Bringing up babies is not a joke. Parents have to be very careful for proper physical and mental development of child. In most of the middle -class homes, mothers and caretakers of the babies find it easy to leave them watching TV or video while they settle some of their household chores.
According to a research conducted on 1000 families in Minnesota and Washington with babies by Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington and colleagues reveals that watching TV or video may harmful for babies because it may slow down the learning capacity of words. The findings of the research are based on the random telephonic interviews with the parents with the babies of 8- to 16-month-olds. The questions asked to the parents were based on sound making habits and understanding ability of words like “mommy” , “nose” ,”truck,” “cookie” and “balloon” of their babies.
The infants aged 8 to 16 months understood an average of six to eight fewer words if he/she spend one hour watching DVDs and videos. But for the babies aged more than sixteen months were not harmed or helped by the videos.
Frederick Zimmerman, lead author of the study and a UW associate professor of health services said,
The most important fact to come from this study is there is no clear evidence of a benefit coming from baby DVDs and videos and there is some suggestion of harm.
A psychologist, Andrew Meltzoff said,
There are only a fixed number of hours that young babies are awake and alert, If the ‘alert time’ is spent in front of DVDs and TV, instead of with people speaking in ‘parentese’- that melodic speech we use with little ones - the babies are not getting the same linguistic experience.
While explaining more precisely about the effect of watching TV or video on language development of toddler, Meltzoff said,
Parents and caretakers are the baby’s first and best teachers. They instinctively adjust their speech, eye gaze and social signals to support language acquisition. Watching attention-getting DVDs and TV may not be an even swap for warm social human interaction at this very young age. Old kids may be different, but the youngest babies seem to learn language best from people.
Findings of the study (Nutshell) for parents and would be parents:
- There is no need of educational DVDs to make your child smart. Parents are the best teacher for babies.
- You can develop language skills through reading books or telling stories to your wards.
- DVDs and videos are harmful because generally it has little dialogue, short scenes, disconnected pictures and shows linguistically indescribable images.
So, its time to monitor TV and other media viewing habits of your children.
