The “Baby Einstein” brouhaha blew up further Monday when Walt Disney Co. defended “Baby Einstein” videos and demanded the University of Washington retract an “inflammatory” news release about a study conducted by three school researchers.
Disney said the news release was “just plain wrong.”
The study found that the videos not only don’t benefit infants 8 to 16 months old, but they may actually be harmful. According to the press release, the researchers found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than babies who didn’t watch.
One of the co-authors of the study, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, was even blunter when talking to The Denver Post last week.
“Babies don’t learn from screens,” Christakis said. “We didn’t find benefit. We found harm.”
Gary Foster, spokesman for Disney, said he had “no comment” on whether Disney has contacted its lawyers and plans to sue.
“These reports have put an element of doubt in the minds of moms and parents,” Foster said. “‘Baby Einstein’ has been so well-received, and if properly used, they do have an impact on infants’ health and happiness.”
Joel Schwarz, a science writer for the University of Washington and the author of the press release, said Monday that a full response from the university could come later this week.
“We have the letter, the university is reviewing it, and we want to talk to the three authors. Once we do that, we may comment, but not today,” Schwarz said.
The brainchild of Denver-area schoolteacher Julie Aigner-Clark, the videos – with names such as “Baby Einstein,” “Baby Mozart” and “Baby Bach” – were so successful that Disney bought Aigner-Clark’s Baby Einstein Co. in 2001.
Foster said that under Disney tutelage, “Baby Einstein” has been “very successful,” bringing in $200 million in retail sales a year.
Disney also attacked the study, calling its methodology doubtful, its data abnormal and its inferences “unreliable.”
In the study, the authors acknowledged several reasons that the infants who watch might not acquire the same vocabulary as those who don’t watch.
Among them:
Because many baby DVDs/videos are advertised as promoting cognitive, language and brain development, parents whose babies have poor language development may turn to the baby videos for help.
Parents who have their children watch a heavy dose of baby videos may be less motivated to actively promote their children’s language development.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
