Talking down to our children - and to ourselves

Those popular “build-a-brainy-baby” videos simply don’t work, according to a new study by a group of pediatric researchers in Washington state. In fact, they may hinder verbal development of children between the ages of 8 and 16 months: For each hour a day watching videos such as Disney’s “Brainy Baby” series, the study concluded, babies know six to eight fewer words than babies who do not watch them. So instead of building vocabulary, these pre-fab productions with carefully cultivated word lists expose young children to fewer words and ideas than interaction with parents and others can provide.

I’d say it’s evidence that children, even (or especially) very young ones, shouldn’t be “talked down” to. Human beings need challenges to make them stretch and grow – intellectually, physically and spiritually. And it’s yet further evidence of the harm that’s done when TV watching replaces real-life experiences for young children. The American Academy of Pediatrics says children should not watch television until they are at least 24 months old. Hmmm. How about 24 years old? “I would rather babies watch ‘American Idol’ than these videos,” said researcher Dimitri Christakis, a University of Washington professor of pediatrics.

Speaking of “Idol,” maybe there’s a message in this for the rest of society, which is being pumped full of increasingly dumbed-down fare on the tube. The newest crop of reality and game shows appears to be even more mind-numbing than the last crop, if that’s possible. Nothing there to challenge us to stretch and grow, by any means. Nothing there to enrich our thinking, much less our vocabulary. We are what we watch – and we’d better watch out.