Archive | August, 2013

Virginia Mason Hospital study: Carbon monoxide can pass through dry wall

21 Aug

Carbon monoxide poisoning can kill. Marijke Vroomen Durning wrote in the Forbes article, Carbon Monoxide, A Silent Killer: Are You Safe At Home?

Every year, 20,000 to 30,000 people in the United States are sickened by accidental carbon monoxide poisoning and approximately 500 people die, many in their own home. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It cannot be detected by humans without the help of a detector.
A new study, released today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has found that carbon monoxide easily passes through gypsum wallboards (also called drywall), the material used to finish walls and ceilings in most residential homes. The porous material does nothing to stop the gas from seeping through.
Here’s where the problem gets worse: Twenty-five states require that residents have a carbon monoxide alarm in their homes but in December 2012, 10 states exempted residences that don’t have an internal carbon monoxide-producing source, such as a gas stove or fireplace, or an attached garage in which a car could be left idling. This move worries toxicologists who fear that these exemptions may give people a false sense of security. It’s believed that removing the requirement for all homes to have such alarms will lead to an increased number of accidental carbon monoxide poisonings, particularly in multi-unit buildings.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/marijkevroomendurning/2013/08/20/carbon-monoxide-a-silent-killer-are-you-safe/

Here is the press release from Virginia Mason Hospital:

News Releases
Researchers Prove Carbon Monoxide Penetrates Gypsum Wallboard
SEATTLE – (Aug. 21, 2013) — Carbon monoxide (CO) from external sources can easily penetrate gypsum wallboard (drywall) commonly used in apartments and houses, potentially exposing people indoors to the toxic, odorless, tasteless gas within minutes, concludes a study conducted at Virginia Mason Medical Center.
These findings, which underscore the importance of CO alarms in single-family and multi-family homes, are published in today’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Authors of the study are Neil B. Hampson, MD; James R. Holm, MD; and engineer Todd G. Courtney, of the Virginia Mason Center for Hyperbaric Medicine.
Their research casts doubt on the assumption that the risk for CO poisoning inside a residence is eliminated if there is no apparent internal source of the gas. They determined that carbon monoxide from an external source, such as an electrical generator operating in an adjacent apartment or an automobile engine running in an attached garage, can pass through drywall ceilings and walls because gypsum wallboard is highly porous. CO also penetrates painted drywall, albeit more slowly, the researchers determined.
Their study is believed to be the first to examine the ability of carbon monoxide to diffuse through gypsum wallboard. Gypsum particles contain microscopic pores that are many times larger than CO molecules, allowing these dangerous molecules to easily penetrate drywall.
“There are numerous media reports describing simultaneous CO poisonings in different units of multifamily dwellings,” the authors note. Even though carbon monoxide might have traveled through ventilation ducts, hallways, elevator shafts or stairways in some cases, this was not possible in every case due to configurations of the buildings, they add. This raised the question whether CO could pass through drywall.
Many states are enacting legislation mandating residential CO alarms, although some have exempted structures if there is no apparent indoor carbon monoxide source (i.e., fuel-burning appliances, fireplaces, etc.). This action is dangerous, authors of the study caution, because occupants of multifamily dwellings, for example, can bring sources of CO production into their units and put themselves and people in neighboring units in harm’s way.
Since January 2013, Washington state law has required carbon monoxide alarms be installed in most existing single-family homes, as well as hotels, motels and apartments. The alarms must be located outside, and near, each separate sleeping area.
Carbon monoxide poisoning causes about 500 accidental deaths annually in the U.S.
About Virginia Mason Medical Center
Virginia Mason Medical Center, founded in 1920, is a nonprofit regional health care system in Seattle that serves the Pacific Northwest. Virginia Mason employs more than 5,300 people and includes a 336-bed acute-care hospital; a primary and specialty care group practice of more than 460 physicians; satellite locations throughout the Puget Sound area; and Bailey-Boushay House, the first skilled-nursing and outpatient chronic care management program in the U.S. designed and built specifically to meet the needs of people with HIV/AIDS. Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason is internationally recognized for its breakthrough autoimmune disease research. Virginia Mason was the first health system to apply lean manufacturing principles to health care delivery to eliminate waste and improve quality and patient safety.
To learn more about Virginia Mason Medical Center, please visit Facebook.com/VMcares or follow @VirginiaMason on Twitter. To learn how Virginia Mason is transforming health care and to join the conversation, visit our blog at VirginiaMasonBlog.org.
Media Contact:
Gale Robinette
Virginia Mason Media Relations
(206) 341-1509
gale.robinette@vmmc.org

See:

Drywall No Barrier Against CO Poisoning http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/EnvironmentalHealth/41091

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted information about Carbon Monoxide Poisoning:
Frequently Asked Questions

What is carbon monoxide?

Carbon monoxide, or CO, is an odorless, colorless gas that can cause sudden illness and death.
Where is CO found?
CO is found in combustion fumes, such as those produced by cars and trucks, small gasoline engines, stoves, lanterns, burning charcoal and wood, and gas ranges and heating systems. CO from these sources can build up in enclosed or semi-enclosed spaces. People and animals in these spaces can be poisoned by breathing it.
What are the symptoms of CO poisoning?
The most common symptoms of CO poisoning are headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. High levels of CO inhalation can cause loss of consciousness and death. Unless suspected, CO poisoning can be difficult to diagnose because the symptoms mimic other illnesses. People who are sleeping or intoxicated can die from CO poisoning before ever experiencing symptoms.
How does CO poisoning work?
Red blood cells pick up CO quicker than they pick up oxygen. If there is a lot of CO in the air, the body may replace oxygen in blood with CO. This blocks oxygen from getting into the body, which can damage tissues and result in death. CO can also combine with proteins in tissues, destroying the tissues and causing injury and death.

Who is at risk from CO poisoning?

All people and animals are at risk for CO poisoning. Certain groups — unborn babies, infants, and people with chronic heart disease, anemia, or respiratory problems — are more susceptible to its effects. Each year, more than 400 Americans die from unintentional CO poisoning, more than 20,000 visit the emergency room and more than 4,000 are hospitalized due to CO poisoning. Fatality is highest among Americans 65 and older.
How can I prevent CO poisoning from my home appliances?
• Have your heating system, water heater and any other gas, oil, or coal burning appliances serviced by a qualified technician every year.
• Do not use portable flameless chemical heaters (catalytic) indoors. Although these heaters don’t have a flame, they burn gas and can cause CO to build up inside your home, cabin, or camper.
• If you smell an odor from your gas refrigerator’s cooling unit have an expert service it. An odor from the cooling unit of your gas refrigerator can mean you have a defect in the cooling unit. It could also be giving off CO.
• When purchasing gas equipment, buy only equipment carrying the seal of a national testing agency, such as the CSA Group .
• Install a battery-operated or battery back-up CO detector in your home and check or replace the battery when you change the time on your clocks each spring and fall.

How do I vent my gas appliances properly?

• All gas appliances must be vented so that CO will not build up in your home, cabin, or camper.
• Never burn anything in a stove or fireplace that isn’t vented.
• Have your chimney checked or cleaned every year. Chimneys can be blocked by debris. This can cause CO to build up inside your home or cabin.
• Never patch a vent pipe with tape, gum, or something else. This kind of patch can make CO build up in your home, cabin, or camper.
• Horizontal vent pipes to fuel appliances should not be perfectly level. Indoor vent pipes should go up slightly as they go toward outdoors. This helps prevent CO or other gases from leaking if the joints or pipes aren’t fitted tightly.

How can I heat my house safely or cook when the power is out?

• Never use a gas range or oven for heating. Using a gas range or oven for heating can cause a build up of CO inside your home, cabin, or camper.
• Never use a charcoal grill or a barbecue grill indoors. Using a grill indoors will cause a build up of CO inside your home, cabin, or camper unless you use it inside a vented fireplace.
• Never burn charcoal indoors. Burning charcoal — red, gray, black, or white — gives off CO.
• Never use a portable gas camp stove indoors. Using a gas camp stove indoors can cause CO to build up inside your home, cabin, or camper.
• Never use a generator inside your home, basement, or garage or near a window, door, or vent.
How can I avoid CO poisoning from my vehicle?
• Have a mechanic check the exhaust system of my car every year. A small leak in your car’s exhaust system can lead to a build up of CO inside the car.
• Never run a car or truck in the garage with the garage door shut. CO can build up quickly while your car or truck is running in a closed garage. Never run your car or truck inside a garage that is attached to a house and always open the door to any garage to let in fresh air when running a car or truck inside the garage.
• If you drive a vehicle with a tailgate, when you open the tailgate, you also need to open vents or windows to make sure air is moving through your car. If only the tailgate is open CO from the exhaust will be pulled into the car.
http://www.cdc.gov/co/faqs.htm

It is more important than ever for those living in multi-unit homes to have carbon monoxide detectors in each unit.

