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The Baby Einstein Myth by Gary Trotta |
 It stands to reason that if we enrich our child's environment, the child will grow up to be smarter, more intelligent, right? Scientists have known since the 1960's that laboratory animals raised in an enriched environment, one complete with mouse exercise wheels, colorful mouse toys, as well as other socially stimulating mice mates (actually I am not sure what constitutes a social stimulating mouse mate), out performed their less fortunate litter mates on standard learning tests, such as navigating mazes. In 1997, the Salk Institute provided evidence that an enriched environment actually grew new neuronal cells in the mouse hippocampus, (that part of our brain that converts short term to long term memory). All this occurring when it was fairly certain that neurons were the one cell in our bodies that did not replicate!
Sadly however, a recent New York Times article revealed "No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund". Yes, toys like the Baby Einstein videos for toddlers, (according to the Times in a 2003 study, a third of all American babies from 6 months to 2 years old had at least one Baby Einstein video) don't create little baby geniuses. So what are aspiring genius creators, alias parents, to do?
Well perhaps you might retort, what about the babies in infamous Romanian orphanages? You may be familiar with this study of many years. "When in 1989, the brutally repressive regime of Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled by the Romanian people, the world finally got a glimpse into that isolated and poverty-stricken country." (source: Focus on Adoption, the magazine of the Adoptive Families Association of British Columbia) Devastating conditions found children within Romanian orphanages harshly neglected, receiving the bare minimum of care in a sorely under-enriched environment. Many of the children were in fact not orphans, but had been placed in the institutions because families were too poor to parent them.
The study conducted by Canadian researcher, Dr. Elinor Ames from Simon Fraser University, attempted to determine the effects on the children subjected to varying lengths of institutionalization in these orphanages. "The studies show, perhaps unsurprisingly, that children who have spent an extended period of time in orphanage display deficits in all areas of development when compared to any other group.
(Read more: Orphans - Summary - Theory, Family, Development, Children, Child, Development, Journal, Orphanage, and Adopted) Kids left primarily on their own, in a crib for years, only visited occasionally for diaper maintenance and feeding. Generally speaking, the longer the length of time a child spend in these under enriched environment, the more they experienced behavior problems, significantly lower IQs, and greater problems acclimating into their social environs.
Children are born with about the number of neurons they will have throughout their entire life, about 100 billion. However, during the first two years of life, something called synaptogenisis, is occurring in spades, an explosion of synaptic connections are being made throughout the brain. Unused neurons and neuronal connections fade and die, while other will connect for life. Here we see what are called critical or sensitive periods in which certain kinds of learning and development occur. We, after all, are not born with the ability to walk, and talk and so on. In the first six years of life we have an excellent opportunity to acquire the ability to speak multiple languages, and these, without an accent. The first six years of life in regard to language, present us with an excellent example of a critical learning period. But the question is, can forced early learning increase an individual's overall intelligence? The definitive answer is of course, yes and no (just kidding). Although studies have shown the number of words per day a child hears in the first three years of life can be related to IQ. The Hart – Risely Study of 1995 stated "welfare children heard, on average, 616 words per hour, while children from professional families, essentially children with college educated parents, heard 2153 words per hour. It is not quite so simple. Indeed, there are many examples of smart folks being brought up within environments we might classify as under enriched.
In conclusion, piping Mozart into a mother's womb will more than likely not guarantee a baby Mozart, and Baby Einstein videos will more than likely not produce toddlers with an affinity for lengthy scientific equations. Indeed, brain development for each occurs in a somewhat similar process overtime, but like chicken soup, a little Baby Einstein "couldn't hurt".
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