The man who co-founded the “Baby Einstein” videos enterprise but no longer owns the brand is suing the University of Washington for release of records, data and research methods relating to studies on kids and television.

William Clark, who along with his wife Julie Aigner-Clark, launched the company back in 1996, said in a press release earlier this week that he asked a judge to order the university to release records of two studies that concluded young children who watch television are at a greater risk for attention problems and language delays. Continue reading »

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According to a new study from the United Kingdom, one quarter of boys have trouble learning to talk, and one in six babies of both sexes do.

A YouGov online survey of 1,015 parents found that 34 percent of girls versus only 27 percent of boys had said their first word before the age of nine months, and most children said their first word between the ages of 10 and 11 months. Only 4 percent of children had not said their first word by the age of three. Continue reading »

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In the early days we all tend to think our kids sound like they’re speaking language from outer space. But d’Armond Speers went the other way. He only spoke Klingon to his son for the first three years of the boy’s life.

Yes, three years with nothing but a language that exists specifically for Trekkies to indulge their inner geekdom. Continue reading »

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There’s something I’d like to get out of the way: I don’t care if my son’s frequent pacifier use results in the biggest, nastiest, crooked-tooth overbite — or renders him dead last among his contemporaries in complete sentence formation. That little plastic plug of love has been an integral part of our multi-pronged approach to the whole family getting really good sleep. Every dime I pay for orthodonic (and, apparently, language development) correction will have been worth it. Charge me double. I’ll pay that too.

With that in mind, I bring you this news. There’s a new study that suggests a link between speech disorders and sucking on any nipple other than the real-live flesh kind. Yes, this includes giving newborns bottles. Continue reading »

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Could autism experts really diagnose a child with autism based on a single day’s worth of speech recordings? A company  marketing such a device says they can absolutely screen for autism and speech issues through the mail.

But doctors and some parents with autistic kids are skeptical. In fact, some are worried that this will only fuel parental anxiety, particularly when it comes to autism. Continue reading »

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