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Baby laptops, baby cellphones, talking farms - these are the whirring, whiz-bang toys of the moment, many of them marketed as tools to encourage babies' language skills. But in the midst of the holiday season, a new study raises questions about whether such electronic playthings make it less likely that babies will engage in the verbal give-and-take with their parents that is so crucial to cognitive development.

With the increased recognition that an important part of brain development occurs within the first three years of a child's life, and that reading to children enhances vocabulary and other important communication skills, the group, which represents 62,000 pediatricians across the country, is asking its members to become powerful advocates for reading aloud, every time a baby visits the doctor.

Westgate draws on the behavioral model, but whether by training or by personality, she is much more laid back. She showed us how to tap on Violet's cheeks with our fingers or a small teething toy and then make our way over to her lips, encouraging her to gum on the toy as long as she could tolerate it.

This is a wonderful article looking at light wavelengths from screens and specific strategies to come off of the "high" of screen stimulus.

This article is new tenuous research for a connection between screen exposure and speech delays.