Consumer Search offers tips about buying a carbon monoxide monitor in How to Buy a Carbon Monoxide Detector:

What the best carbon monoxide detector has
• Audio alarm. Devices certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) have a minimum 85-decibel horn that can be heard within 10 feet.
• Interconnectivity. Interconnecting units are helpful in large homes because they communicate with one another; when one alarm detects a hazard, it triggers them all to sound an alarm. To work properly, all units must be made by the same manufacturer. While traditionally hardwired, battery-operated wireless interconnecting units are now available.
• Five-year sensor lifespan. The sensors on carbon monoxide detectors do wear away over time. Expect your unit to last at least five years. The better models have an end-of-life timer to alert you when the unit needs to be replaced. Kidde’s newest CO detectors, released in March, last for 10 years.
• Long warranty. Carbon monoxide detectors can malfunction, and the best units come with a warranty of at least five to seven years.
• Digital display. UL-certified carbon monoxide detectors are designed to sound an alarm if they sense CO levels of 70 parts per million (ppm) or higher. Exposure of 100 ppm for 20 minutes may not affect healthy adults. However, people with cardiac or respiratory problems, infants, pregnant women and the elderly may be harmed by lower concentrations. A device with a digital display can show these concentrations and give you the peace of mind.
• Testing functionality. CO detectors should be tested once a month. The best detectors have a test/silence button to test the device and also silence the alarm in the event of a false alarm.
Know before you go
What are the regulations in your state or municipality? Most states require a carbon monoxide detector to be installed in new homes or before the sale of a home. Some require hardwired or plug-in units to have battery backup in the case of a power outage. The National Conference of State Legislatures is a good resource for determining what regulations apply to you.
How are your current carbon monoxide detectors installed? Detectors may be hardwired, plugged into an outlet or battery operated, depending on the model. Some plug-in and hardwired units use batteries as a backup during a power failure and will not operate if they are not installed. If your current carbon monoxide detectors are hardwired, you will most likely want to keep that system. Otherwise, battery-operated and plug-in models are the easiest to install.
Do you need a smoke alarm, too? If you also need a smoke alarm, a combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarm might be best. Decide whether you need the smoke alarm to use ionization or photoelectric technology. The U.S. Fire Administration provides background on the different technologies.
How many alarms do you need? CO alarms should be installed in a central location outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home, according to the National Fire Protection Association, which also recommends interconnecting all alarms.
Does your unit meet safety standards? Check to see that the detector is certified by an independent testing agency such as Underwriters Laboratories or Canadian Standards Association.
http://www.consumersearch.com/carbon-monoxide-detectors/how-to-buy-a-carbon-monoxide-detector

The Virginia Mason study shows how important carbon monoxide detectors are.

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

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http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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The 08/20/13 Joy Jar

20 Aug

When walks as opposed to driving or riding on a bus, one notices things. Wood and stone have a beauty that real materials have. There is a beauty to real wood and real wood products. Maybe that is why antiques are so prized is that they are constructed of real materials. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is real wood.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back.
Steve Jobs

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.”
Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree

I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy.”
Albert Einstein

Out of defeat can come the best in human nature. As Christians face storms of adversity, they may rise with more beauty. They are like trees that grow on mountain ridges — battered by winds, yet trees in which we find the strongest wood.”
Billy Graham

“Rotten wood cannot be carved”
Chinese Proverb

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Duke University study: Bullying has life-long effects

20 Aug

1. Violence in America

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) “For both males and females, juvenile arrest rates for simple assault grew substantially through the 1980s and 1990s.” Violent acts committed by girls are increasing according to the OJJP.

• As with aggravated assault, the increase in the female juvenile arrest rate for simple assault over the 28-year period far outpaced the increase in the male rate (284% vs. 101%).
• The disproportionate increase in the female rate narrowed the gender disparity in the simple assault arrest rate. In 1980, the juvenile male arrest rate for simple assault was more than three times the female rate; in 2007, the male rate was about twice the female rate.
• Juvenile male and female simple assault arrest rates both declined by about 3% between 2006 and 2007.
http://books.google.com/books?id=iUDP_RJbSOAC&pg=PA496&lpg=PA496&dq=http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID%3Dqa05241&source=bl&ots=mluu5JyqF7&sig=18jNZDrBiU4ZTk7ebeY2DLRnaU0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4bETUp-pIomMyQHWwYCICg&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=http%3A%2F%2Fojjdp.ncjrs.gov%2Fojstatbb%2Fcrime%2FJAR_Display.asp%3FID%3Dqa05241&f=false

The Disaster Center has crime rates 1960 -2008 http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

The Center for Sport Policy and Conduct (Sport Center) at Indiana University, Bloomington has excellent capsule definitions of violence, aggression, and deviance According to the Sport Center violence is defined as:

Violence can be seen as a form of physical assault based on an intent to injure another person or destroy the property of others. To continue this definition, “violence in sport violates the norms and rules of the contest, threatens lives and property, and usually cannot be anticipated by the persons affected” (Smith, 1983, p. 6).

Aggression is defined as:

Aggression can be generally defined as all behavior intended to destroy another person’s property or to injure another person, physically or psychologically. It has been reported that action has to violate norms and rules shared by society in order to be defined as aggressive. Several experiments (Tedeschi, Gaes, & Rivera, 1977) found that a protagonist who intends to cause injury is only judged by witnesses to be aggressive when his behavior is also judged to be antinormative; in other words, when they are opposing the social rules that apply to that particular situation. Judgment is the same when the action or “intent to injure” constitutes a response to a previous provocation. If, however, the action exceeds the preceding deed, the revenge is viewed as excessive and judged as inappropriate and aggressive.

Deviance is defined as “Deviant behavior is usually that which departs from the norm; anything that goes against the accepted societal standards could be classified as such.” The subject of this article is aggressive behavior in children. http://www.indiana.edu/~cspc/violence.htm

Leo J. Bastiaens, MD and Ida K. Bastiaens wrote an excellent article about youth aggression in the Psychiatric Times. One part of the article looked at the economic impact.

Before taking into account the costs of juvenile justice programs and institutions, youth violence alone costs the United States more than $158 billion each year….
US cities lose nearly $50 billion a year because of crime and violence….Reallocation of resources, new social spending initiatives, programs with a higher quality of care, and a better public health perspective would change the lives of our youths and cut the social cost of juvenile crime in the United States.

2. What is Aggressive Behavior?

Dr. Dianne S. O’Connor lists the following causes of aggressive behavior in children

Genetic and/or temperamental influences.
• Insecure or disorganized attachment patterns.
• Ongoing and unrelieved stress.
• Lack of appropriate problem solving and coping strategies.
• Limited experience with role models (e.g. peers, family members, TV. & computer games) who value and provide examples of non-aggressive behaviors.
• Ineffective parenting style: for example, authoritarian, controlling, harsh or coercive parenting style; permissive, overindulgent parenting style; rejecting parenting style; psychological problems in the parent such as depression or alcoholism.
• Poor fit between parent and child: Ineffective parenting could be an effect rather than a cause of the child’s behavior. Children’s problem behaviors may affect parents’ moods and parenting behaviors.
• Family stress, disruption and conflict. http://www.solutionsforchildproblems.com/aggressive-behavior-children.html

There are certain family and social risk factors which should alert educators and social workers that an early intervention may be needed.
Physorg.Com reports about an University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study which cites early neglect as a predictor of aggressive behavior in children.
Early child neglect may be as important as child abuse for predicting aggressive behavior, researchers say. Neglect accounts for nearly two-thirds of all child maltreatment cases reported in the United States each year, according to the Administration for Children and Families. http://phys.org/news126764603.html

According to Joan Arehart-Treichel’s article in Psychiatric News, aggression comes in four types. She writes about a study project conducted by He was Henri Parens, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.

