Big Bird on the Brain – Watching Educational TV

How many times have you heard about the dangers of too much TV for your kids? But should that warning include the time your child spends with Big Bird and his friends on Sesame Street? Can watching educational television get kids’ brains fired up and ready for learning?

In a small study at the University of Rochester, researchers used functional MRI brain scans…to track neural activity while children watched a Sesame Street video. 27 children between the ages of 4 and 11, plus 20 adults, watched the same 20-minute program featuring segments on numbers, words, and shapes. The team then created “maps” of the areas of the brain that “lit up” during the video viewing. Children whose neural maps more closely resembled the neural maps of adults scored higher on standardized IQ tests for math and verbal ability.

While falling short of advocating TV viewing…researchers say the study does show that everyday activities .. like watching educational programming are related to intellectual growth.