A new study claims that having the television on in the background can hinder learning in younger children.

Just because you’ve learned to tune out the television doesn’t mean infants and toddlers can, according to a new study in the journal Childhood Development. According to the study, that background adult television might be a harmful distraction.

Researchers observed 50 kids aged 1 to 3 at play in a room for an hour: half the time was television-free, and half the time the TV show “Jeopardy” was playing on a television in the room. Although the children in the room while the TV was on glanced up only occasionally, the researchers saw clear signs that the children had trouble concentrating.

An Alabama woman has been arrested and charged with scalding her baby with hot water. Jesus, it seems like we read one of these stories every week.

A nine-month-old boy is recovering from severe burns after police in Northport said the child was deliberately scalded in hot water.

Investigators said it happened Wednesday night at a mobile home off U.S. 82 West.

Northport Police Chief Robert Green said Monday that investigators arrested the child’s mother. 19-year-old Patrona Sebastian was charged with felony child abuse and assault.

Bakersfield, California are looking into the circumstances surrounding a one-month-old baby’s death.

Maryonna Wooten was rushed to the hospital around 2am Saturday morning from an east Bakersfield apartment complex.

Officials say the baby was found unconscious while in the care of her uncle Charles Wooten.

Wooten says he had been drinking and may have rolled over the infant while he was passed out.

He has not been arrested in connection to the infants death, but was booked for other charges.

A Wisconsin teenager has been charged with starving her baby to death by refusing to breastfeed her.

The 19-year-old is being held on tentative charges of first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.

District attorney Tim Gruenke said Monday the woman gave birth last August but stopped feeding the girl after two days, knowing the infant would die. He says she put the girl’s body in a cooler and then put it out with the garbage this spring.

A couple in Clarksville, Tennessee is being charged with leaving their infant in a hot car while they went drinking inside a bar. Hey, guys, there are these places called LIQUOR STORES, that actually allow you to purchase alcohol and TAKE IT HOME, you know, so your baby can be in her crib while you get drunk instead of a car in a parking lot.

IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE AN UNWELCOME TREND IN CLARKSVILLE…CHILDREN LEFT IN CARS IN THE SUMMER HEAT, WITH PARENTS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. NOW POLICE ARE KEEPING AN EYE OUT FOR HELPLESS VICTIMS WHO MAY BE TRAPPED IN A CAR.

“They’re being more observant, if they get a call in a certain area, that they look at the vehicles parked around, because it’s getting to be on going thing here.”

AROUND 2:30 SUNDAY MORNING, A CLARKSVILLE POLICE OFFICER FOUND A FIVE MONTH OLD INFANT CRYING IN A VEHICLE WITH THE WINDOWS ROLLED UP AND THE DOORS LOCKED. THE PARENTS WERE INSIDE THIS BAR, CHAPALA’S, AND LEFT THE INFANT ALONE FOR OVER THREE HOURS.

It seems like we’ve been noting more and more stories like this lately where missing kids are found alive, a welcome reprise from the seeming deluge of tragic endings.

Superior police say they have located a Minnesota woman and her three children.

Police say Colleen M. Larson, 39, and her three children — 11-year-old Garrett, 10-year-old Devan and 6-year-old Brodrick — had been missing since Thursday, when they were seen in Superior on their way to Ashland, Wis.

Police had said Colleen Larson, of Rush City, Minn., may have “medical issues that may or may not cause danger to the children.” They were not specific about what those issues might be.

A new study claims to have found more clues that autism is clearly a genetic disorder, and not caused by outside influences such as vaccinations.

Dr. Christopher Walsh and Dr. Eric Morrow of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues, studied 104 volunteer families in the United States, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates with high incidence of autism. In the Middle Eastern families cousins commonly marry, making the likelihood of passing on recessive genes more probable, and Middle Eastern families usually have more children than United States families providing more subjects to study. In 88 of the Middle Eastern study families, where the parents are first cousins, autism appears to be caused by faulty DNA and something in the physical or social environment of a child after birth.

“There appear to be many separate mutations involved, with each family having a different genetic cause.” Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute on Mental Health, said in a statement. The institute helped pay for the study.

What kind of scumbag would stick a gun in a baby’s face, just to make off with a little cash from a pizza joint? Apparently this one.

The 1-year-old baby probably didn’t even understand that her life was in danger as the robber pointed a gun at her head.

“It’s bad, it’s bad to take advantage of a little baby just to get money,” said former employee Ramon Sanchez.

Money is what they were after. Around 9:30pm Sunday, two men stormed into the Mr. Pizza shop on Winegard Road and demanded cash. One pulled a gun on the cashier and the other pointed his gun at the head of the baby, telling the mother not to get any closer.

“Anybody who walks around with a gun and who’s robbing people, they’re dangerous. To take that gun and point it at a child, again that’s being a coward,” said Commander Spike Hopkins, Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

We’re not even all that comfortable leaving our 9-year-old home when we go down to the corner hardware store. And we certainly wouldn’t leave him in charge of two kids under 3!

A 30-year-old woman was arrested and charged over the weekend with leaving her four youngsters - including a toddler and an infant - alone in an apartment.

Ortegga Oliver faces four counts of child endangering after police said they found the children, ages 9, 7, 2 and 7 months, home alone Friday night, court records show.

The parents of a two-year-old found wandering along a freeway in Austin, Texas, have decided to speak to the media to defend themselves.

The father, who did not want to be identified tells KXAN that they got their two year old, almost three year old boy back late Friday from Child Protective Services. The boy showed his parents how he had unlocked the door and deadbolt. Now, they say they are going to get another lock for the door that will reach higher than the deadbolt they have now.

The mother, who also didn’t want to be identified, told KXAN that their son is used to sleeping with his parents and that night, they had made him sleep in his own bed and that he was probably scared and was trying to look for them. She says she wants people to know that “it wasn’t something that we just didn’t care that our kid was missing for six or seven hours, we were sleeping.”

Our mom was paranoid about us climbing the big oak tree in our front yard. And of course, we thought she was silly and climbed it every chance we got. If she had heard about this story, she just might have chopped the thing down.

An 11-year-old boy is in critical condition after falling from a tree Sunday evening at a family picnic in a Northwest Side forest preserve.

Jermaine Miller fell out of a tree at the Schiller Woods Forest Preserve near Irving Park Road and Cumberland Avenue about 6 p.m., according to Cook County Forest Preserve Police spokesman Steve Mayberry.

The Chicago Fire Department and Cook County Forest Preserve police responded to the scene after the boy’s family called 911, according to Mayberry, who said the initial report stated the boy was unresponsive.