2009/8/2 《育儿天地》"过早智力开发让孩子损失什么？"一文中引用了一項研究結果，「2007年8月华盛顿大学公布研究结果，“小小爱因斯坦”系列对孩子的智力成长有负面作用；8－16个月的孩子， 每天看1个小时此类DVD，其掌握词汇的能力就会降低17%」， 看到這段時不知是否很多父母像我一樣大吃一驚，雖然我的孩子18個月後才開始看DVD，一天也只看15分鐘左右，看的也不是開發智力的DVD，但我還是很訝異怎麼這類優質的DVD會對語言發展反而有害?

直到我找到Heather Setrakian下面這篇文章，才明白又是一個以偏蓋全的引用，在育兒天地的文章中隻字未提此研究結果對17- 24 歲的嬰兒根本找不到相關，華盛頓大學的研究是針對看電視對嬰兒語言發展的影響，但育兒天地的文章為了配合過早智力開發的主題，特別強調出有教育功能的DVDs，讓只讀該文章的我很容易誤以為教育功能的DVDs反而不利於嬰兒的語言發展。Heather Setrakian在文章中提出了對該研究的幾點疑惑，並且也寫信去問研究者，我很欣賞他這種講科學實證的精神。

不少研究指出看電視沒有辦法學會語言，學語言得有人去跟小寶寶對話，我支持多和寶寶說話與早期閱讀對孩子語言發展的正面促進作用，但看DVD學外語，從我三歲孩子的反應來看，似乎對外語的理解是有幫助的，我想就像小寶寶出生後聽周圍的大人說話，一開始也是不明白的，但看多了聽多了"自然"就學會了。

DVD等多媒體本身只是個工具，用得好的人就能發揮效用來，沒有必要什麼都因為強調要自然，徒手能做的事畢竟有限。

引用

eHarmony Parenting – Baby Einstein – Help or Harm?

Baby Einstein – Help or Harm?

By Heather Setrakian, MA

In case you haven’t heard, researchers at the University of Washington have published a new article Journal of Pediatrics regarding the effects of television viewing and 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.