The Effects of Baby Einstein and Other Educational Media Toys on Infant Development

Submitted by Jen Waters, MLIS Student
January 30, 2005

It is no secret that we live in a television culture. We are constantly being bombarded by images and sounds which often leave our brains reeling. Children are introduced to this culture at a young age, with 74 percent of infants and toddlers having watched television or videos before the age of two (Rideout, 2003, n.p), many starting as young as six months old (Weber, 2004, p.32). While many early childhood professionals oppose television and video viewing by infants and toddlers, companies market television and video products, along with other educational toys, that will "enhance brain connections" (Weber, 2004, p.30). In this paper, I will briefly discuss infant brain development, then move on to some of the companies that cater directly to parents and babies, such as Baby Einstein, and attempt to see what effect the educational toys and media have on that very development. I will end with some possible alternatives for parents that allow them to keep the television and video viewing of infants and toddlers to a minimum.

25 years ago, it was still widely believed by psychologists that newborn babies had no cortex and were only capable of the simplest, most automatic, responses. Babies were no more than slightly animate vegetables - carrots that could cry (Gopnik, 1999, p. 143). We now know, however, that during a child's first three years, some key developmental windows are opened in children: social attachment, motor skills, speech and vocabulary, and by three years old, also math, logic and music (Acredolo, 2000, p.!4).The cooing and babbling of babies, which begins in the first nine months, should be encouraged by use of parentese (baby talk), as it will lead the way to language. As Patricia Kuhl says in her article "Born to Learn", infants can be introduced to any language at this time and build a large vocabulary and proficient language skills (Kuhl, 2002, p.7). What children of zero to three years need most is meaningful interaction with a parent, in order to build up language skills.

Knowing the science of infant brain development provides parents with a kind of "protective skepticism" (Gopnik, 1999, p.201). Parents should be suspicious of any enterprise that offers a "formula for making babies smarter or teaching them more, from flash cards to Mozart tapes to Better Baby Institutes" (Ibid.). This brings us to Sesame Street, the pioneer of educational media, and quite possibly the inspirational force behind products such as Baby Einstein, hi the 35 years since Sesame Street started, parents and educators have accepted the notion that Sesame Street is educational and beneficial for their children. As the show says in its mission statement on the PBS webpage, "Each episode of Sesame Street is backed by curriculum, which is founded in years of research and continuous work with educational experts. Through this work with teachers, researchers, parents like you, and information gained from preschoolers themselves, Sesame Street continues to evolve, growing with the needs of today's children and their caregivers". Jane M. Healy, author of Endangered Minds, vehemently disagrees with this theory, arguing that Sesame Street has lulled many people into a false sense of security. Sesame Street may teach children, but certainly not to read, as it intends to do (Healy, 1990, p.223). It overemphasizes letters and numerals, and underemphasizes the language and thinking skills necessary to make them meaningful. Moreover, this early pressure to remember letters and their sounds may cause learning problems for some children, especially those whose environments have not primed them for literacy (Ibid.). The dancing numbers and letters, the characters on the show who talk too quickly, the brain grabbing visual effects, the loud noises and the slapstick comedy can cause sensory overload in many

children. Also, it may even be programming the children "to enjoy and perhaps need over-stimulation, manipulation, and neural habits that are antagonistic to academic learning" (Healy, 1990, p. 220).

If Sesame Street was known as the first major promotion of educational media, then Baby Einstein could be described as the Sesame Street of the new millennium. Created in 1997 by Julie Aigner-Clarke, a mother and former teacher, Baby Einstein manufactured age appropriate products on art, music, language and poetry for newborns and toddlers. Aigner-Clarke clearly thought there was a lack of such products, and so she created the first Baby Einstein video title: Baby Einstein Language Nursery. This video, along with the many subsequent titles, sold quickly, and in 2001, the "world leader in infant developmental media products" was purchased by Walt Disney for a reported $25 million. Since the sale, Baby Einstein now has over 70 products and sales have since jumped to $165 million (Pomerantz, 2004, n.p.). In addition, Disney plans to launch the line in 20 more markets in the next year, including China, Chile, Mexico and France. It already sells in the United States, Canada, Israel, Spain, Japan and New Zealand (Brady, 2003, p. 12).

