Assessing the Research on Media, Cognitive Development, and Infants

With the rise of television targeting very young children, it is important to ask if babies younger than two can learn from it. In this essay I review the literature on babies' attention to, imitation of, and language learning from television and I discuss the research that has found a video deficit in young children. The literature suggests that infants between the ages of approximately twelve and twenty-four months have a difficult time imitating and learning from television. This deficit may occur because television is perceived by babies as socially irrelevant; it may also occur because television is not as rich in detail as live images. Lastly, it may occur because of the complexity of dual representation. The extant literature also suggests that basic conceptual knowledge is needed in infants before more advanced learning, such as language acquisition, can be achieved. The essay explores whether television is capable of teaching these very basic cognitive skills.