Report questions educational toys

Oakland Tribune, Dec 15, 2005 by Francine Brevetti, BUSINESS WRITER

EDUCATIONAL toys are hot.

In the past two years, the number of videos and DVDs geared to young children has tripled at online retailer Amazon.com.

Yet preliminary research indicates that videos, DVDs and computer video games for the very young may be less effective in educating them than one-on-one interaction from a parent, according to a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation report released Wednesday.

Many educators have high hopes that these media, which children love so much -- and are made by companies such as Emeryville's LeapFrog Enterprises, Fisher-Price and VTech -- can play a positive role in education since they are interactive, repetitive and have no advertisements.

On the other hand, the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages their use entirely for children under 2 and recommends no more than one to two hours a day of high-quality educational screen viewing for children over 2.

In reality, children from 6 months to 3 years spend an average of one hour a day watching TV and 47 minutes daily viewing other streamed media and video games, said Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation and director of the Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health.

Meanwhile, children 4 to 6 or so spend 70 minutes watching TV and a similar amount of time using the other media.

In a panel discussion about the foundation's report Wednesday, pediatrician Dimirtri Christakis said thefrom Business 1

span before age 2 represents a critical period of brain growth and parents must carefully consider what kind of stimulation a toddler is exposed to at that age.

But it can be daunting for parents. Where two years ago Amazon.com offered 130 videos and DVDs for children up to 2 years old, the number has risen to 400 today, the report said. The number of media products aimed at kids 3 to 6 has tripled from 750 to 2,200 in that time.

"There are no government standards, no official definition of 'educational' to indicate which media products are or are not educational, let alone 'high quality,'" the report said.

Parents instead are relying on their own resources, personal recommendations, Web sites and mostly on claims made in packaging and advertising.

Among the DVD producers the report writers examined were Baby Einstein, Baby Nick Jr., Brainy Baby, Sesame Street, LeapFrog and Disney. Video game producers included LeapFrog's Leapster, VTech's V.Smile, and Fisher-Price's InteracTV and Read with Me DVD Systems

Computer software producers were dominated by The Learning Co., Atari, Brighter Child, Disney, Scholastic and Knowledge Adventure.

LeapFrog Editor-in-Chief Suzanne Barchers said the company takes many steps to ensure it produces quality toys, from following state and national standards to conferring with educational consultants, staff members and its educational advisory board to talking with moms and having kids test products.

"LeapFrog started with Mike Wood, whose son was having difficulty learning to read and he consulted with Dr. Robert Calfee, who was the associate dean at Stanford at the time," Barchers said during the panel discussion.

The report's conclusions offered little wisdom for parents. Instead, it urged that scholars "vastly increase research on the impact of educational products on very young children."

An independent, nonprofit review service should be created to make professional assessments of educational media products available to parents free of charge, the writers of the report said. The also called for establishing standards for these products.

Nonetheless, the report supported the development of educational interactive electronic content for young children if it is noncommercial.

Francine Brevetti can be reached at (510) 208-6416 or fbrevetti@angnewspapers.com.