Television. Sure, there's a vast wasteland out there, but one of the brightest hopes has been and remains for its use in learning - particularly in early childhood. From Miss Frances Ding Dong School to Mister Rogers to Blue's Clues, some of the stuff has actually hit the mark. According to When Toddlers Turn on the TV and Actually Learn, research shows that 3 to 5 year olds who watch Blue's Clues do better in some problem solving tests than those who don't.
But wha
t about the really young, toddlers under the age of 3? Recent research at Vanderbilt University gives a mixed report. Toddlers who watched a video recording mostly weren't able to pick up enough hints to find hidden puppet. But those who watched and interacted with a live, real-time video of an actual person giving clues were able to find the puppet about twice as often. Maybe that kind of defeats the whole purpose of video as a learning tool for the kiddies. I mean, if you need a Buffalo Bob interacting with each little buckaroo in front of his little television, production costs tend to escalate quickly as they say.
This all goes to the heart of a concept known as the video deficit, the idea that toddlers who have no trouble understanding stuff from a human teacher stumble when trying to get the same info from a video screen. Researchers don't really know why, and they want to investigate further.
In the meantime, the Vanderbilt research points to better production values for the little tykes:
The Vanderbilt research offers the possibility that the more socially engaging a video is, the more likely the deficit will disappear. But Dr. Troseth and other psychologists stress that in-person connections with parents are by far a child's best teacher. No word yet on whether that includes those moments when harried parents are so distracted that TV characters are more responsive than they are.
I think it'd be interesting to look into how babies and toddlers learn how to represent 3 dimensional images (like people) in the flat two dimensions of a video screen. And what about teaching more non-cognitive problem solving skills to toddlers with video?
Or we could just wait until they turn 3, I guess.
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