“Parens and his colleagues not only met with 10 socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers and their 16 infants twice a week over seven years, but have been following up with the mothers and their offspring ever since.” According to Arehart –Treichel, the four types of aggression are
One was a nondestructive aggression, the kind the 5-month-oldgirl had demonstrated. It is children’s attempt to master themselvesand their environment. “This is a magnificent kind of aggression,”Parens said. It represents the kind that drives youngsters toexcel academically, win at sports, climb mountains, and do fantasticthings with their lives. It is inborn and essential for survivaland adaptation. It is the kind of aggression that parents shouldcultivate.
A second kind of aggression is the urge to obtain food. It toois inborn and essential for survival and adaptation.
A third kind of aggression is displeasure-related aggression(say, a temper tantrum or a rage reaction), and a fourth kindof aggression is pleasure-related aggression (for example, teasingand taunting). Neither is inborn; both are hostile aggression,and both are activated by emotional pain. In other words, hurtinga person’s feelings can generate hostile aggression. That istrue for all people. In contrast, people whose feelings arenot hurt will probably not engage in hostile aggression.
According to Parens’ observations a good deal of the aggression behavior observed in the children in the study was related to how their parents treated them.

3. Aggressive Behavior in Boys

PBS has a good description of aggression in boys and what characteristics are normal and not necessarily cause for concern.

Why do boys become aggressive? Sometimes boys are aggressive because they are frustrated or because they want to win. Sometimes they are just angry and can’t find another way to express that feeling. And some may behave aggressively, but they’re not aggressive all the time.

An active boy is not necessarily an aggressive one. “We often see young boys playing out aggressive themes. It’s only a problem when it gets out of control,” comments Thompson.

Competition, power and success are the true stuff of boys’ play. Many young boys see things in competitive terms and play games like “I can make my marble roll faster than yours,” “my tower is taller than yours” and “I can run faster than you.” But these games of power and dominance are not necessarily aggressive unless they are intended to hurt.

Fantasy play is not aggressive. A common boy fantasy about killing bad guys and saving the world is just as normal as a common girl fantasy about tucking in animals and putting them to bed. “Most boys will pick up a pretzel and pretend to shoot with it,” comments teacher Jane Katch. “If a boy is playing a game about super heroes, you might see it as violent. But the way he sees it, he’s making the world safe from the bad guys. This is normal and doesn’t indicate that anything is wrong unless he repeatedly hurts or tries to dominate the friends he plays with. And sometimes an act that feels aggressive to one child was actually intended to be a playful action by the child who did it. When this happens in my class, we talk about it, so one child can understand that another child’s experience may be different than his own. This is the way empathy develops.”

Only a small percentage of boys’ behavior is truly aggressive. While “all boys have normal aggressive impulses which they learn to control, only a small percentage are overly aggressive and have chronic difficulty controlling those impulses,” says Michael Thompson, Ph.D. These are the boys who truly confuse fantasy with reality, and frequently hit, punch, and bully other kids. They have a lack of impulse control and cannot stop themselves from acting out. “They cannot contain their anger and have little control over their physical behavior and this is when intervention by parent or teacher is needed,” says Thompson. http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys/aggression02.html

The key point is a lot of behavior, which is normal activity for most boys is not unacceptable aggression and should not trigger the use of medication for behavior which is within the normal range.

4. Aggressive Behavior in Girls

Dr. Nicki Crick, of the University of Minnesota has studied aggression in girls. Her work in the field of relationalship aggression is summarized:

Most studies about aggressive behavior in children have focused on boys and on physical expressions of aggression. “It gave the appearance that girls really were sugar and spice and everything nice,” says Nicki Crick, professor of child development. “But I didn’t believe that was really the case.”

For more than six years, Crick has been conducting longitudinal studies of relational aggression, witnessed mainly in girls. Rather than physically harming others, relationally aggressive children will threaten such retaliations as: “Do this or I won’t be your friend.” Or: “If you don’t help me, I’ll tell Amy you said she was ugly….”
What the research shows

Some of Crick’s early research findings show relational aggression is related to factors such as particular types of family relationships and relationships with friends and other peers. She is especially interested in children whose aggression is gender-atypical—that is, girls who are physically aggressive and boys who are relationally aggressive.

“These kids seem to be the most at-risk for more serious social problems later in life,” she says. “The most apparent reason is that not only does their aggressive behavior make them less popular, but the fact that they’re perceived by their peers as acting inappropriately for their gender further isolates them.” http://www.cehd.umn.edu/research/highlights/

See, Gender Differences in Aggressive Behavior As with boys, Purposeful harm to another person is never acceptable. http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:HVqHYnOU0cUJ:www.melissainstitute.org/documents/2006/Meich_06_genderdifferences.PDF+what+are+the+signs+of+aggressive+behavior+in+boys&cd=23&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Geoffrey Mohan wrote in the Los Angeles Times article, Children bullied in school may have more problems as adults:

Bullying doesn’t end in the school yard, but casts a shadow across adulthood, when victims are far more likely to have emotional, behavioral, financial and health problems, a new study suggests.
Those who were both victim and perpetrator as schoolchildren fared the worst as adults: they were more than six times more likely to be diagnosed with a serious illness or psychiatric disorder, and to smoke regularly, according to the study published Monday in the journal Psychological Science.
The poor results for victims and victim-perpetrators prevailed even when such factors as family hardship and childhood psychiatric disorders were statistically controlled.
Victim-perpetrators are “the most socially defeated because they actually do try to fight back but they’re unsuccessful,” said Dieter Wolke, a University of Warwick psychologist and lead author of the study.
Bullies tended to enter adulthood with similar problems as their victims, but few of those adult outcomes were strongly correlated with bullying itself, the study found. Those correlations tended to wash out once other factors were taken into account, said Wolke. Bullies tended to engage in more risky behavior and to have criminal records.
The result for bullies is supported by previous work, which suggests they are strong and healthy, competent in emotional recognition and adept at manipulating others. Victims aside, bullies tend to have more acquaintances and social status, previous studies have shown…. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-bullying-adults-20130818,0,1131499.story

Here is the press release from Duke:

Bullied children can suffer lasting psychological harm as adults
About This Article
Article Details
Published: Feb. 20, 2013
Updated: Feb. 20, 2013
For Journalists
Reporters & producers can visit Duke Medicine News and Communications for contact information.
Contact Duke Medicine News and Communications
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By Duke Medicine News and Communications
DURHAM, NC – Bullied children grow into adults who are at increased risk of developing anxiety disorders, depression and suicidal thoughts, according to a study led by researchers at Duke Medicine.

The findings, based on more than 20 years of data from a large group of participants initially enrolled as adolescents, are the most definitive to date in establishing the long-term psychological effects of bullying.

Published online Feb. 20, 2013, in JAMA Psychiatry, the study belies a common perception that bullying, while hurtful, inflicts a fleeting injury that victims outgrow.

“We were surprised at how profoundly bullying affects a person’s long-term functioning,” said William E. Copeland, PhD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University and lead author of the study. “This psychological damage doesn’t just go away because a person grew up and is no longer bullied. This is something that stays with them. If we can address this now, we can prevent a whole host of problems down the road.”

A previous longitudinal study of bullied children, conducted in Finland, found mixed results, concluding that boys had few lasting problems, while girls suffered more long-term psychological harm. That study, however, relied on registry data in the health system that didn’t fully capture psychiatric records.

Copeland and colleagues had a much richer data set. Using the Great Smoky Mountain Study, the research team tapped a population-based sample of 1,420 children ages 9, 11 and 13 from 11 counties in western North Carolina. Initially enrolled in 1993, the children and their parents or caregivers were interviewed annually until the youngsters turned 16, and then periodically thereafter.

At each assessment until age 16, the child and caregiver were asked, among other things, whether the child had been bullied or teased or had bullied others in the three months immediately prior to the interview.

A total of 421 child or adolescent participants – 26 percent of the children – reported being bullied at least once; 887 said they suffered no such abuse. Boys and girls reported incidents at about the same rate. Nearly 200 youngsters, or 9.5 percent, acknowledged bullying others; 112 were bullies only, while 86 were both bullies and victims.

Of the original 1,420 children, more than 1,270 were followed up into adulthood. The subsequent interviews included questions about the participants’ psychological health.

As adults, those who said they had been bullied, plus those who were both victims and aggressors, were at higher risk for psychiatric disorders compared with those with no history of being bullied. The young people who were only victims had higher levels of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety, panic disorder and agoraphobia.

