Hmmm....I find this skeptical as an early childhood professional.
I ran across this site (http://www.preschoolprepco.com) which claims that its products (namely the DVDs and videos) can teach infants and toddlers to know their letters. Now, don't get me wrong: SOME children can do anything asked of parents,...but SHOULD they is the real question.
Developmentally, this "learning" of letters by infants and toddlers may be subjective misintepretation by overenthusiastic parents. First, babies, 1's and 2s' are still trying to get a handle on who they are and what their capabilities are. The mental visualization and symbolic understanding is just beginning to show its head as a child peaks into preoperational thinking at Age 2 (Berk, 2005). Certainly, a child can possibly learn some letters and numbers, but the sheer amount of time and focus needed to scaffold kids to those tasks may retard their development in other areas namely social development, emotional self control and self regulation, even physical development is shortchanged.
I think is a dangerous set of products because the website sites some "research", but it has not been published in any peer reviewed journals or in a scholary book or anthology. The author herself describes herself (from what I have read) as a parent, not an early childhood professional. Who would you depend on as more reliable: a trained educator or a parent who will always bring bias with him/her.
I need to see this product on the light of respectable research and criticism before giving any approval.
For another suspicious product got to http://www.rrsat.com/babytv/
