Baby DVDs Not as Effective as Expected!
Parents and marketers like to believe that educational baby DVDs help babies learn new words. However, according to a study in Psychological Science baby DVDs are not that effective. During a one-month investigation, the researchers observed how many new words babies learned after repeated exposure to the DVD. Tests reveal that babies learn very little from these ‘baby media’.
Take aways
- Babies hardly learn new words from specifically developed baby DVDs.
- However, babies do learn new words when parents help babies practice words from a list.
- Thus, marketers are advised to produce baby media that allow parents to use a word list.
Study information
The question?
To what extent do baby videos increase word learning among babies?
Who?
72 (mostly white) babies, between 12 and 18 months of age (M = 14.7 months). Equal number of boys and girls. Babies were selected from both large and small cities from the Eastern United States.
Where?
Virginia, United States
How?
The researchers divided the babies into four groups. Parents of the first and second group were asked to repeatedly expose their children to the DVD. Parents of the first group talked to their babies during the video, while parents of the second group didn't. The third group did not use the DVD, but parents of these children taught words from a list provided by the researchers. The fourth group was used as a baseline: those parents did not use the DVD nor the word list.
Facts and findings
- Babies who watched the DVD did not learn more new words than babies who didn’t watch the DVD
- The amount of new words learned during the test was highest for babies who were taught words using the word list instead of the DVD
- Fun fact: Parents who liked the DVD thought their children learned lots of words by watching the DVD
