The science is in: TV Sabotages Infant Brain Development and Creative Capacity.

The science is in: TV sabotages infant brain development and creative capacity.

According to the California State Department of Education, life-long learning is influenced by and dependent on seven Learning and Development Foundations. These are attachment, perception, motor skills, cognition, language, emotions and social skills. The first of these, attachment, motivates the others. It is so important that an absence of it is called detachment disorder, is the most noticeable symptom of autism.

So, let’s ask: what is attachment, how does it develop, and how does TV sabotage it?

The textbook Infants, Toddlers & Caregivers (ITC) by Gonzalez-Mena and Eyer states attachment as primary because humans learn how to be human from one another, within a framework of trust that moves from dependence to autonomy. We learn to trust based on familiarity and the predictability of cause and effect. For example, we learn to trust the physical laws of our world – like gravity, the laws of inertia and motion and how we impact objects - first by crying to entice someone to pick us up. Then, maybe by (HEADS UP throw ball) incorporating more complex and experimental physics. We learn how WE are attached to with this world, what affects us, what is happening for our “good”.

We process all this information in our brains, where the attachment area develops first. ITC describes brain structure as a scaffolding of specialized nerve cells called neurons that have output and input fibers. The input fibers, or dendrites, branch out like tree branches to accept electrical signals from multiple neurons that fire with sensory stimulation. Dendrites connect pathways called synapses that multiply with each experience. The ones used most often become part of the brain’s hard-wiring circuitry in a process called myelinization. So more input is better, right? If so, why don’t we keep all those synapses?

You have half the synapses of a 3 year old. Why?

In 2010, Oxford University published the four-university intramural Strenzoik, et al, and U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that used a Nobel-prize winning formula called Granger Causality Mapping (GCM) to interpret functional MRI (fMRI) brain activity. Scientists reasoned that these “extra” synapses create multiple links to neurons and indirect pathways because the infant brain is not just experimenting with direct cause & effect. It is keeping alive viable pathways to predict probable cause and its alternate possibilities -the “what-if.” It is learning meaning, context, and that there can be more than just one agent and effect; that there are proximate, necessary and sufficient causes that must functionally attach to the effect to be important. The brain keeps the important synapses and cuts off the others.

How does the human brain choose what is most important or viable? It uses bio-electro-chemical encoding in the form of the hormone oxytocin to assign an emotional value to choices.

Positive interactions create and release oxytosin, which causes physical sensations of happiness – a chemical cocktail of warm fuzzy feelings. In his July 2011 TEDx lecture, neuro-economist Paul Zak described how oxytocin works as the empathy/morality hormone that also emotionally attaches us to one another. It exists only in mammals, and activates in infants only during direct interpersonal interaction. ITC documents higher doses when contact is respectful, reciprocal and responsive – the first REAL 3Rs of our learning to be human curriculum. Sensory input that does not release this hormone is unimportant, so those neurons are physically pruned, cutting off those pathways. No oxytocin, no attachment, no importance, no learning.

Parents, educators, physicians and neuroscientists saw these effects of 2-D zone-out in infants and filed a class action lawsuit. As a result, in 2009, the New York Times reported the Disney company recall of millions of Baby Einstein “educational videos”. Studies had shown that TV exposure at ages 1 through 3 is associated with attention problems at age 7. Disney had been selling over $200 million of videos annually despite the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation for NO SCREEN TIME at all for children under 2 years old. Now we know more science behind the conclusion that TV viewing harms young children:

-By stimulating neurons without the reward of oxytocin, it creates confusion about attachment;

-By linking only the two senses of sight and sound, it interrupts the logic of direct cause and effect, cutting off “what-if” pathways for creativity and problem solving.

Images on a screen confuse an infant who has yet to learn that symbols can represent real objects that could potentially help or could harm him – are good or not. So "for goodness sake" save those videos and TV for later, when s/he can differentiate symbolic play from reality.