Ever since I began working at Vancouver Kidsbooks three and a half years ago, I have been suspicious of the Baby Einstein products that are sold there. However, I had not watched a Baby Einstein video until recently. My suspicions were confirmed when I sat through all 162 minutes of Baby Einstein Language Nursery. The video is divided into three major components: Theatre, Concert Hall, and Language Lab, which in turn have a number of their own parts. The video emphasizes slow movement, repetition and foreign languages; French, English, Spanish, German, Russian, Hebrew and Japanese are repeated each time the alphabet is recited or numbers one through twenty are counted. This multilingual format no doubt comes from the premise that infants can learn any language, but it seems a bit ridiculous to me that a child would be able to learn seven languages in two and half hours. Granted, it is a good marketing tool, because this means that parents around the world can use the Baby Einstein products in their native language with their children.

Each video ends with a "Video Tutorial", hosted by Aigner-Clarke, in which the viewer has the option of seeing other products available from the Baby Einstein company, including DVDs and VHS videos, CDs and cassettes, flash cards, books, and bath puppets. In the Video Tutorial, Aigner-Clarke stresses that, "We believe in bringing beautiful forms of human expression and great parenting together in products that babies and toddlers love…Our products encourage parents and caregivers to interact with children in delightful, stimulating and developmentally sound ways". Although the company may have intended that the videos be used while interacting with a parent, many parents are not using them for this purpose. "His eyes wouldn't leave the television screen", wrote one mother on the Baby Einstein website message board. "I could go take a shower, drink my coffee in peace, and get ready for work!" (Abel, 2004, n.p). There is little interaction, unless it is child-video interaction, which is extremely passive. A child can talk to a video, but a video cannot talk back to a child.

The Baby Einstein line of educational toys and media has certainly caught the attention of many parents with infants. According to a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 2003, more than 27 percent of infants zero to 18 months have seen at least one of the Baby Einstein videos, and many parents have started their own collection. A disconcerting number of parents have faith in the educational value of electronic and television media. 72 percent think computers "mostly help" with education, while 43 percent think television "mostly helps". Furthermore, parents think these medias can be "very important" to intellectual development, with 58 percent citing educational television and 49 percent citing videos as their top choices. In the report that accompanies the Kaiser

Foundation survey, there is information provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends that children under two should not watch any television, and that all children over two should be limited to one to two hours of educational screen media a day. These recommendations are worrisome, as statistics show that numerous infants have watched television before the age of two, and they are also a bit unrealistic in today's television culture.

While some parents see an educational benefit in the videos, others feel guilt-tripped into using them. Products like those sold by Baby Einstein promise to improve a baby's development if purchased, with an unspoken hint of dire circumstances if they aren't (Hirsch-Pasek, 2003, p.2). Parents want their children to have every advantage, and are easily won over by marketing strategies. This is not just the case for Baby Einstein, but also for a wide number of other toys and media on the market right now. AOL Time Wamer distributes Baby Genius videos, Mommy and Me have joined forces with Universal Studios Home Video and plan to start a television series, and Artisan Entertainment has enlisted Fisher-Price to create a Baby Development collection of toys (Khermouch, 2004, p.35). A 1995 article in the Wall Street Journal noted that anything that "smacked of classroom- learned was viewed as the kiss of death" for a toy, but by 2002, sales of educational toys had reached a new high. For example, LeapFrog (who make toys for learning math and reading) had earnings of three million dollars in its first year (1995), but by 2002, the sales had reached 500 million dollars for that year (Hirsch-Pasek, 2003, p.211). As well, there are numerous other toys and videos with brain-inspired names, such as Brainy Baby, IQ Baby, and many more. There are websites devoted to the sale of these toys, such as GeniusBabies.com, and books devoted to the subject of good and bad toys, such as Dr. Toy's Smart Play: How to Raise a Child with a High Play Quotient, by Stevanne Auerbach. This is a major industry, one into which many parents are currently buying. With the major film studios entering the arena, "One thing is for certain: the battle for young kids' hearts and minds - and their parents' wallets - is sure to heat up" (Ibid.).

But what do the critics have to say about Baby Einstein? Although there are a few that classify the products as harmful, and others that sing their praises, the general consensus is one of indifference. "While there is nothing wrong with these new brain-oriented products, I sense a growing backlash against the pressure they can make modern parents feel", says Parents editor Sally Lee. "Some parents just want to make childhood fun again, to let their kids play without purpose" (Hein, 2003, n.p.). The authors of Einstein Never Used Flashoards emphasize that while these toys and media products are not harmful to children, nor will they have a positive effect, and there is always a better, cheaper solution to be found. For infants and toddlers who are shown videos of shapes, it would be more effective to let the child actually manipulate shape blocks themselves. Likewise, it is a useless experience to ask a toddler to memorize composers' names and faces if she cannot connect it to anything meaningful in her world. Even flashcards with colour names or numbers will not build intelligence unless they are a part of the child's everyday experiences. Parents and caregivers need to move from memorizing to learning in context. Despite what the media might say, Mozart will not make your child smarter, nor will flashcards that are used out of context (Hirsch-Pasek, 2003, p.32).

There are a number of useful books that suggest further alternatives to educational toys and media. Every Child Ready to Read provides literacy tips for parents, including games and activities. Suggestions on how to promote oral language and vocabulary are made, emphasizing such activities as conversational turn-taking with infants, naming and talking about objects in the home environment, and playing the "bag game" with hidden items that are pulled out and shown to the infant. Traditional games such as pat-a-cake and peek-a-boo, along with other nursery rhymes and original songs (which can be sung or chanted to a familiar tune) will also encourage language. The

book Baby Minds is also a great resource for parents, and provides many tips for helping with an infant's developmental skills. Suggestions range from tying an infant's foot (by ribbon) to an overhead mobile in the crib, so she can learn to manipulate objects, to the more complex teaching of baby sign language, a tool used to communicate with a young child who is not yet speaking. Lastly, many psychologists and parents agree that a child's best environment involves both stimulation with materials, such as books, and interaction with parents. Activities like finger plays, nursery rhymes and read-aloud stories, whether they are done at home or at a library with other children and parents, are some of the best techniques for improving infant and toddler development. It is important to follow a baby's lead and see what interests them.

The first three years of a child's life is a time of rapid growth and change in the brain, developmentally and physically. But this does not mean parents need to force a large quantity of learning into this period - it is a window of opportunity, but it will not be lost after three years. Furthermore, children do not need to know how to read, write, speak a foreign language and play a musical instrument by the time they enter school. One may think this is an outrageous idea, but it is not outside the realm of possibility in 2005. Parents need to make time to talk, play, make funny faces and pay attention to their children. They should celebrate their children more and worry less about creating future Einsteins (Hirsch-Pasek, 2003, p.15-16).

Abel, Katy. "Your Baby's Brain on Bach: The Promises and Pitfalls of Classical Musical Videos for Infants". Family Education website. Accessed November 25, 2004 at: http://familyeducation.com

Acredolo, Linda and Susan Goodwyn. Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love. New York: Bantam Books, 2000.

Auerbach, Stevanne. Dr. Toy's Smart Play: How to Raise a Child with a High PQ (Play Quotient). New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998.

Baby Einstein. Language Nursery Digital Board Book, 1997.

Baby Einstein Webpage. Accessed November 28, 2004 at: http://www.babyeinstein.com/

Genius Babies: Baby Gifts and Baby Toys Company. Accessed November 30, 2004 at: http://www.geniusbabies.com/index.html

Gopnik, Alison, Andrew N. Meltzoff and Patricia K. Kuhl. The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains and How Children Learn. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1999.

Healy, Jane M. Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think - and What We Can Do About It. New York: Touchstone, 1990.

Hein, Kenneth. "The Race to Raise a Brainier Baby". USA Today June 25, 2002, p. Old.

Hirsch-Pasek, Kathy, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Diane Eyer. Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn - and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less. New York: Rodale, 2003.

Khermouch, Gerry. "Brainier Babies? Maybe. Big Sales? Definitely." Business Week December 1, 2004, p.34-36.

Kuhl, Patricia K. "Bom to Learn: Language, Reading, and the Brain of the Child". Early Learning Summit for the Northwest Region: Boise, Idaho, June 9-10, 2002.

Lee Persky Learning Center. Every Child Ready to Read: Literacy Tips for Parents. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.

Rideout, Victoria J., Elizabeth A. Vandewater and Ellen A. Wartella. Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers. A Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Report, Fall 2003.

"Sesame Street: About the Show". PBS Kids Webpage. Accessed November 28, 2004 at: http://pbskids.org/sesame/caregi vers/index.html

Weber, Deborah S. and Dorothy G. Singer. "The Media Habits of Infants and Toddlers: Findings from a Parent Survey". Zero to Three. Volume 25, No.l, September 2004.

Zamora, Dulce. "Turning Baby Into Baby Einstein". WedMD Feature Article November 12, 2003. Accessed November 20, 2004 at: http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/76/903Q4.htm