A study authored by Sandra Calvert of Georgetown University and Jennifer Kolter of Columbia University appeared in a special issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology in 2003 to determine the true impact of the CTA on children’s educational development. They found that in elementary school, second- to sixth-grade students, girls and younger children enjoyed educational shows more than boys and older children. Their research indicated that children received immediate and long-lasting benefits on both the academic and social level by watching educational television programs that were well designed.
A study conducted by researchers from the Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School observed 800 children from birth to the age of 3 to determine the impact on learning from television. They concluded that educational videos designed with infants in mind did not increase the intellectual abilities of the children in the study. Two IQ tests were given to the children in the studies, and researchers learned that children who watched more television had lower language and visual motor skills than those that watched less. Another study of educational programs on infants conducted by the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute determined that TV may be detrimental to infant development. They discovered that the infants that watched certain programming understood fewer words than those that did not.
A study that appeared in the November 2006 issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, determined that educational programming can have a positive effect on both toddlers and preschoolers. Dr. Dimitri Christakis of the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, Washington said, “high-quality educational programming can have a positive effect on children under age six.” The researchers in the study concluded that high quality programs such as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood aided in the gaining of general knowledge and helped develop total cognitive knowledge in younger children.