University of Rochester researchers say they have made an
important breakthrough. For the last three years, researchers
have studied the brain waves of children and adults as they
watched an episode of Sesame Street. They then would give the
children math tests to see if they were learning anything. More
than two dozen children and 20 adults were part of the study.
For 20 minutes they would be in an MRI scanner as Sesame Street
was aired. That allowed researchers to map neural activity
across the entire brain while they watched the show. What they
found was that the kids who showed similar brain activity to the
adults did better on the math tests. "So it doesn't advocate
television watching, but it shows that while children are
watching educational television that there is an academic
cognitive processing that is taking place," researcher Jessica
Cantlon said. Researchers hope that this study helps to diagnose
and treat learning disabilities among children. The hope is also
that future studies will use real-w