Does Baby Einstein Work? The Language Development Debate

Baby Einstein is a product that was developed with the intent of exposing babies to language at a young age through educational videos. The videos include classical music from musical greats like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, along with entertaining puppet shows, kids playing, captivating toys in action, language, and numbers lessons.

The University of Washington challenged some of the claims that Baby Einstein's packaging made, namely that the videos would enhance learning. The study concluded that exposure to these videos on a regular basis was actually harmful to language development, instead of being of any benefit. Reportedly, the study showed that babies were at a disadvantage when shown these videos, and performed worse at reading comprehension and other areas. This article from Time Magazine, dated August 2007, talks about the study. In a nutshell, the study claims for every hour a child, who is 8- to 16-months-old watched educational videos, they could recognize six to eight fewer words compared to kids who didn't watch the videos.

This study affected the sales and legacy of Baby Einstein in a very negative way, attributed to lower sales and an overall tarnished reputation for the popular company. Started by founders Julie Aigner Clark and Bill Clark in 1997, the videos rose to prominence in the late 90's and early 2000's, with millions of units sold. The company was sold to Walt Disney to further reach more children with the help of Disney. The Clarks had been embroiled in a court case with the University of Washington until July 2011, when the University settled to pay $175,000 in legal fees to the Clarks, and also hand over original data from the videos.

The Clarks claim there may be errors in the testing or in the data itself. The University stands by its study.

The videos are meant to be educational. Here are the hard facts about Baby Einstein:

• The videos focus on numbers and language through songs, puppets, poetry, art, and music.
• The videos range from 22 minutes to 45 minutes.
• The company has sold millions of units across the world.
Disney offers a refund on videos purchased before a certain date because of the FTC ruling that some of the educational claims were unsubstantiated.

While some of the previous claims of the videos have been removed from the company website, the idea behind the videos still remains the same: to help educate your baby from a young age through their videos.

Are there really instructions that should be given to watch a video? The videos were meant to be watched with your child,, not as a babysitter. To get the most out of the videos, consider:

• Viewing the videos with them. Teach them about what it is they are watching, repeat words, and interact with them.
• Further explore the concepts introduced in the videos after video time is over. If you just watched Baby Einstein Numbers Nursery, read a book that counts from 1-10 and encourage them to participate.
• Only watch one video at a time. Long sit-down sessions can be hard on the baby, and will discourage real-life learning and interaction.

Children have been watching TV for decades, and not just Baby Einstein. Children have been exposed to television to TV shows at an early age, whether it's the timeless appeal of Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster on Sesame Street, or the programs on Disney Junior and Nickelodeon. While most will agree that too much TV can be a bad thing, can a small amount of TV really stunt language development? If so, why have other shows aimed at young children not received the same criticism as Baby Einstein?

This article in the Washington Post (TV isn't the big bad wolf) points out that the initial study by the University of Washington is flawed, and that you can relax a little bit about worrying what a small amount of TV is going to do to your child.