Television watching increases AHDH risk for toddlers, study shows

• A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that watching videos as a toddler may lead to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, also called ADD in UK) in later life.
• TV watching "rewires" an infant's brain, says Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis lead researcher and director of the Child Health Institute at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, Wash.
• The damage shows up at age 7 when children have difficulty paying attention in school.
• Exposing a baby's developing brain to videos may overstimulate it, causing permanent changes in developing neural pathways.
• "Also in question is whether the insistent noise of television in the home may interfere with the development of 'inner speech' by which a child learns to think through problems and plans and restrain impulsive responding," wrote Jane Healy, psychologist and child brain expert in the magazine's commentary.
• As a kiddie viddie baby sits "mesmerized", neural paths are not being created.
• Are parents who use infant videos such as "Baby Einstein" and "Teletubbies" putting their child at risk for a lifetime of Special Ed classes, school "behavioral therapy" and Ritalin?
• In the study of more than 2,000 children, Christakis found that for every hour watched at age one and age three, the children had almost a ten percent higher chance of developing attention problems that could be diagnosed as ADHD by age 7.
• Parents take away crucial life experiences from their child every time they pop in Baby Einstein.
• My son is captivated (and hopefully learning something).
• Humans raised children for 50,000 years before television sets and you can do it too.
• "When one-year olds are playing with a toy, they can explore it, poke at it, drop it," says Yale University Television Researcher Dorothy Singer.
• Studies show ADHD increased with the introduction of children's television in the 1950s and then spiked higher in the mid 1980s when VCRs and home video became commonplace.