Are iPads truly educational for children?
Children these days are tech savvy even before they talk or walk. They master the finger slide on touch screens and even clamor — obsessively and in full-on tear mode for some — when adults deny them physical access to their portable gadgets, like iPhones® and smartphones. Parents may even feel encouraged by the various apps featuring flash cards and word games to give their kids full hands-on reign of their $200-plus smartphones and steeper-priced iPads®.
“Time usage on smartphones is 12% higher in households with children than households without children, potentially indicating that parents are using these hand-held devices to entertain their children, and that the children are secondary phone users. While a direct correlation between the 12% difference and children has yet to be proven, the marketplace certainly has numerous apps geared toward childhood education and games,” says Business 2 Community.
Babycenter.com also recently released the “2011 Mobile Mom Report” that surveyed 5,000-plus moms about their smartphone usage. The study finds 59 percent of moms own a smartphone, compared to the 50 percent owned by the general population. Of these smartphone-owning, surveyed moms, 3 out of 4, or 75 percent, acknowledge they let their children play with their smartphones.
One mom challenges the educational benefits
Yet one mom and a technology contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America, Becky Worley, recently publicly challenged the educational benefits iPads and smartphones pose for children.
Worley conducted a “non scientific experiment” by allowing her 3-year-old twins to play with two iPad apps, FirstWords: Animals and Toddler Teasers Numbers, while an educational researcher observed their unsupervised usage.
![You can find tons of interesting baby tips and baby iPhone apps, but we haven't seen any proof yet to [prove the] definitive benefit these apps have on your baby.](http://cdn.assets-phoenix.net/content/dam/altcloud/img/articles/quotes/article-babies-pullquote.png "You can find tons of interesting baby tips and baby iPhone apps, but we haven't seen any proof yet to [prove the] definitive benefit these apps have on your baby.")
“At first, it seems like they're absorbing all the information and significantly learning. My son seemed to recognize letters and words,” says Worley in her published GMA report. “As a parent, I beam with pride thinking he's practically reading — that he's learned his letters. But then I bring flash cards out with the very same words from the game and ask the kids, 'Do you know what this word is?' They answer a resounding ‘no’ to every word.”
In the end, it seemed as though the twins managed to understand how to match the app’s shapes — in this case letters and numbers — but did not make the solid, educational connection of their specific representation, according to the report. It is unclear from a scientific perspective whether a parent’s guidance during such technological play affects a toddler’s or infant’s ability to retain the literal meaning of the individual letters and numbers appearing on a screen.
No right or wrong answer
Worley’s informal experiment offered a glimpse into the growing debate, especially as there is a lack of defined studies indicating whether apps via iPads or smartphones serve an educational purpose for children specifically ages three and under.
Joe Britton, CEO of Internet consulting firm Sugar Ventures LLC, concurs in his Business Insider editorial, “How Technology is Impacting America’s Classrooms.”
“You can find tons of interesting baby tips and baby iPhone apps, but we haven't seen any proof yet to definitive benefit these apps have on your baby,” he writes.
Yet he also notes there is room for digital media advocacy when it comes to preschoolers and other school-age children. There are also a bevy of sites that help take the guesswork out which apps are kid friendly. These include sites such as ipadsforkids.com, momswithapps.com, among numerous others.
“There are tons of apps to help babies and toddlers with their counting, spelling, reading, and much more,” Britton also writes. “If pre-schools and educational departments endorse certain apps through testing, it may actually lead to parents synching (sic) up and using an application that will have a positive effect on their child's learning.”
Until such definitive testing or studies avail official results, however, the app debate will likely continue to gain momentum in the same way the contested debate over television face-time still grasps attention from advocates and foes alike. Therefore, parents simply need to make the difficult, personal decision as to whether iPads and smartphones belong in their children’s educational toy boxes.
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