A new study confirming what was already known

[conuly]

Young children don't learn new words from TV.

(And yes, that includes TV as "background noise" - what that seems to do is prevent children from fully focusing on the world around them, again, keeping them from learning to their full potential. Just because your kid is playing while the TV is on all day, as some people claim, does not mean it's harmless.)

Comments

[conuly]

Okay. How old is he?

[fieryminge.livejournal.com]

Oh man.. I'm sorry. He is 3. He started watching most of these shows between 18-24 months.

[conuly]

Okay. And when did he start repeating, in context, words that he'd seen on those shows? Because this study only went up to 22 months, and I don't know how it applies to older kids.

[fieryminge.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't have an exact timeframe for you, but he is pretty quick. For instance, with Ni Hao Kai Lan (if you don't know about it, it's a show like Dora that teaches Mandarin Chinese) he picked it up right away. Within 10-15 minutes after the show he was counting in Chinese and repeating the lesson. So in context, if we're in the grocery store and he sees the numbers to the aisles he'll count off in Chinese.

And after watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I hear him running around saying words unique to that show that I certainly didn't teach him. Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse and mousekatools and the like.

Oh and also... he didn't really start speaking until he was around 2 1/2. He knew about 50 words by that time. But now I'd have to sit down and make a list.

[conuly]

It's not a subject I'm an expert on, but I'd say he's outside this study anyway, since he was well older than 22 months when he started speaking, and this study was only done on little children.