Barefoot Baby Boutique

Recent research on early brain development and school readiness, reveals that the hype about              making  children smarter by sitting them in front of  certain TV programs or DVD’s is just that –hype. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician, says that infant-aimed Einstein and Brainy Baby videos are marketed to conscientious parents as a way to promote cognitive development but there’s absolutely no scientific research to support their claims. Even though purveyors of these products both explicitly and implicitly claim that they can make children smarter, more musical or more mathematical, their claims are entirely unsubstantiated. In fact, Christakis says that the best evidence to date suggests the opposite – that TV viewing before the age of two years is actually harmful - harmful in terms of school readiness and in attentional abilities later in life. A German study reinforces these findings, concluding that television viewing has no positive impact upon children's brain development at all and Professor Manfred Spitzer of Ulm states that babies who watch television can’t even process all the changing images and sounds they see and hear.