Those who were both bullies and victims had higher levels of all anxiety and depressive disorders, plus the highest levels of suicidal thoughts, depressive disorders, generalized anxiety and panic disorder. Bullies were also at increased risk for antisocial personality disorder.

The researchers were able to sort out confounding factors that might have contributed to psychiatric disorders, including poverty, abuse and an unstable or dysfunctional home life.

“Bullying is potentially a problem for bullies as well as for victims,” said senior author E. Jane Costello, PhD, associate director of research at Duke’s Center for Child and Family Policy. “Bullying, which we tend to think of as a normal and not terribly important part of childhood, turns out to have the potential for very serious consequences for children, adolescents and adults.”

Costello and Copeland said they would continue their analysis, with future studies exploring the role sexual orientation plays in bullying and victimization.

In addition to Costello and Copeland, study authors include Adrian Angold of Duke and Dieter Wolke of the University of Warwick, Coventry, England.

The work received support from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH63970, MH63671, and MH48085); the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA/MH11301); the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation; and the William T. Grant Foundation.

As with many problems, the key is early diagnosis and intervention with appropriate treatment. Purposeful harm to another person is never acceptable.

Related:

Dr. Wilda Reviews: children’s book: ‘Bully Bean’ https://drwilda.com/2013/08/18/dr-wilda-reviews-childrens-book-bully-bean/

Kids need to tell teachers and schools when they are bullied https://drwilda.com/2013/04/08/kids-need-to-tell-teachers-and-schools-when-they-are-bullied/

Massachusetts Aggression Center study: Cyberbullying and elementary school children https://drwilda.com/2013/07/30/massachusetts-aggression-center-study-cuberbullying-and-elementary-school-children/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

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The 08/19/13 Joy Jar

19 Aug

This wonderful Seattle summer actually had what the meteorologists call measurable precipitation. Rain in Seattle means the air gets cleaned. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is clean air.

Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.
Albert Camus

“The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.”
Elizabeth I Tudor, Letters

“oxygen

Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine

stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a

stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your

right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a

beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know

where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except

everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles

to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.”
Mary Oliver, Thirst

“What keeps earth air breathable? Not oxygen alone. The earth is a freer place to breathe in, every time you love without calculating a return — every time you make your drudgeries and routines still more inefficient by stopping to experience the shock of beauty wherever it unpredictably flickers.”
Peter Viereck, Unadjusted Man in the Age of Overadjustment: Where History and Literature Intersect

“To keep the air fresh among words is the secret of verbal cleanliness.”
Dejan Stojanovic

“Water belongs to us all. Nature did not make the sun one person’s property, nor air, nor water, cool and clear.”
Michael Simpson, The Metamorphoses of Ovid

“The demons don’t like fresh air. What they like best is if you stay in bed with cold feet.”
Bergman, Ingmar

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Georgia Tech offers a cost-saving ‘MOOC’ computer science degree option

19 Aug

Moi has posted quite a bit about “massive online open courses” or MOOCs. In Can free online universities change the higher education model?
Beckie Supiano and Elyse Ashburn have written With New Lists, Federal Government Moves to Help Consumers and Prod Colleges to Limit Price Increases http://chronicle.com/article/Governments-New-Lists-on/128092/ in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the U.S. Department of Education’s new site about college costs. As college becomes more unaffordable for more and more people, they are looking at alternatives to college.

Tamar Lewin wrote in the new York Times article, Master’s Degree Is New Frontier of Study Online:

Next January, the Georgia Institute of Technology plans to offer a master’s degree in computer science through massive open online courses for a fraction of the on-campus cost, a first for an elite institution. If it even approaches its goal of drawing thousands of students, it could signal a change to the landscape of higher education.
From their start two years ago, when a free artificial intelligence course from Stanford enrolled 170,000 students, free massive open online courses, or MOOCs, have drawn millions and yielded results like the perfect scores of Battushig, a 15-year-old Mongolian boy, in a tough electronics course offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But the courses have not yet produced profound change, partly because they offer no credit and do not lead to a degree. The disruption may be approaching, though, as Georgia Tech, which has one of the country’s top computer science programs, plans to offer a MOOC-based online master’s degree in computer science for $6,600 — far less than the $45,000 on-campus price….
The plan is for Georgia Tech to provide the content and professors and to get 60 percent of the revenue, and for Udacity to offer the computer platform, provide course assistants and receive the other 40 percent. The projected budget for the test run starting in January is $3.1 million — including $2 million donated by AT&T, which will use the program to train employees and find potential hires — with $240,000 in profits. By the third year, the projection is for $14.3 million in costs and $4.7 million in profits.
The courses will be online and free for those not seeking a degree; those in the degree program will take proctored exams and have access to tutoring, online office hours and other support services. Students who cannot meet the program’s stringent admission standards may be admitted provisionally and allowed to transfer in if they do well in their first two courses. And students who complete only a few courses would get a certificate.
“This is all uncharted territory, so no one really knows if it will go to scale,” Dr. Galil said. “We just want to prove that it can be done, to make a high-quality degree program available for a low cost.”
Would such a program cannibalize campus enrollment? “Frankly,” he said, “nobody knows.”
Not everyone believes that such a degree program will be sustainable, or that it would even be a step forward.
“The whole MOOC mania has got everyone buzzing in academia, but scaling is a great challenge,” said Bruce Chaloux, the executive director of the Sloan Consortium, an advocacy group for online education. “I have to believe that at some point, when the underwriting ends, to keep to keep high quality, Georgia Tech would have to float to more traditional tuition rates.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/education/masters-degree-is-new-frontier-of-study-online.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=US_MDI_20130819&_r=0

Doug Ward posted the article, Why Online Education Has Gained Revolutionary Momentum at PBS Media Shift:

The rush to create large, free online classes has generated anxiety at universities around the country. With finances already tight and with a surge of movement toward online learning, universities are being forced to move quickly to change centuries-old models of learning. Terms like historic,seismic and revolutionary now pop up in descriptions of the challenges that higher education faces in the coming years….
Technology leads the way
Internet connections, computers and cellphones have become faster and cheaper, providing easier access to online material and creating the potential to speak with, work with, and learn from nearly anyone in the world. Information, once something people had to seek out, now flows relentlessly to them. In education, lecture capture and lesson creation have become easier and cheaper, and online storage has made retrieval cheap and easy. Free tools like Moodle, Jing, YouTube, and Twitter have provided new means of information sharing and collaboration. Smartphones and the iPad have provided portable means of accessing and creating information, making learning more portable than ever…
College costs have skyrocketed
The expense of higher education has risen more than 550 percent since 1985, pricing many students out of the market even as a college degree becomes more important than ever for reaching the middle class. At the same time, the cost of technology has dropped, allowing more people easier access to the Internet and to resources for learning….
Convenience attracts students online
Online and hybrid education offers students freedom to work through course material when and where they want, and at their own pace, repeating material if needed, and reducing the amount of time they sit passively in large lectures…
Teachers innovate for a digital generation
Educators have been experimenting with technology, sharing ideas and collaborating as they try to find ways to reach a generation of students that has grown up with computers, cell phones, Xboxes, Nintendo and other electronics. K-12 schools, especially, have shown increased interest in using games, phones, iPads and other unconventional means to engage students in the classroom. Social media have accelerated the spread of ideas, spurring even more innovation.
Online and hybrid education offers new means of engaging students through interactive lessons, videos, animations, games, discussion boards and chats. These are all familiar and comfortable technologies for a generation of students that has grown up with ubiquitous technology….
Digital education offers a broad reach
Online education allows universities to reach students who can’t or don’t want to move to a physical campus, eliminating physical boundaries for recruitment and making nearly anyone anywhere a potential student.
Distance education is nothing new. It has existed for more than a century in the form of correspondence courses taken by mail. Radio and television allowed educational material, often lectures, to be broadcast, and educational shows such as “Sesame Street” combined education and entertainment…
For-profit colleges compete for students
The University of Phoenix and other for-profit colleges have attracted millions of students and millions of dollars in tuition with online courses. This has caught the attention of traditional colleges and universities, which see many potential students slipping away. Some critics of traditional education have even indicated that a degree matters less than tangible skills, and have suggested using certificates, badges and other means as a way to authenticate those skills….
Big online courses gain notoriety
New organizations such as Coursera and edX have made headlines by attracting large numbers of students, large investments of capital, and commitments from big-name universities. That has increased the buzz about online and hybrid education, especially as new deals have been struck and new money has flowed to the organizations.
The success of large online courses, or MOOCs (for massive open online courses), at attracting students and capital, and the success of for-profit colleges have sent many colleges and universities scrambling to avoid the perception that they lack vision or the ability to change in an era of digital learning. No university wants to look like an also-ran….
College budgets keep shrinking
Administrators are looking to online education and technology in general as a means to save money. Budgets have been squeezed, especially at public institutions, even as fixed costs remain high.
Bowen and his colleagues at Ithaka S+R offer one of the more persuasive arguments about potential cost savings through more efficient use of technology, personnel, and facilities. Upfront costs are higher as courses are developed, they say, but once a hybrid course is created by a faculty member, additional sections can be added using less-expensive adjuncts and teaching assistants….
Where is this headed?
The move toward technology-aided learning will only accelerate in coming years. Many K-12 schools have been investing heavily in tablets and other technology in hopes of reducing costs on textbooks.
Others have embraced a bring-your-own-device model, which draws on students’ growing ownership and use of cell phones, laptop computers and tablets. Many schools are also investing in tools such as lecture capture, high-speed wireless networks, cloud computing, and social networking, and combining technology-aided education with classroom work.
Despite these many changes, online education is unlikely to push aside a traditional four-year on-campus degree in the near future. That “college experience” allows students to make connections with faculty members, to work closely with peers and teachers, to improve their critical thinking, and, perhaps most importantly, to mature as they live away from home for the first time. With technology changing the way younger students learn, though, and with more new options for learning popping up constantly, universities have no choice but to adapt and make it clear to students what they offer over the myriad online alternatives.
Doug Ward is an associate professor of journalism and the Budig Professor of Writing at the University of Kansas. He is the author of “A New Brand of Business: Charles Coolidge Parlin, Curtis Publishing Company, and the Origins of Market Research” and a former editor at The New York Times. You can find him online at http://www.kuediting.com and http://www.journalismtech.com, and follow him on Twitter@kuediting. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/09/why-online-education-has-gained-revolutionary-momentum255.html

