Toning down claims on cognitive benefit from baby videos

Several years ago, when Baby Einstein videos had become the hot gift item at baby showers around the country, the company's Web site was peppered with remarks about how much the videos help young children. For example, I printed a page on February 22, 2006 that started with this headline: "Baby Einstein videos appeal to curious little ones while helping with their development." One parent said that her 20 month old son watches the shows "anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day.... he is talking in sentences and has been for 2 months now. He also is learning his colors thanks to Baby Van Gogh!"

A few months before, however, a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, titled "A Teacher in the Living Room?," raised questions about just how much these videos really teach. There was no scientific research to back up claims of educational value, the KFF said.

In May 2006, an advocacy group called Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby, which had started selling its baby videos in 1995. (Ten years later, the Brainy Baby catalog featured a "brain power pack" including videos called "Left Brain" and "Right Brain.") The marketing messages from these companies, the CCFC said, were "deceptive and false."

For a year and a half, the trade commission remained silent on the question. And in the meantime, the national conversation about baby videos became a bit more feisty -- and sometimes a little hostile. As I've reported on in my blog (an older post is here), in my book and in an opinion piece for the New York Times, this has meant at least two things to parents. They now have a heightened sense of guilt about their screentime choices (which is both good and bad), and they are armed with new skepticism about educational messages on boxes of DVDs (a positive development, I'd venture).

Video makers have been taking note. Last year, Baby Brainy changed its tagline from "... a little genius in the making" to "...learning for a lifetime." And as the commercial-free childhood group reported in its newsletter last week, the new Baby Einstein web site is "no longer making educational claims about its DVDs and videos." (The trade commission, by the way, declined to act on the complaints, stating in a letter dated December 5, 2007 that both companies "have agreed to take steps to ensure that any claims of educational and/or developmental benefit for children are substantiated.")

Whether these changes will slow the popularity of baby videos is an open question. Some parents did seem to eat up those promotional messages about cognitive development, as the early testimonials show. Will they avoid these videos now that words like "educational" are no longer emblazoned on the packaging. Or will they simply decide to try them anyway, still intrigued enough to see what happens? Parents love the thrill of seeing how much young children pick up and learn from the world around them, and in so many homes today (yes, mine included, for better and worse) imagery and sounds on a video are part of that world.

What is still to be untangled is the question of how, and if, these videos change the way babies learn... whether because parents are using them as a jumping-off point for conversations (like books) or because they are letting them become surrogates (like babysitters) or because they alter the daily routine (like the hubub of modern life in general) or because they are a source of more noise (like background TV) or because they bring new music to a house (like audio CDs). There is still so much to learn about how new forms of media are altering the landscape of learning for our little tots.