A decade ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested that parents limit TV consumption by children under two years of age. The recommendations were based as much on common sense as science, because studies of media consumption and infant development were themselves in their infancy.
The research has finally grown up. And though it’s still ongoing, it’s mature enough for the AAP to release a new, science-heavy policy statement on babies watching television, videos or any other passive media form.New AAP recommendations say young children should learn from play, not screens.
The temptation to rely on media screens to entertain babies and toddlers is more appealing than ever, with screens surrounding families at home, in the car, and even at the grocery store. And there is no shortage of media products and programming targeted to little ones. But a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says there are better ways to help children learn at this critical age.
In a recent survey, 90 percent of parents said their children under age 2 watch some form of electronic media.On average, children this age watch televised programs one to two hours per day. By age 3, almost one third of children have a television in their bedroom. Parents who believe that educational television is “very important for healthy development” are twice as likely to keep the television on all or most of the time.
The policy statement, “Media Use by Children Younger Than Two Years,” will be released Tuesday, Oct. 18, atthe AAP National Conference & Exhibition in Boston and will be published in the November 2011 issue ofPediatrics (published online Oct. 18). Read More
Canadian scientists who specialize in learning, memory and language in children have found exciting evidence that pre-schoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after only 20 days of classroom instruction using interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.
The study – conducted at York University by Dr. Sylvain Moreno, who is now with Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute (RRI) – is posted online today in Psychological Science (a journal of the Association for Psychological Science), ahead of print publication in the October issue of the journal.
The cognitive benefit was striking and consistent in 90% of the children who took the four-week learning program and was additionally confirmed by brain imaging data that indicated brain changes had taken place related to the training.
“Our data have confirmed a rapid transfer of cognitive benefits in young children after only 20 days of training on an interactive, music-based cognitive training program. The strength of this effect in almost all of the children was remarkable,” said Dr. Moreno, a world expert on neuroeducation. He is now the Lead Scientist at Baycrest’s Centre for Brain Fitness.
The findings have exciting implications for conceptualizing and improving neuroeducation programs for children of all ages, and potentially for older adults.
Here is a video of the music-based, cognitive training cartoon that was used in the Canadian study with pre-schoolers:
Six-month-old babies are severely limited in what they can remember about the objects they see in the world; if you hide several objects from an infant, they will only remember one of those objects with any detail. But a new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that when babies “forget” about an object, not all is lost.
Researchers used to think that babies less than two years old did not understand that an object continues to exist when it is not currently in the baby’s view. But in the mid-1980s, new ways of doing experiments with babies found that they do, in fact, know that objects don’t disappear when you’re not looking at them—a concept known as object permanence. But it was still unknown what babies needed to remember about objects in order to remember their existence.
Now Melissa Kibbe, of Johns Hopkins University, and Alan Leslie, of Rutgers University, are working to figure out exactly what it is that babies remember about objects. For the new study, they showed six-month-old babies two objects, a disk and a triangle. Then they hid the objects behind small screens, first one shape, then the other. Earlier research has shown that young babies can remember what was hidden most recently, but have more trouble remembering the first object that was hidden. Once the shapes were hidden, they lifted the screen in front of the first object. Sometimes they showed infants the shape that was hidden there originally, but sometimes it was the other shape, and sometimes the object had vanished completely. [continue reading…]
Over at BigThinkDominic Basulto gives us food for thought in his article about the current generation of toddlers who are embracing digital technology at an astounding pace.
According to a recent survey from BlogHer/Parenting, nearly 25% of toddlers will have used a smartphone by age 2. Not only that, nearly one-third of toddlers will have used a laptop or digital camera by the time they enter pre-school. Thanks to their Generation Y moms, these toddlers will be the first generation that grew up completely digital. Now that the early development of our children will be increasingly measured by digital milestones (my baby’s first text message!), what does that mean for the future of K-12 education?
When toddlers are using iPads instead of children’s books to learn how to read, when pre-schoolers are using smart phones as the default way to stay in touch with their busy parents, the U.S. educational system needs to grow and evolve so that it reflects our children’s new developmental patterns.
