November 28, 2006, 5:08 AM CT
Boy Or Girl: How Brain Processes Words
Boys and girls tend to use different parts of their brains to process some basic aspects of grammar, as per the first study of its kind, suggesting that sex is an important factor in the acquisition and use of language.
Two neuroresearchers from Georgetown University Medical Center discovered that boys and girls use different brain systems when they make mistakes like "Yesterday I holded the bunny". Girls mainly use a system that is for memorizing words and associations between them, whereas boys rely primarily on a system that governs the rules of language.
"Sex has been virtually ignored in studies of the learning, representation, processing and neural bases of language. This study shows that differences between males and females may be an important factor in these cognitive processes," said the lead author, Michael Ullman, PhD, professor of neuroscience, psychology, neurology and linguistics.
He added that since the brain systems tested in this study are responsible for more than just language use, the study supports the notion that "men and women may tend to process various skills differently from one another." One potential underlying reason, suggested by other research, is that the hormone estrogen, found primarily in females, affects brain processing, Ullman said.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 21, 2006, 8:46 PM CT
Watching TV can improve parenting and child behavior
Watching television parenting programmes like ITV's Driving Mum and Dad Mad really can help improve parenting skills and modify children's behavioural problems, as per a research studyat The University of Manchester.
The six-part series followed the progress of five families whose children showed clear behavioural problems through Professor Matt Sanders' 'Triple P-Positive Parenting Programme,' which provides guidance on parenting skills which promote good behavioural and emotional adjustment.
In 'The Great Parenting Experiment: The role of the mass media in preventing anti-social behaviour in children,' clinical psychology experts Dr Rachel Calam and Professor Sanders himself studied a sample of the 4.2 million parents tuning into the first series in Spring 2005. Funded by the Home Office's Respect Task Force, the team assessed how much watching the programmes actually helped parents at home.
Dr Calam said: "This is the first national experiment to monitor parents working alongside a 'TV info-tainment' series and trying out the techniques shown. We wanted to assess whether, by adopting the ideas suggested, mums and dads were able to improve their children's behaviour and reduce their own stress levels.
"465 parents completed an assessment of their children's behaviour, parenting practices, confidence as a parent, stress levels and family circumstances before the series, which was repeated 12 weeks after the series started and again six months later. Parents who just watched the series and those given additional 'enhanced support' reported significantly fewer problems with both their children's conduct and their parenting practices after 12 weeks.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 21, 2006, 5:16 AM CT
Does student achievement spur national economic growth?
Educational policy discourse supports the idea that increases in science and mathematics achievement correlate to nation-wide economic gains. However, a thought-provoking new study from the American Journal of Education challenges the perceived causal links between educational achievement and economic growth. Francisco O. Ramirez (Stanford University) and his co-authors find that without the so-called "Asian Tigers," the correlation diminishes and all but disappears.
"This is a striking finding that calls into question the disproportionate attention (and envy) focused on those few countries with the very highest achievement scores," write the authors. "It is clear that education and its reforms are everywhere seen in light of their supposed economic effects. It is also clear that the areas of education given the most attention as relevant to economic goals have been science and mathematics, the new keys to economic growth".
Comparing national GDP data with international standardized test scores over two twenty-year periods (1970-1990 and 1980-2000), the scientists observed that countries with high science and math scores do tend to grow somewhat more rapidly than other countries - but not when Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan are removed from the analysis, or in an analysis of the last two decades. Additionally, "Moving from the 'middle of the pack' to the top provides less of an economic boost," the authors write.........
Posted by: Janet Permalink Source
November 15, 2006, 4:47 AM CT
Enriching Education For Disadvanted
While studies have shown that disadvantaged children benefit from high-quality preschool programs, they would benefit even more if they had additional tutoring and mentoring during their elementary and high school years, as per research at the University of Chicago.
Scientists have previously noted that a number of of the advantages children receive from preschool experiences begin to wane as they continue through school. A study by James Heckman, a Nobel-Prize winning economist at the University of Chicago and an expert on early childhood education, now shows for the first time that systematic interventions throughout childhood and adolescence could sustain the early gains and build on them.
