Do educational videos have educational value?

A lot of people set their children in front of the television to watch educational videos and programming ? from “Sesame Street” to “Baby Einstein” ? with the hope that these shows will help their children to learn. But a new study out last week in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine says these videos don’t actually make kids smarter, and may in fact impede their learning.

Dr. Rebekah Richert is the lead researcher behind that study. She tells us how she came to her conclusions and whether there are any benefits to putting children in front of the TV. And primary care pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass gives us guidelines for how much TV is too much, and what age kids should be before they start watching at all.

This YouTube clip, which puts Beethoven’s music over sock puppets and more, is an example of a video that supposedly helps toddlers learn early on: