About four years ago a small news burst reported that the then-popular Baby Einstein video series that was sold as collective brain boosters for infants and toddlers actually, according to one study, reduced their vocabularies (see previous post).
The news this week catches up on the lawsuit that transpired, and a ruling ordering the University of Washington to give the aggrieved developers of the videos the study’s raw data and also to pay them a $175,00 settlement. Much discussion here about the fragility of data, unauthorized destruction thereof, and what happens when academic journal papers wind up in court.
Stories:
- Seattle Times – Jonathan Martin: UW battle over Baby Einstein settled, Maybe.
- Denver Post – Karen Auge: ‘Baby Einstein’ DVD creators find redemption in documents suggesting negative study was flawed ; NIce job and includes some of the personal repercussions the study had for the creators of the series.
- AP – Donna Gordon Blankinship : Baby Einstein creators challenge research anew ;
– Charlie Petit
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