"Childhood is a multistage process where early investments feed into later investments. Skill begets skill; learning begets learning," wrote Heckman in the paper, "Investing in our Young People." Heckman, the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, co-wrote the paper with Flavio Cunha, a graduate student in economics at the University of Chicago. The study is being released in Washington, D.C. November 15 as part of a larger report by America's Promise Alliance's titled Every Child, Every Promise: Turning Failure into Action.
The scholars studied data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth to estimate a model that would describe how different inputs contribute to the accumulation of abilities. They used the model to predict the outcomes of children born to disadvantaged mothers when the children received a variety of extra learning assistance. In particular, they simulated the potential outcome of continued high-quality interventions beyond preschool.........
Posted by: Janet Permalink Source
November 14, 2006, 4:54 AM CT
Sibling relationships reflect family dynamics
Most children in the United States grow up with sisters and brothers. Connections that commonly last a lifetime, these relationships can be strained at times, particularly during childhood. New research concludes that sibling ties are best understood in the context of their families, and that efforts to improve relationships should take into account not just the siblings, but the family as a whole.
This research also observed that, overall, sisters feel closer to their siblings than do brothers, and that relationships between sisters and brothers become closer in later adolescence. Further, for all siblings, discord is highest when the first-born child is about 13 and the second-born is about 10.
As published in the November/December 2006 issue of the journal Child Development, scientists at Pennsylvania State University interviewed mothers, fathers, and first- and second-born children in 200 white, working- and middle-class, two-parent families. During the course of the study, first-born children ranged from 10 to 19 years of age, with an average age of 12 at the start of the study and 17 at the end. Second-born children ranged from 7 to 17 years of age during the study, with an average age of 9 at the start and 15 at the end.
Among the study's key findings are:........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 14, 2006, 4:31 AM CT
Young Children Don't Believe Everything They Hear
Childhood is a time when young minds receive a vast amount of new information. Until now, it's been thought that children believe most of what they hear. New research sheds light on children's abilities to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Through conversation, books, and the media, young children are continually exposed to information that is new to them. Much of the information they receive is factual (e.g., the names of the planets in the solar system), but some information is not based in truth and represents nonexistent entities (e.g., the Easter bunny). Children need to figure out which information is real and which is not. By age 4, children consistently use the context in which the new information is presented to determine whether or not it is real.
That's one of the major findings in new studies conducted by scientists at the Universities of Texas and Virginia and reported in the November/December 2006 issue of the journal Child Development.
In three studies, about 400 children ages 3 to 6 heard about something new and had to say whether they thought it was real or not. Some children heard the information defined in scientific terms ("Doctors use surnits to make medicine"), while others heard it defined in fantastical terms ("Fairies use hercs to make fairy dust"). The scientists observed that children's ability to use contextual cues to determine whether the information is true develops significantly between the ages of 3 and 5.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 8, 2006, 9:01 PM CT
Traditional Books Provide Parent-child Interaction
Parents and pre-school children have a more positive interaction when sharing a reading experience with a traditional book as opposed to an electronic book or e-book, according scientists at Temple University's Infant Laboratory and Erikson Institute in Chicago. This shared positive experience from traditional books characteristically promotes early literacy skills.
The scientists presented the findings of their study, "Electronic books: Boon or Bust for Interactive Reading?" on Nov. 3 as part of the Boston University Conference on Language Development.
The first-of-its-kind study was conducted by Julia Parish-Morris, a graduate student in developmental psychology at Temple University, and Molly F. Collins, assistant professor at Erikson Institute. Parish-Morris and Collins collaborated with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, the Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology and director of the Temple Infant Lab.
"It is very obvious from the media, from toy stores and bookstores that electronic learning products are becoming very, very popular," said Parish-Morris. "Parents are really buying into the idea that electronic media is essential to their children's development".