Annotated Bibliography

Child Development Division, California Department of Education (2009). Social- Emotional Development. In California Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Foundations. (1st ed.). Sacramento, CA, USA: California Department of Education.
The Child Development Division of the California Department of Education publishes this manual used as in accredited preschool programs in California. Available online as a pdf for parents as well, it delineates seven functional requirements or prerequisite foundations that are necessary to succeed later in school. Developed with developmental psychologists and aligned with curriculum, these are attachment, perception, motor skills, cognition, language, emotions and social skills. The milestones for foundation begin at birth, and progress along a continuum to age 36 months. They are described in terms of physical, mental and emotional development at each 3-month incremental stage: birth to 3 months, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 9 months, etc. The foundation of attachment is most closely associated with the effects of TV on infants and cross-references with the Harvard study (Strenziok, et al).

Gonzalez-Mena, J., & Widmeyer Eyer, D. (2009). Ch. 2 Attachment, Ch. 3 Perception. In Infants, Toddlers and Caregivers. (8th ed.). New York, New York, USA: McGraw-Hill.
Researched and written by professors at Cañada College in Redwood City, CA, this textbook is used as in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) degree and certificate program at Sierra College. The authors studied the differences in programs and outcomes for children in institutional infant/toddler care in the United States and Eastern Europe as compared to a pilot program in Italy run by Magda Gerber. They used their findings to develop standards for Early Childhood Education Caregivers (educare) professionals and guidelines for parents.
Using real-life and play as curriculum, it delineates ten developmentally appropriate ECE principles to facilitate developing seven categories of specific functional foundations for life-long learning. The principles are based on a “3-R” philosophy of interaction among all parties – parents, educare professionals and children - that is respectful, responsive and reciprocal. The seven foundation categories are attachment, perception, motor skills, cognition, language, emotions and social skills. As of 2009 these foundations have been adopted as the California State Department of Education Learning and Development Foundations for Infants and Toddlers (FIT). (See prior citation).

Lewin, T. (2009, October 24). No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund . New York Times (New York City), p. A1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/education/24baby
This article described the reasons for Disney Corporation’s recall of “Baby Einstein” products due to the results of studies commissioned in a class action lawsuit filed by parents, educators, pediatricians and neuroscientists. The studies found that the videos did not assist learning, that they caused dissociative attention problems later, and led to the overarching conclusion that TV viewing is harmful for infants.

Strenziok, M., Krueger , F., Deshpande, G., Lenroot, R., Van der Meer, E., & Grafman, J. (2010, October 7). Fronto-Parietal Regulation of Media Violence Exposure in Adolescents: a multi-method study. US National PubMed.gov Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Oxford University Journals. Retrieved November 15, 2011, from http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/5/537.full.pdf+html
The National Institutes of Health and four universities conducted this intramural study. Published by Oxford University, it demonstrates the methodology used to determine the link between structural and bio-chemical brain functions in response to stimulus that then present as emotional intelligence, control and integration of information. These functions are known as bio-psychosocial mechanisms, and develop as neurons are formed in the brain, creating interdependent and interactive pathways and feedback loops, a veritable scaffolding used for processing and responding to the meaning, the underlying importance and likely consequences of an event. The analogy-based Granger Causality Mapping tool described in this study warrants a link between brain physiology and the capacity for creativity that results from processing information concurrent with empathy.

Zak, P. (2011, November). Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin. TED.com . Retrieved November 8, 2011, from http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin.html#.TrmoqMxW2UM.facebook
After reading Gonzalez-Mena, et al textbook, and the Strenziok, et al study, and discovering the neuro-bio-chemical process that uses oxytocin to vet the relative importance of data processed by the infant brain during the myelinization process, I researched the other effects of oxtocin. Wanting to find a simple explanation, I chose the TEDx lecture series as a source because I have found its speakers and peer-reviewed format to be accurate, educated, brief, clear and concise. This cross-reference strengthens the causality argument and provides further evidence to warrant the function of this hormone as a necessary cause for the claim that TV viewing is harmful.