With any education opportunity the prospective student and their family must do their homework and weigh the pros and cons of the institution with with the student’s goals and objectives. In answer to the question of whether online college is a threat to traditional bricks and mortar universities, it depends. The market will answer that question because many students do not attend college to receive a liberal arts education, but to increase employment opportunities. If the market accepts badges and certificates, then colleges may be forced to look at the costs associated with a traditional college degree.

Related:
Verifying identity for online courses https://drwilda.com/2012/04/15/verifying-identity-for-online-courses/

Will ‘massive open online courses’ (MOOCS) begin to offer credit?

Will ‘massive open online courses’ (MOOCS) begin to offer credit?

Is online higher ed a threat to bricks and mortar colleges?

Is online higher ed a threat to bricks and mortar colleges?

MOOCs are trying to discover a business model which works https://drwilda.com/2013/07/21/moocs-are-trying-to-discover-a-business-model-which-works/

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The 08/18/13 Joy Jar

18 Aug

Moi is three quarters through the ‘Joy Jar’ project. She began the project when the Mayan end of the world thingie went up in smoke. The goal was to find something every day to be grateful for. Some days were easier than others. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is perseverance.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
Maya Angelou

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Confucius

“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
Winston Churchill

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Thomas A. Edison

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
Abraham Lincoln

“When you get to the end of your rope. Tie a knot and hang on.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
Marie Curie

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.
Lao Tzu

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Nelson Mandela

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Dr. Wilda Reviews children’s book: ‘Bimbambu’

18 Aug

Moi received a complimentary copy of ‘Bimbambu.’ Here is information about ‘Bimbambu’:

Author: Ileana L. Katzenelson
Artist: Sean Brown
Graphic Designer: Yael Sela
Publisher: Soul Prints Press
ISBN: 978-0-9859334-0-1

Bimbambu’s teaching begins with the cover. The reader,who is age three and above is treated to a beautiful soaring bird, who is happy. The cover is colorful and sure to attract attention.

The text is simple, yet packed with so much meaning and it flows in a way that makes it easy for children to understand. The press material describes the book:

Bimbambu is a bird that understands the needs of others. It is his nature to be compassionate and giving.
Bimbambu teaches the child in all of us about values.

UNESCO describes “Values Education”

ntroduction
The values and attitudes we live by affect how we relate to other people and to all our activities in the environment, and so are a major influence on our prospects for achieving a sustainable future.
Although they cannot be separated from cognitive understanding, values and attitudes relate to the affective (or emotional) dimension of human behaviour. While values and attitudes are similar in this regard, they differ in several important ways.
• Values are generally long-term standards or principles that are used to judge the worth of an idea or action. They provide the criteria by which we decide whether something is good or bad, right or wrong.
• Attitudes predispose us to respond in particular ways to people and events. They are not so deeply felt as values and quite often change as a result of experience.
This module provides an opportunity to consider the importance of human values and attitudes in shaping the future. It also provides ideas and examples for two categories of strategies for exploring values in the classroom – values clarification and values analysis.
Objectives
• To develop an understanding of values education strategies;
• To consider the relation between values and personal behaviour affecting the achievement of sustainable futures;
• To reflect on your futures awareness, commitment and actions; and
• To develop skills for using values clarification and values analysis in teaching. http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_d/mod22.html

Bimbambu has been published by Souls Print Press.

Here is a bit about Souls Print Press:

Soul Prints Press is a publishing company that aims to entertain kids while teaching them at the same time.
We are interested in books that aim to gently guide kids to have a moral compass, to act for the best and highest good of all and to better humankind. The focus is books that direct kids to act in a way that is considerate of others, and that show that other people matter. Kids are constant teachers, and adults often forget things that children still remember; therefore, it is wonderful to have an opportunity to be reminded of the multiple lessons that children can teach us with their innocence, honesty and pure hearts. Kids have not yet been conditioned by society to be a certain way. They are naturally curious, spontaneous and optimistic. Children naturally see the good in others and see everything with a fresh perspective. The stories published by this new company will aim to remind adults of all these qualities that are so natural in children, and to see things from the perspective of a child.
http://www.bimbambu.com/about-us/

Souls Print Press accomplished their objective with Bimbambu. For another great book by Soul Print Press, see Dr. Wilda Reviews: children’s book: Bully Bean http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/dr-wilda-reviews-childrens-book-bully-bean/

Bimbambu is published on sturdy paper stock. The illustrations are beautifully drawn with bright colors and present enough movement for the small child’s eye, yet the composition appeals to adults as well. Bimbambu is a happy bird throughout the book, even when he is down to his last feather. Bimbambu is happy in his generosity and his generosity blesses him with many friends. His friends of all diverse types respond to his generosity as well. This is a very sweet story for children of all ages.

This is a Dr. Wilda Reviews Best Pick with a definite thumbs up.

Other Reviews:
Bimbambu Reviewed By Conny Crisalli of Bookpleasures.com http://www.bookpleasures.com/websitepublisher/articles/6316/1/Bimbambu-Reviewed-By-Conny-Crisalli-of-Bookpleasurescom/Page1.html
Bimbambu http://connywithay.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/bimbambu/

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Dr. Wilda Reviews: children’s book: ‘Bully Bean’

18 Aug

Moi received a complimentary copy of Bully Bean. Here is information about Bully Bean:

Authors: Thomas Weck and Peter Weck
Illustrator: Len Di Salvo
Publisher: Lima bean Press
ISBN: 978-1-933872-05-6

2.5 Kids blog answered the question at what age do children start bullying?

Bullying Starts as Early as 6 Years Old
Usually bullying can start as early as 6 years old, but even earlier depending on what experiences a child has been exposed to.
For instance, if a child with an aggressive personality is exposed to violence in the home at a very early age, he or she could begin bullying as young as 4, when empathy is still being formed. http://2point5kids.com/bullying/at-what-age-does-bullying-start/

Bully Bean is not only a timely, but necessary book. It is aimed at children from ages 4 to 8.
Bully Bean teaches the child in all of us about values and the fact that bullies are neither happy nor successful.

