Robert C. Titzer is an American professor and infant researcher
Education
In 1985, he earned a communications degree from the University of Southern Indiana and later, he completed a Master of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University and received a doctorate in human performance from the Indiana University Bloomington.
Career
In a settlement of a complaint of false advertising made by the Federal Trade Commission he was fined $300,000, and prohibited from making certain claims or using the product name “Your Baby Can Read.” In 2016, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood requested that the Federal Trade Commission reopen the case, based on a product sold by Tizer named "Your Baby Can Learn." Titzer received his teaching credentials from San Diego State University. In the late 1980s, after receiving his credentials, Titzer taught at public schools in Guam and California. At Bloomington, he did experiments in infant learning at developmental psychology laboratories.
During his tenure as professor at Southeastern Louisiana University, Titzer developed a program to teach toddlers to read.
He has also been a professor at three additional universities, which are Pennsylvania State University, Indiana University, and California State University, Fullerton. In 1997, Titzer began selling "Your Baby Can Read!" videos.
By 2003, around 60,000 had been sold. In April 2011, a complaint was filed with the Federal Trade Commission against the company selling the Your Baby Can Read product.
The complaint, by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, said the company"s claims were false and deceptive.
In July 2012, the company folded, citing the high cost of fighting legal battles. Some experts have criticized Titzer"s videos as being suspect because they lack rigorous scientific review and are commercial products. Some also question the use of videos as a tool for infant learning.
In November 2010, Jeff Rossen and Robert Powell of National Broadcasting Company"s Today wrote: Titzer "calls himself an infant learning expert but actually holds a graduate degree in "human performance" — the study of motor skills." Several doctors criticized the videos for promoting rote memorization instead of actually reading.
Titzer argued against these claims, saying that scientific research bolsters the effectiveness of Your Baby Can Read. On August 22, 2014, a press release from the Federal Trade Commission related the following: "Your Baby Can Read creator, Doctor Robert Titzer, and his company, Infant Learning, Incorporated. d/b/a The Infant Learning Company have settled charges that they made baseless claims about the effectiveness of the Your Baby Can Read program and misrepresented that scientific studies proved the claims." Titzer and his family live just outside San Diego, California.
Views
Quotations:
"lieutenant"s an extraordinary manipulation of facts." Today interviewed ten experts who affirmed that the brains of babies and toddlers had not attained the requisite development to read at "the level the way the enticing television ads claim they can".