A Teacher in the Living Room? Educational Media for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers” is available from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Parents of young children face a booming home market for electronic media products that are cloaked in advertising and packaging labels proclaiming the products’ educational benefits. Yet it turns out that those claims are mostly anecdotal and heavy use of such products is contrary to the advice of pediatricians, concludes a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The 55-page report is based on an examination of DVDs, computer software, and video games for which educational claims are made for children from infancy up to age 6. Researchers purchased and examined the products, measuring them against the educational claims and the guidelines given to parents, and looked at the kind of research behind the claims.