The New York Times – Pam Belluck
“Baby laptops, baby cellphones, talking farms — these are the whirring, whizbang toys of the moment, many of them marketed as tools to encourage babies’ language skills. But in the midst of the holiday season, a new study raises questions about whether such electronic playthings make it less likely that babies will engage in the verbal giveandtake with their parents that is so crucial to cognitive development…Anna V. Sosa, an associate professor of communications science and disorders at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, who led the study, said the results were the same regardless of the sex or age of the baby, and whether the parent (almost all were mothers) was a “chatty” person or not. “Since the toy was providing some feedback to the baby — if they pushed the button, it did something, it made a noise, it lit up — we think that…the parents also sort of let the toy interact for them,” Dr. Sosa said.”(more)