UNESCO describes “Values Education”

Introduction
The values and attitudes we live by affect how we relate to other people and to all our activities in the environment, and so are a major influence on our prospects for achieving a sustainable future.
Although they cannot be separated from cognitive understanding, values and attitudes relate to the affective (or emotional) dimension of human behaviour. While values and attitudes are similar in this regard, they differ in several important ways.
• Values are generally long-term standards or principles that are used to judge the worth of an idea or action. They provide the criteria by which we decide whether something is good or bad, right or wrong.
• Attitudes predispose us to respond in particular ways to people and events. They are not so deeply felt as values and quite often change as a result of experience.
This module provides an opportunity to consider the importance of human values and attitudes in shaping the future. It also provides ideas and examples for two categories of strategies for exploring values in the classroom – values clarification and values analysis.
Objectives
• To develop an understanding of values education strategies;
• To consider the relation between values and personal behaviour affecting the achievement of sustainable futures;
• To reflect on your futures awareness, commitment and actions; and
• To develop skills for using values clarification and values analysis in teaching. http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_d/mod22.html

Here is information about Lima Bear Press:

Lima Bear® Press has a very straightforward mission: to publish children’s stories that are, engaging, imaginative, and humorous while each carries an important life message such as tolerance, honesty, courage and the like.
In the 10-book series entitled The Lima Bear Stories, as the basic characters appear and reappear, each has a distinct personality that shines through in every story. While the children have no idea what twists and turns the story may take, they come to know the characters and have a pretty good idea of how they are likely to act in different situations and settings. In essence, the children become friends with the characters. There is a form of bonding that develops. Each story carries an important overriding message (such as courage, tolerance, honesty), and we believe that this bonding creates a more profound understanding and appreciation of the message. http://limabearpress.com/index.html

Lima Bear Press accomplished their objective with Bully Bean. For another great book about values, see Dr. Wilda Reviews: children’s book: Bimbambu. http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/dr-wilda-reviews-childrens-book-bimbambu/

The press material describes the reason the authors wrote Bully Bean:

From a young age, children are exposed to the harsh and unfair aspects of being bullied. It is sometimes hard for adults to understand how vulnerable all kids are to bullying. Children and parents struggle to figure out the best way of handling bullying situations.

Bully Bean is a wonderful story told in a way in which children can relate to. Children can see that the beans are a diverse group and because of their differences, some beans are treated differently than others. Bully Bean, the largest bean, has to learn to see how his size and strength can be used in positive ways. Along with the theme that bullying is wrong, another theme is forgiveness. That is something that all the beans have to learn and that allows them to go forward with building a better community for all beans.

The cover provides a good introduction to the story. The text flows and there is a little rhyme which ties the story together. Bully Bean is printed on high quality paper and children are sure to treasure the book and the message. It is just a beautiful little book.

This is a Dr. Wilda Reviews Best Pick with a definite thumbs up.

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Dr. Wilda Reviews: ‘All I Could Be: My Story as a Woman Warrior in Iraq’

17 Aug

Moi received a complimentary copy of ‘All I Could Be: My Story as a Woman Warrior in Iraq.’ Here is the information about the book:

Title: ‘All I Could Be: My Story as a Woman Warrior in Iraq’

Author: Miyoko Hikiji

Publisher: History Publishing Company, 2013

ISBN: 978-1—933909-52-3 (hc); 1-933909-52-8 (sc-10-digit); 978-1-933909-86-8(ebk.); 1-933909-51-X (ebk. 10-digit)

This is a quintessential American story. In fact moi thinks this quote from quintessential American, President Truman sets the tone for this review:

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

Harry S. Truman

In so many ways, Ms. Hikiji embodies that quote.

The purpose for this memoir is is to tell her story. In the introduction, Hikiji writes:

THIS IS MY WAR STORY. IT’S PART MILITARY HISTORY, PART personal revelation, part therapy. To the best of my abilities, I recounted the events of my 2003-2004 deployment to Iraq from over a thousand pages of letters, mission notes, photos and newspaper articles. Though it maintains a high degree of factual integrity, my story is partly a creative endeavor and solely my own truth.

Hikiji’s story is not only personal, but it gives the reader a personal glimpse into a moment in U.S. history. She describes Iraq as a “beautiful hell.”

The book is a series of episodes and moments in time which do not necessarily occur in chronological order, it is not linear. The reader doesn’t mind the episodic treatment because the book flows and is very easy to read.

The book helps the reader to understand the effect of war on our military, but it gives an understanding of Hikiji’s blended background. Her father is Japanese and her mother is a Caucasian from Iowa. The family eventually settled in Iowa and the history of being one of the few families of color in their Iowa city is described. Race is one of the threads which gave Ms. Hikiji her grit and determination. At page 83 there is a wonderful recounting of Asian and military culture.

One of the key themes of the book was how women soldiers were viewed in military culture by others and by each woman. At page 29, Hikiji wrote:

As a “female” soldier I was always unequal and inadequate, overlooked and underestimated. I was denied my due recognition as a soldier, yet I soldiered on to the end of my enlistment contract. Despite their best efforts, the men never convinced me I was anything less. They could not reverse the previous eighteen years of conditioning that had truly prepared me for my soldierhood.

The author’s family history gave her the ability to work hard under trying circumstances and her Asian background gave her the ability to look beyond personal slights and still be loyal to the cause. This trait she apparently got from her father. His experiences at Quaker Oats were described at page 32.

The book is well written and will keep the reader’s attention. This is an American story which weaves together the themes of family, both personal and military, race, gender, history, and the fact that ordinary people can do extraordinary things within the course of a life. President Truman was right in saying that an American is someone who believes that “everyone deserves an even break.” The men and women of the military, especially the 2133rd Transportation Company, Iowa National Guard, were examples of what President Truman meant.

This is a Dr. Wilda Reviews Best Pick with a definite thumbs up.

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Study: Consumption of soft drinks may be linked to aggression in children

17 Aug

Melissa Pandika wrote in the Los Angeles Times article, Soda linked to behavioral problems in young children, study says:

Soda has already been blamed for making kids obese. New research blames the sugary drinks for behavioral problems in children too.
Analyzing data from 2,929 families, researchers linked soda consumption to aggression, attention problems and social withdrawal in 5-year-olds. They published their findings in the Journal of Pediatrics on Friday.
Although earlier studies have shown an association between soft-drink consumption and aggression in teens, none had investigated whether a similar relationship existed in younger children.
To that end, Columbia University epidemiologist Shakira Suglia and her colleagues examined data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which followed 2,929 mother-child pairs in 20 large U.S. cities from the time the children were born. The study, run by Columbia and Princeton University, collected information through surveys the mothers completed periodically over several years.
In one survey, mothers answered questions about behavior problems in their children. They also reported how much soda their kids drank on a typical day.
Suglia and her colleagues found that even at the young age of 5, 43% of the kids consumed at least one serving of soda per day, and 4% drank four servings or more.
The more soda kids drank, the more likely their mothers were to report that the kids had problems with aggression, withdrawal and staying focused on a task. For instance, children who downed four or more servings of soda per day were more than twice as likely to destroy others’ belongings, get into fights and physically attack people, compared with kids who didn’t drink soda at all.
Even after adjusting for the potential influence of socioeconomic factors, maternal depression, intimate partner violence and other environmental variables, the researchers still saw a strong association between soda consumption and behavior. “That was pretty striking to us,” Suglia said.http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-soda-aggression-behavioral-problems-children-20130816,0,3247341.story

Citation:

