With the growing popularity of DVD series focused on improving the development of babies, like Baby Einstein, the question about the effectiveness of these DVDs to actually help a child’s brain development has not been well studied. The theory behind the DVDs is that by plopping your kid down in front of the TV, they’ll learn cognitive skills — focused mostly on language — faster than other kids.
So researchers at the University of California at Riverside designed a randomized controlled study to find out. In the most rigorous study done in this area to-date, the researchers set out to determine the value of a DVD called “Baby Wordsworth” (a part of Disney’s Baby Einstein series), which is designed to teach toddlers new vocabulary words. The researchers assigned a group of 96 babies aged 12 to 24 months old to watch the DVD for six weeks, and compared their results with a control group of babies who did not watch the DVD.