After reading just the summary, it's just seems common sense that direct interaction versus passive watching would stimulate the cognitive and language skills growth in children, especially when children are in a very important stage of development.
If you take the time to read further, the study focuses on maternal responsiveness, or quality of responses that a mother provides to an infant when they interact.
"Mothers who are responsive to their infant's communication promote a positive
self-perception or the child as well as fostering trust in the parent. Positive responses
help the child learn that they can affect their environment," said Nathanson. "However,
if maternal responsiveness is absent, children learn that their environment is
unpredictable and may become anxious, knowing that their bids for attention or help may
be ignored."
Mothers gave better quality language skills when reading a book with their child than when watching television. This finding supports the brain research about quality early language helps develop quality language in the child.
The other important evidence is to realize that children need to be stimulated, intellectually and emotionally, in order to make gains in their lives. Education starts at home.
TV Found to Have Negative Impact On Parent-Child Communication and Early Literacy Compared to Books and Toys
ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2011) — Since the first television screens lit up our living rooms scientists have been studying its affect on young children. Now scientists in Ohio have compared mother-child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with toys to reveal the impact on children's development. The results, published in Human Communication Research, show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills.
"Maternal responsiveness describes the quality of responses that a mother provides to an infant when they interact," said Nathanson. "When a mother and child are focusing on the same object, be that a book, toy or TV show, the mother's response can have an important impact on their child's understanding and self perception."
By explaining and describing objects or new words and images, or by prompting conversation through questions, maternal responsiveness can help to engage a child with the activity. The parent can also provide positive feedback and encouragement to a child, or repeat what the child has said to help familiarize them with certain words or sights.
"Mothers who are responsive to their infant's communication promote a positive self-perception for the child as well as fostering trust in the parent. Positive responses help the child learn that they can affect their environment," said Nathanson. "However, if maternal responsiveness is absent, children learn that their environment is unpredictable and may become anxious, knowing that their bids for attention or help may be ignored."
The authors explored the interactions of 73 mother-child pairs. The average mother was married, in their early thirties and had a bachelor's degree, while half were not employed. The children ranged in age from 16 months to 6 years.
Pairs were randomly assigned to one of the three activities for ten minutes. A researcher then offered the pair all three activities and left them for a further twenty minutes. Parents were also asked to fill in questionnaires based on their child's language development while interviews were held to discuss preschooler's literacy levels.
The results demonstrated that who mothers co-read books communicated significantly more with their children than mothers watching TV. The amount of communication involved in reading was not significantly higher than playing with toys. However, the quality of maternal responsiveness was higher in books than toys.
The team found that when reading a book with their children parents used a more active communication style, bringing the child into contact with words they may not hear in every day speech, thereby improving their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. In contrast watching TV resulted in significantly fewer descriptions and positive responses than mothers playing with toys.
"Reading books together increased the maternal communication beyond a level required for reading, while watching TV decreased maternal communication. This is significant when we consider the amount of time young children spend watching TV. In some cases children are left alone to watch TV, missing out on any parental communication at a critical stage in their development," concluded Nathanson.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110914122317.htm
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