New media products for babies, toddlers and preschoolers began flooding the market in the late 1990's, starting with video series like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby. But now, the young children's market has exploded into a host of new and more elaborate electronics for pre-schoolers, including video game consoles like the V.Smile and handheld game systems like the Leapster, all marketed as educational. After all, there is only one thing better than having a baby and that is having a smart baby.

Educational toys are very popular among parents who want to get a head start on their child’s education. The toy manufacturers do not come out and say it, but the clear implication is that babies who play with these toys may score some extra I.Q. points and get an early start on the road to an Ivy League college. An educational toy should instruct, promote intellectuality, or emotional and/or physical development. An educational toy can teach a child about a particular subject or can help a child develop a particular skill.

It is widely known that the first three years of a child's life are critical to their development. Between zero to 2 or 3 years, there is rapid exponential brain growth and though the brain continues to grow after that, it grows at a much slower rate. As a result, the learning that takes place during those years provides a foundation for later learning. Companies are aware of this and are increasingly positioned their products as vital to optimizing intellectual growth.

But there is no proof that educational toys actually are educational to children. Child development experts are quick to point out that no studies exist to show that any of the toys or videos give children an intellectual edge over playmates who stick to old-fashioned building blocks and baby dolls. There really isn't any outcomes-based research on these kinds of products and their effects on young children, and there doesn't seem to be any theoretical basis for saying that kids under 2 can learn from media. While researchers have found that some babies who are deprived of certain stimuli during the first years of life never completely recover, they have yet to demonstrate that increasing stimulation makes babies smarter. And some experts believe that the toys may even be detrimental to development because they lead children to focus on memorization rather than imagination and problem-solving abilities. Researchers and toy companies are just simply unaware of what the effects of playing with blocks are as compared to watching a video as compared to play with a parent.

Moreover, some of these that are media based can actually hinder child development. In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended no screen time at all for babies under 2, out of concern that the increasing use of media might displace human interaction and impede the crucially important brain growth and development of a baby's first two years. But it is a recommendation that parents routinely ignore. According to Kaiser, babies 6 months to 3 years old spend, on average, an hour a day watching TV and 47 minutes a day on other screen media, like videos, computers and video games.

Some high-tech learning toys may do too much, experts say, leaving the child as more of a passive observer than an active participant. Toys that involve memorization, for example, do not encourage the development of problem-solving skills. Toys that are highly structured can also get in the way of pretend play. For instance, one play farm toy has animals that talk, which means kids are less likely to make the sounds themselves because they don’t have to, something is already doing it for them.

Companies are manipulating consumers to sell their products. Fisher-Price toy packaging describes the toys developmental benefits including encouraging cognitive abilities, developing motor skills and stimulating the sense. The Brainy Baby -- Left Brain package has a cover featuring a cartoon baby with a thought balloon saying, 2 + 2 = 4 and promises that it will inspire logical thinking and teach your child about language and logic, patterns and sequencing, analyzing details and more. But there is no research to back those claims. What no one knows is whether increased stimulation in early life translates into added I.Q. points later on. It's not as simple as the more stimulation you get, the smarter you become, Dr. Gopnik said. There's a point of diminishing returns. Some researchers have found hints that children can max out when it comes to the benefits of stimulation. A 2003 study of identical and fraternal twins, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that the extent to which intelligence is inherited may be affected by social and economic class. If I.Q. were entirely a result of genes, then identical twins would be expected to have more similar I.Q.'s than fraternal twins, but the research found that this was true only in families that were better off financially.

Nevertheless, it's up to parents to become more educated consumers. As a society, we are in the middle of a vast uncontrolled experiment on our infants and toddlers growing up in homes saturated with electronic media, and it is there choice of whether they want their children to learn from education DVD's or simple interactive toys.