Soft Drinks Consumption Is Associated with Behavior Problems in 5-Year-Olds
Shakira F. Suglia, ScD1, Sara Solnick, PhD2, and David Hemenway, PhD3
Objective
To examine soda consumption and aggressive behaviors, attention problems, and withdrawal behavior among 5-year-old children.
Study design
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is a prospective birth cohort study that follows a sample of mother-child pairs from 20 large US cities. Mothers reported children’s behaviors using the Child Behavior Checklist at age 5 years and were asked to report how many servings of soda the child drinks on a typical day.
Results In the sample of 2929 children, 52% were boys, 51% were African-American, 43% consumed at least one serving of soda per day, and 4% consumed 4 or more servings per day. In analyses adjusted for sociodemographic factors, consuming one (beta, 0.7; 95% CI, 0.1-1.4), 2 (beta, 1.8; 95% CI, 0.8-2.7), 3 (beta, 2.0; 95% CI, 0.6-3.4), or 4 or more (beta, 4.7; 95% CI, 3.2-6.2) servings was associated with a higher aggressive behavior score compared with consuming no soda. Furthermore, those who consumed 4 or more (beta, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.0-2.4) soda servings had higher scores on the attention problems subscale. Higher withdrawn behavior scores were noted among those consuming 2 (beta, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.3-1.8) or 4 or more (beta, 2.0; 95% CI, 0.8-3.1) soda servings compared with those who consumed no soda.
Conclusion
Wenote an association between soda consumption and negative behavioramong very young children; future studies should explore potential mechanisms that could explain this association. (J Pediatr 2013;-:—).
Americans buy more soda per capita than people in any other country worldwide.1 Even very young children consume soft drinks. For example, national surveys of US children aged 4-5 years fromthe mid-1990s found that, on average, they consumed 11 g of added sugar per day from regular (ie, nondiet) soft drinks alone, which corresponds to 25% of a 12-oz can.2 In California, a 2005 survey found that more than 40% of children aged 2-11 years drank at least 1 serving of soda per day.3
Among adolescents, consuming soft drinks is associated with aggression,4,5 as well as with depression and suicidal thoughts, and withdrawal behavior (Hemenway et al, unpublished data, 2013).5-7 Previous studies using data from national high school surveys found a dose-response relationship between the amount of soft drinks consumed and both self-harm and aggression toward others. Despite the fact that young children also are consuming soft drinks, the relationship between soda consumption and behavior has not been evaluated in this age group.
Numerous factors may affect both soda consumption and problem behavior in children. Poor dietary choices, such as high soda consumption, in young children may be associated with other parenting practices, such as excessive television (TV) viewing and high consumption of other sweets. Furthermore, parenting practices may be associated with social factors known to be associated with child behavior. The relationship between a stressful home environment and child behavior is well known; for example, children who are victims of violent acts or who witness violence have been found to have more externalizing and internalizing behavior problems and more aggression problems, and to show signs of posttraumatic stress disorder.8-10 Moreover, caretaker mental health can be a strong contributor to problems in children through its effects on parenting quality and overall home environment.11 Children of depressed mothers have been shown to develop more social and emotional problems during childhood, including internalizing and externalizing problems.12 Thus, it is possible that observed associations between behavior and soda consumption in adolescents can be attributed to unadjusted social risk factors.
In the present study, we investigated the effect of soda consumption on behavior,
specifically aggression, attention, and withdrawal behaviors, in a sample of almost 3000 5-year-old children from urban areas across the US. Considering that other dietary factors may be associated with both soda consumption and behavior, we adjusted our analyses for other dietary components as well as for social risk factors that may be associated with parenting practices as well as child behavior.
From the
1Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY;
2Department of Economics, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT; and 3Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human

The Center for Sport Policy and Conduct (Sport Center) at Indiana University, Bloomington has excellent capsule definitions of violence, aggression, and deviance According to the Sport Center violence is defined as:

Violence can be seen as a form of physical assault based on an intent to injure another person or destroy the property of others. To continue this definition, “violence in sport violates the norms and rules of the contest, threatens lives and property, and usually cannot be anticipated by the persons affected” (Smith, 1983, p. 6). http://www.indiana.edu/~cspc/violence.htm

Aggression is defined as:

Aggression can be generally defined as all behavior intended to destroy another person’s property or to injure another person, physically or psychologically. It has been reported that action has to violate norms and rules shared by society in order to be defined as aggressive. Several experiments (Tedeschi, Gaes, & Rivera, 1977) found that a protagonist who intends to cause injury is only judged by witnesses to be aggressive when his behavior is also judged to be antinormative; in other words, when they are opposing the social rules that apply to that particular situation. Judgment is the same when the action or “intent to injure” constitutes a response to a previous provocation. If, however, the action exceeds the preceding deed, the revenge is viewed as excessive and judged as inappropriate and aggressive.

Deviance is defined as “Deviant behavior is usually that which departs from the norm; anything that goes against the accepted societal standards could be classified as such.” The subject of this article is aggressive behavior in children.

Leo J. Bastiaens, MD and Ida K. Bastiaens wrote an excellent article about youth aggression in the Psychiatric Times. One part of the article looked at the economic impact.

Before taking into account the costs of juvenile justice programs and institutions, youth violence alone costs the United States more than $158 billion each year….
US cities lose nearly $50 billion a year because of crime and violence….Reallocation of resources, new social spending initiatives, programs with a higher quality of care, and a better public health perspective would change the lives of our youths and cut the social cost of juvenile crime in the United States. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/51911?verify=0

What is Aggressive Behavior?

Dr. Dianne S. O’Connor lists the following causes of aggressive behavior in children

• Genetic and/or temperamental influences.
• Insecure or disorganized attachment patterns.
• Ongoing and unrelieved stress.
• Lack of appropriate problem solving and coping strategies.
• Limited experience with role models (e.g. peers, family members, TV. & computer games) who value and provide examples of non-aggressive behaviors.
• Ineffective parenting style: for example, authoritarian, controlling, harsh or coercive parenting style; permissive, overindulgent parenting style; rejecting parenting style; psychological problems in the parent such as depression or alcoholism.
• Poor fit between parent and child: Ineffective parenting could be an effect rather than a cause of the child’s behavior. Children’s problem behaviors may affect parents’ moods and parenting behaviors.
• Family stress, disruption and conflict. http://www.solutionsforchildproblems.com/aggressive-behavior-children.html

There are certain family and social risk factors which should alert educators and social workers that an early intervention may be needed.

Physorg.Com reports about an University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study which cites early neglect as a predictor of aggressive behavior in children.

Early child neglect may be as important as child abuse for predicting aggressive behavior, researchers say. Neglect accounts for nearly two-thirds of all child maltreatment cases reported in the United States each year, according to the Administration for Children and Families. http://phys.org/news126764603.html
According to Joan Arehart-Treichel’s article in Psychiatric News, aggression comes in four types. She writes about a study project conducted by He was Henri Parens, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. “Parens and his colleagues not only met with 10 socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers and their 16 infants twice a week over seven years, but have been following up with the mothers and their offspring ever since.” According to Arehart –Treichel, the four types of aggression are
One was a nondestructive aggression, the kind the 5-month-oldgirl had demonstrated. It is children’s attempt to master themselvesand their environment. “This is a magnificent kind of aggression,”Parens said. It represents the kind that drives youngsters toexcel academically, win at sports, climb mountains, and do fantasticthings with their lives. It is inborn and essential for survivaland adaptation. It is the kind of aggression that parents shouldcultivate.
A second kind of aggression is the urge to obtain food. It toois inborn and essential for survival and adaptation.
A third kind of aggression is displeasure-related aggression(say, a temper tantrum or a rage reaction), and a fourth kindof aggression is pleasure-related aggression (for example, teasingand taunting). Neither is inborn; both are hostile aggression,and both are activated by emotional pain. In other words, hurtinga person’s feelings can generate hostile aggression. That istrue for all people. In contrast, people whose feelings arenot hurt will probably not engage in hostile aggression.

According to Parens’ observations a good deal of the aggression behavior observed in the children in the study was related to how their parents treated them.

Aggressive Behavior in Boys

PBS has a good description of aggression in boys and what characteristics are normal and not necessarily cause for concern.
Why do boys become aggressive? Sometimes boys are aggressive because they are frustrated or because they want to win. Sometimes they are just angry and can’t find another way to express that feeling. And some may behave aggressively, but they’re not aggressive all the time.

An active boy is not necessarily an aggressive one. “We often see young boys playing out aggressive themes. It’s only a problem when it gets out of control,” comments Thompson.

Competition, power and success are the true stuff of boys’ play. Many young boys see things in competitive terms and play games like “I can make my marble roll faster than yours,” “my tower is taller than yours” and “I can run faster than you.” But these games of power and dominance are not necessarily aggressive unless they are intended to hurt.

Fantasy play is not aggressive. A common boy fantasy about killing bad guys and saving the world is just as normal as a common girl fantasy about tucking in animals and putting them to bed. “Most boys will pick up a pretzel and pretend to shoot with it,” comments teacher Jane Katch. “If a boy is playing a game about super heroes, you might see it as violent. But the way he sees it, he’s making the world safe from the bad guys. This is normal and doesn’t indicate that anything is wrong unless he repeatedly hurts or tries to dominate the friends he plays with. And sometimes an act that feels aggressive to one child was actually intended to be a playful action by the child who did it. When this happens in my class, we talk about it, so one child can understand that another child’s experience may be different than his own. This is the way empathy develops.”

