But do they work?

The journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine just published a study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of California at Riverside. The study included 95 babies/toddlers between the ages of 12 and 25 months. These children were randomly assigned to a Baby Wordsworth DVD condition or to a no DVD group. Parents of the children in the DVD group were asked to use the Baby Wordworth DVD as they would use any other media at home. The no DVD group simply completed a series of laboratory tasks but were not provided with a dvd to watch at home.  The study lasted for 6 weeks. Before and after the 6 weeks, the children went through a battery of tests and the parents completed a series of scales designed to measure the baby’s language and cognitive skills.

The results:

1.      By the end of the 6 weeks,  there was no difference between those infants who were repeatedly exposed to the dvd and those who were not exposed to the dvd in regards to their general language and cognitive abilities.

The above finding is not really surprising as it would be unrealistic to expect that the dvd would have a major impact on the children’s cognitive or language function in just 6 weeks. So a better question would be: Does the dvd help children learn those 30 words?

2.      By the end of the 6 weeks, those infants who watched the dvd during this time were not more likely than those who didn’t watch the DVD to say the words, recognize the words, or identify the words using pictures of the objects.

The findings suggest that the educational DVD does not facilitate the learning of these words by infants when exposed to the dvd in a naturalistic setting for 6 weeks. So far, I had not been surprised by these results, but I was a bit surprised by the following:

3.      Those infants exposed to the dvd at an earlier age (closer to 12 months) had lower overall language scores at the end of the 6 weeks than those exposed to the dvd at a later age (closer to 24 months) or those not exposed at all.

This seems to suggest that early exposure to the dvd can actually negatively impact language development. Although a couple of previous studies have found similar effects, this study is critical because it helps us answer one key question: does early exposure to the dvd affect language development or do children with language delays simply tend to watch more tv/dvds? For example, it is possible that parents of children who have more language delays buy the educational DVDs in order to help their children. If this is the case, there would be an association between watching dvds and language delays, but it would not be the DVD that contributed to the language delay. But this study suggests that this may not be the case because the participants in this study were randomly assigned to the DVD or the no DVD group. That is, in this study, the use of the DVD is unlikely to be due to parental concerns about the children’s language development.

So what can explain the possible detrimental effects of watching these educational dvds at an early age? The authors mentioned a couple of possibilities. It is possible that having the dvd as a tool kept the parents from engaging verbally with the infants leading to a delay in language development. It is also possible that the dvd lacks one major component of the language learning process: The Authors explain:

Regarding word learning specifically, a large body of language acquisition research suggests infants are more likely to learn words for novel objects if a speaker is looking at an object rather than attending elsewhere or looking directly at the child.18 Thus, learning words from a television screen requires children to be paying attention to the screen and also to be aware of the relevant referent object to which the on-screen labeler is referring. In the case of the DVD used in this study, the onscreen character looked directly at the children and signed the name for the object while a voice-over spoke the label. This scenario is very different from the optimal word learning scenario for children younger than 2 years.

Regardless of the reason, the results of this and previous studies seem to suggest that exposing young infants to television, even when such media was specifically designed as an educational tool for babies, may be associated with a delay in language development.
The reference: Richert, R., Robb, M., Fender, J., & Wartella, E. (2010). Word Learning From Baby Videos Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine DOI: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2010.24

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As you know, the brain has two lobes. The studies show that music engages both hemispheres of the brain — its creativity and emotion engage the right lobe, while rhythm and pitch engage the left. So people who receive musical exposure at a young age develop a bundle of nerves that connects those two halves*

*I should go on, but I must note that the only thing correct in the above quote is that music indeed engages both hemispheres of the brain.

Since then, the effect of Mozart on intelligence was discredited. In fact, a comprehensive meta-analysis (a statistical reviews of previous studies on the topic) concluded that listening to Mozart actually had no effect on intelligence.

Yet, something very positive came out of these studies. Soon after, a series of studies showed that Mozart improves performance in some people because of its calming effects. That is, listening to mozart reduces stress in many people, and for those who are anxious, such reduction in stress would lead to better performance (e.g., whether a test or a sporting event). Other studies also showed that playing Mozart to at risk infants (premature or those with severe medical complications) resulted in better medical outcomes, such as fewer hospitalization days and more rapid weight gain.  Yet, researchers have not been able to identify the actual mechanisms that explain why premature babies react this way to Mozart.

In the last issue of the journal Pediatrics, there was a very small yet fascinating study on the effects of Mozart on premature babies. A team in Tel Avid was interested in examining whether changes in metabolic efficiency could explain the better outcomes observed among premature babies exposed to Mozart. In the study, the authors examined 20 preterm infants with a mean gestational age at birth of 29 weeks (range 26-35) and who were otherwise medically stable. At the time of the study, the infants were at a chronological gestational age of 30 to 37 weeks.  The methodology involved a “randomized cross-over design”. This means all babies where tested in both conditions during 2 consecutive days at the same time of the day. Some babies listened to Mozart during day 1 and underwent the no music condition during day 2, while other babies experienced the no music condition during day 1 and listened to Mozart during day 2.

The results:

The authors found that within 10 minutes of the start of the music the infants experienced an average of a 10-13% reduction in their “Resting Energy Expenditure” (REE). REE is often considered a measure of the amount of calories required to function during a specific time period during resting conditions. How could this contribute to our understanding of the Mozart effect on premature babies? If a baby reduces his/her REE, the baby then requires LESS calories to function. Imagine for a second that you require 2000 calories to function during the day. If you eat a 2,000 calorie diet, you would theoretically maintain your weight. Now imagine that you reduce your REE so now you only require 1,500 calories to function, yet you continue to eat the 2,000 calories (I think we call this aging!). What would happen? A similar process may be at play with these infants. It is possible that exposing the infants to Mozart reduces their REE and this results in a higher ratio of ‘consumed calories’ to ‘calories used’, and thus more rapid weight gain and better medical outcomes.

Although this is a very compelling study, the authors warned that more research is necessary with larger samples. Yet, these findings, combined to previous findings showing improved medical outcomes among at-risk infants exposed to music, makes you wonder whether neonatal intensive care units should consider music exposure as standard practice for at risk infants.

The Reference:

Lubetzky, R., Mimouni, F., Dollberg, S., Reifen, R., Ashbel, G., & Mandel, D. (2009). Effect of Music by Mozart on Energy Expenditure in Growing Preterm Infants PEDIATRICS, 125 (1) DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-0990

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