Parish-Morris recruited 19 children ages 3-5, along with their parents, at Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum; Collins recruited 14 at the Chicago Children's Museum.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
November 6, 2006, 7:53 PM CT
Most Ear Infections Host Both Bacteria And Viruses
Ear infections are among the most common diseases seen in pediatric practice. They have generally been considered bacterial diseases and are therefore commonly treated with antibiotics. New research, reported in the December 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and currently available online, provides evidence that viruses are found in a great a number of ear infection cases and may complicate therapy.
The scientists used a variety of laboratory techniques to identify the pathogen that caused ear infections, known clinically as acute otitis media (AOM), in 79 young children. They found bacteria in 92 percent of the cases, viruses in 70 percent, and both bacteria and viruses in 66 percent.
As per Aino Ruohola, MD, PhD, from the Turku University Hospital in Finland and lead author of the study, "the major finding of the study is that acute otitis media is a coinfection of bacteria and viruses in the great majority of children. This is actually logical since acute otitis media is virtually always connected to viral respiratory infection".
Antibiotics, which are effective against the bacteria that cause AOM, have no effect on the viruses found in AOM infections. Therefore, the standard therapy for AOM--antibiotics--can be, at best, partially effective in the majority of cases. "Based on this and prior research," said Dr. Ruohola, "it is possible that viruses cause a considerable proportion of clinical therapy failures. Thus, in these cases a new antibiotic is not necessarily the best choice eventhough bacteria resistant to common antibiotics are wide-spread."........
Posted by: Sue Permalink Source
November 6, 2006, 4:51 AM CT
Hospital Costs For Children With Flu
Going into another flu season, a new study reports that hospitalizing children for influenza may cost up to three or four times the previously accepted estimates. Pediatric scientists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia say their finding strengthens the economic justification for broadly vaccinating children against flu.
"We found the cost of influenza-related hospitalizations in children was about $13,000 each--in comparison to most previous studies that estimated the cost at three to four thousand dollars," said study leader Ron Keren, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatrician at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "This suggests that annual influenza vaccinations for children, particularly for those with certain high-risk conditions, may be more cost-effective than previously thought".
The study appears in the recent issue of Pediatrics.
The scientists analyzed billing data for 727 patients up to age 21 who were admitted to Children's Hospital with laboratory-confirmed influenza over four consecutive flu seasons, from 2000 to 2004. The study team statistically adjusted the direct medical costs to account for geographic variations in those costs.
"We found a broad range of hospital costs in the study, from approximately $7,000 each for patients treated only on the ward, to nearly $40,000 each for children cared for in the intensive care unit," said Dr. Keren. Children with low-risk conditions had hospital costs averaging $9,000 each, in comparison to those with high-risk conditions, whose costs averaged $15,000 each.........
Posted by: Mark Permalink Source
November 5, 2006, 9:17 PM CT
Toddlers Learn Complex Actions From Picture-book
Parents who engage in the age-old tradition of picture-book reading are not only encouraging early reading development in their children but are also teaching their toddlers about the world around them, as per a research studyin the recent issue of Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA). This finding shows that interactions with life-like color pictures can aid in children's learning.
Parents of preschool children reported that they own dozens of children's picture books and spend approximately 40 minutes a day reading books to their small children. To determine the extent of a young child's ability to learn from a picture-book, psychology expert Gabrielle Simcock, PhD, University of Queensland and co-author and psychology expert Judy DeLoache, PhD, University of Virginia, tested if toddlers could imitate specific target actions on novel real-world objects on the basis of a picture-book interaction.
A total of 132 children from three different age groups (18 months, 24 months and 30 months) participated in two studies to determine if age influenced a toddler's ability to learn how to construct a simple rattle from a picture-book reading. In the first study, two groups of children ages 18, 24 and 30-months, were given one of two picture books. One contained six color photographs and the other contained colored pencil drawings that were reproductions of the photograph. At the end of the reading, the children were asked to construct a rattle using the items in front of them. The study revealed that a number of of the children were able to imitate the actions depicted and described in the book.........
Posted by: JoAnn Permalink Source
