DENVER — Magi Cunningham always found "Baby Einstein" videos to be a wonderful respite for her two boys and herself.

She remembers a day when her oldest son, then a baby, was crying for no apparent reason.

She popped "Baby Mozart" in with magical results.

"He calmed down immediately," Cunningham recalled. "I played it five times back to back. He loved it."

Both her oldest son, now 6, and her younger boy, now 3, also enjoyed a DVD called "World Animals."

"They (the videos) were my baby sitter for half an hour. That was my power time where I cooked or did chores," Cunningham said. "They would be completely entertained."

Cunningham, of Littleton, didn't think the boys learned anything from the videos because they were so young.

Now a group of academics has a study that claims the videos not only don't benefit infants eight to 16 months old, but they also may actually slow their development.

The researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle claim that baby DVDs and videos — such as Baby Einstein — are different from beneficial children's programming because they have little dialogue, short scenes, disconnected pictures and show "linguistically indescribable images such as a lava lamp."

The researchers found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than babies who didn't watch them. Their study was published Tuesday in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"The jury is still out on whether they are harmful," said Frederick Zimmerman, the lead author of the study and a University of Washington professor of health services, "but they are not beneficial."

One of his co-authors, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrics researcher at Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute and a University of Washington professor, said he believes the makers of the videos made "outlandish claims (about the educational benefits) about the videos without a scintilla of evidence."

"Babies don't learn from screens," Christakis said. "We didn't find benefit. We found harm."

But moms use "Baby Einstein" videos primarily, many say, to entertain and stimulate their children.

The creation of Denver-area schoolteacher Julie Aigner-Clark, the videos — with names like "Baby Einstein," "Baby Mozart" and "Baby Bach" — were so successful that Walt Disney Co. bought Aigner-Clark's Baby Einstein Co. in 2001.

The new research is confounding and frustrating to Aigner-Clark, who said that she couldn't speak for Disney, only herself.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment.

Aigner-Clark thinks the researchers envision someone turning on the videos and walking away from the child.

That was never the intent, she said. Interaction between the parent and the child while the video is on is crucial.

"You stay with the child and teach them," Aigner-Clark said. "Make it an experience you share. You are looking at the screen with the baby and saying Look at the kitty cat.' It is really about being interactive."

Mother Melanie Moore doesn't believe her son learned anything from the "Baby Einstein" videos, which she usually watched with him. "It was purely entertainment," Moore said.

"I didn't expect the videos to teach him how to count or the colors, but I knew they weren't violent. I didn't buy them with the intent for him to learn how to count. I bought them for his entertainment and stimulation."

Parent Lorrie Costello said the researchers' claims left her laughing.

"Harmful?" she exclaimed. "Watching fish swim and colorful play toys dance when set to classical music. C'mon."