Only a small percentage of boys’ behavior is truly aggressive. While “all boys have normal aggressive impulses which they learn to control, only a small percentage are overly aggressive and have chronic difficulty controlling those impulses,” says Michael Thompson, Ph.D. These are the boys who truly confuse fantasy with reality, and frequently hit, punch, and bully other kids. They have a lack of impulse control and cannot stop themselves from acting out. “They cannot contain their anger and have little control over their physical behavior and this is when intervention by parent or teacher is needed,” says Thompson. http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys/aggression02.html

The key point is a lot of behavior, which is normal activity for most boys is not unacceptable aggression and should not trigger the use of medication for behavior which is within the normal range.

A University of Chicago examined boys who exhibited abnormal aggression and found that there might be a physical cause.

Unusually aggressive youth may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others, research using brain scans at the University of Chicago shows.
Scans of the aggressive youth’s brains showed that an area that is associated with rewards was highlighted when the youth watched a video clip of someone inflicting pain on another person. Youth without the unusually aggressive behavior did not have that response, the study showed.
The results are reported in the paper “Atypical Empathetic Responses in Adolescents with Aggressive Conduct Disorder: A functional MRI Investigation” in the current issue of the journal Biological Psychology. Benjamin Lahey, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry at the University, co-authored the paper, along with University students Kalina Michalska and Yuko Akitsuki. The National Science Foundation supported the work.
In the study, researchers compared eight 16- to 18-year-old boys with aggressive conduct disorder to a control group of adolescent boys with no unusual signs of aggression. The boys with the conduct disorder had exhibited disruptive behavior such as starting a fight, using a weapon and stealing after confronting a victim.

Clearly, the youth in this study were not the typical boy and required intervention.

Generally, boys are thought to be more physically aggressive and girls are thought to be more socially or indirectly aggressive. Carolyn Willbert reports on a study at WebMD, which finds boys use indirect methods of aggression as well.
Girls often get a bad rap for gossiping, forming cliques, and other aggressive social behavior, as characterized in the popular movie Mean Girls. Boys, meanwhile, are known for physically aggressive behavior, such as hitting.

A new study, however, says these attitudes may be at least partly unfounded. While boys are indeed more physically aggressive, girls and boys are equally guilty of aggressive social behavior, according to the report published in Child Development.

Researchers did an analysis of 148 studies that included nearly 74,000 children and teenagers. The studies were mostly done in schools and looked both at direct aggression, which is physical or verbal, and indirect aggression, which includes covert behaviors designed to damage another person’s social relations with others, without direct confrontation.

“These conclusions challenge the popular misconception that indirect aggression is a female form of aggression,” says Noel A. Card, PhD, assistant professor of family studies and human development at the University of Arizona and the study’s lead author, in a news release.

Based on the analysis, researchers concluded that often the same kids who are directly aggressive are also indirectly aggressive. Although boys tend to exhibit more direct aggression than girls, there is little difference between girls and boys for indirect aggression. This continues over different ages and ethnicities….

Kids who are indirectly aggressive often have depression and lower self-esteem. However, they tend to have high pro-social behavior, necessary to get support of others such as convincing peers to gossip and exclude others http://news.uchicago.edu/images/pdf/081107.Decety_BiologicalPsy2008.pdf
Behavior is unacceptable when it is “intended to destroy another person’s property or to injure another person, physically or psychologically.” Purposeful harm to another person is never acceptable.
Aggressive Behavior in Girls
Dr. Nicki Crick, of the University of Minnesota has studied aggression in girls. Her work in the field of relationalship aggression is summarized:
Most studies about aggressive behavior in children have focused on boys and on physical expressions of aggression. “It gave the appearance that girls really were sugar and spice and everything nice,” says Nicki Crick, professor of child development. “But I didn’t believe that was really the case.”

For more than six years, Crick has been conducting longitudinal studies of relational aggression, witnessed mainly in girls. Rather than physically harming others, relationally aggressive children will threaten such retaliations as: “Do this or I won’t be your friend.” Or: “If you don’t help me, I’ll tell Amy you said she was ugly….”
What the research shows

Some of Crick’s early research findings show relational aggression is related to factors such as particular types of family relationships and relationships with friends and other peers. She is especially interested in children whose aggression is gender-atypical—that is, girls who are physically aggressive and boys who are relationally aggressive.

“These kids seem to be the most at-risk for more serious social problems later in life,” she says. “The most apparent reason is that not only does their aggressive behavior make them less popular, but the fact that they’re perceived by their peers as acting inappropriately for their gender further isolates them.”

See, Gender Differences in Aggressive Behavior As with boys, Purposeful harm to another person is never acceptable.
Behavior Modification

The American Academy of Pediatricians has the following suggestions for dealing with aggressive behavior for most children
The best way to prevent aggressive behavior is to give your child a stable, secure home life with firm, loving discipline and full-time supervision during the toddler and preschool years. …

Self control

Your youngster has little natural self-control. He needs you to teach him not to kick, hit, or bite when he is angry, but instead to express his feelings through words. It’s important for him to learn the difference between real and imagined insults and between appropriately standing up for his rights and attacking out of anger.

Supervision

The best way to teach these lessons is to supervise your child carefully when he’s involved in disputes with his playmates. …

Your example
To avoid or minimize “high-risk” situations, teach your child ways to deal with his anger without resorting to aggressive behavior. Teach him to say “no” in a firm tone of voice, to turn his back, or to find compromises instead of fighting with his body. …

Discipline

If you must discipline him, do not feel guilty about it and certainly don’t apologize. If he senses your mixed feelings, he may convince himself that he was in the right all along and you are the “bad” one…

When to call the pediatrician

If your child seems to be unusually aggressive for longer than a few weeks, and you cannot cope with his behavior on your own, consult your pediatrician. Other warning signs include:
• Physical injury to himself or others (teeth marks, bruises, head injuries)
• Attacks on you or other adults
• Being sent home or barred from play by neighbors or school
• Your own fear for the safety of those around him….
The pediatrician or other mental health specialist will interview both you and your child and may observe your youngster in different situations (home, preschool, with adults and other children). A behavior management program will be outlined. Not all methods work on all children, so there will be a certain amount of trial and reassessment

Dr Joan Simeo Munson has some good suggestions about how to deal with aggressive behavior in young children
Medication for Aggressive Behavior

ccording to Leo J. Bastiaens, MD and Ida K. Bastiaens in their article about youth aggression in the Psychiatric Times, one of the treatment options is medication. For some children medication works and helps them to control their aggressive tendencies. Probably, more children are medicated than need to be, but the decision to use medication is highly individual and should be made in conjunction with health care providers. A second or even a third opinion may be necessary. NYU’s Child Study Center has an excellent Guide to Psychiatric Medicine for Children and Adolescents Mary E. Muscari, PhD, CPNP, APRN-BC,CFNS Professor, Director of Forensic Health/Nursing, University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania; Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Psychological Clinical Specialist, Forensic Clinical Specialist, Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania writes at Medscape.Com about pharmacotherapy for adolescents
Before prescribing medication therapy for aggression, the clinician should ensure that the patient has a medical evaluation to rule out contraindications to treatment and to determine whether the patient’s aggressive symptoms might improve with appropriate medical care. Psychiatric evaluation is also necessary to determine whether psychosis, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, or other problems are present. Treatment of these conditions may also result in reduced symptoms of aggression. Nonpharmacologic measures should be instituted; however, when pharmacologic treatment is warranted, institute treatment with an antiaggression medication that best fits the patient’s symptom cluster.
Medication should not be a first resort, but is an acceptable option after a thorough evaluation of all treatment options has been made.

Aggressive behavior can be costly for the child and society if the child’s behavior is not modified. At least one study has found preventative intervention is effective
E. Michael Foster, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Damon Jones, Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, in conjunction with the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, examined the cost effectiveness of the NIMH-funded Fast Track program, a 10-year intervention designed to reduce aggression among at-risk children….
Previous results showed that among children moderately at risk for conduct disorder, there were no significant differences in outcomes between the intervention group and the control group. However, among the high-risk group, fewer than half as many cases of conduct disorder were diagnosed in the intervention group as in the control group. These results were extended in the current paper to consider also the cost effectiveness of providing the early intervention. By weighing the costs of the intervention relative to the costs of crime and delinquency found among the study participants, the researchers concluded that this early prevention program was cost-effective in reducing conduct disorder and delinquency, but only for those who were very high-risk as young children.

As with many problems, the key is early diagnosis and intervention with appropriate treatment. Purposeful harm to another person is never acceptable.
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