Those who write these programs, however, have little or no understanding of child development. One program, to illustrate, purports to teach the infant colors. But infants have color discrimination at four months and already prefer red. In addition the sense of self does not begin to emerge until the child is well along in language development and can use pronouns like me, and I. So the contentions that these programs build selfesteem and self-confidence are entirely bogus. Likewise, although extremely popular, the claims for the efficacy of Baby Einstein videos have yet to be demonstrated. Other DVD’s like Athletic baby that depict sports like soccer, baseball and tennis for infants are simply bizarre.
Products like Lapware and the many DVD’s for infants and young children are not only inappropriate they may be harmful. The National Academy of Pediatrics suggests that infants not watch computer screens and television before the age of two years. The visual system is not fully developed till then, and the speed and complexity of computer and television imagery has the potential to do harm. Harm may come from other directions as well. Recent research has shown that for every hour an infant spends watching TV, he or she loses 5-7 vocabulary words. Even more pernicious is the fact when the infant’s limited waking time is spent watching TV; it takes away from time spent with parents. It is well established that parent-child interaction is most conducive to the infant’s healthy social, emotional and intellectual development.
