more than she is with the TV. If you do need to pop in a video, try to interact with your baby while it’s on.