MR1-47446

Julie is the recipient of Ernst & Young's "Entrepreneur of the Year Award," as well as Working Mother's "Entrepreneur of the Year Award" in three categories - Most Philanthropic Company, Most Innovative Business and Best Small Company. In 2003, she received The Distinguished Alumni Award from The College of Arts and Letters of Michigan State University, from where she had graduated with a degree in education and English literature. In the citation, Julie was credited with starting a billion-dollar media industry centered on stimulating the minds of infants and toddlers. In 2004, at the age of 37, Julie received a new title: breast cancer survivor. Julie is a stay-at-home mom and currently lives in Colorado with her husband and two daughters. []
 * MEDIA RESPONSE 47446 BABY EINSTEIN **
 * Step 1: What’s their Authority? **
 * Julie Clark-**

Dr. Karen Hill Scott is a nationally recognized child development expert for early education systems, as well as a preeminent consultant for children's media and television content. A former UCLA professor of urban planning, she brings a multi-faceted approach to improving the lives of young children and develops practical solutions to the most resistant problems in the systems that serve them. Hill Scott received her Ed.D. in Child Development from UCLA where she was a Danforth Fellow, a Chancellor’s Fellow, Outstanding Graduate Student of Year, and was named the Tom Bradley Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Award in 2007. []
 * Karen Hill Scott-**

Step 2: What's the support?
According to Dimitri A Christakis's article, "The effects of infant media usage: what do we know and what should we learn?," Companines like Baby Einstein actually decrease the learning skills of infants. It is in fact discouraged by the American Academy of Pediactrics. "The AAP recommendations,initially made in 2001, were based largely on expert opinion that there are other, more appropriate activities for children to engage in during that critical window of neurological development."

Step 3: My Media Response
My opinion on infant viewing companies like Baby Einstein is exactly what Dimitri A Christakis's article repeatedly points out. There are other more appropriate activities that infants can engage in during the "critical window of neurological development." The article includes statistics and opinions by top pediactric companies such as the AAP.The company's claims are not well supported. The claims the company makes are to sell the product and do not provide the research that actually shows how these infant viewing products "help" learning children. This level of support only means that the company is more concerned with the selling of their product than the quality of what it does. Other scientists also conclude that infant viewing can actually have negative effects on the child. The reason it is not enough to simply purcahse the product to see if it works for you is because there are many products out there like baby einstein hat claim to do a lot of things for children and their learning capabilities. Any consumer should read more into what the companies are all about and look at the research as opposed to the good commercial that they see on tv.