Tag Archives: Children

Indiana University study: Poor language skills at three can lead to later behavior problems

25 Jul

Educators have long recognized the importance of vocabulary in reading and learning. Francie Alexander writes in the Scholastic article, Understanding Vocabulary:

Why is vocabulary s-o-o important?
Vocabulary is critical to reading success for three reasons:
1. Comprehension improves when you know what the words mean. Since comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, you cannot overestimate the importance of vocabulary development.
2. Words are the currency of communication. A robust vocabulary improves all areas of communication — listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3. How many times have you asked your students or your own children to “use your words”? When children and adolescents improve their vocabulary, their academic and social confidence and competence improve, too.http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/understanding-vocabulary

A University of Chicago study, “Quality of early parent input predicts child vocabulary three years later,” published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the importance of parental involvement at an early stage of learning. See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/06/24/giving-children-non-verbal-clues-about-words-boosts-vocabularies#sthash.V4f1L1Vb.dpuf

Mark Prigg wrote in the Daily Mail article, How well can your toddler talk? Researchers warn poor language skills at age three could be a sign of behavioural problems in later life:

Poor language skills as a toddler could be a sign children will develop major behaviourial problems in later life, researchers have claimed.
They say that if children are lagging behind at thee and half years old, parents should seek help.
Researchers claim it could be a sign of ADHD and other disorders of inattention and hyperactivity.
The Indiana University study tracked the links between early language skills and subsequent behavior problems in young children.
Poor language skills, the study suggests, limit the ability to control one’s behavior, which in turn can lead to behavior problems such as ADHD and other disorders of inattention and hyperactivity.
HOW THEY DID IT
Researchers followed a group of 120 toddlers for a year, beginning when they were age 2 ½ and following up when they were 36 months and 42 months old.
At each of these points they tested the children’s language skills and behavioral self-regulation, using tests for verbal comprehension and spoken vocabulary, as well as three tasks measuring self-regulating abilities.
They also used parent and secondary caregiver assessments of behavioral problems. Their findings suggested that language skill predicted growth in self-regulation, and self-regulation, in turn, predicted behavioral adjustment…. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2703583/How-toddler-talk-Researchers-warn-poor-language-skills-sign-behavioural-problems.html#ixzz38MuinWd8

Here is the press release from Indiana University:

• IUB Newsroom »
• IU study links poor early language skills to later behavior and attention problems
IU study links poor early language skills to later behavior and attention problems
• July 15, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A new Indiana University study has tracked the links between early language skills and subsequent behavior problems in young children. Poor language skills, the study suggests, limit the ability to control one’s behavior, which in turn can lead to behavior problems such as ADHD and other disorders of inattention and hyperactivity.
“Young children use language in the form of private or self-directed speech as a tool that helps them control their behavior and guide their actions, especially in difficult situations,” said Isaac Petersen of the clinical science program in the IU Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. “Children who lack strong language skills, by contrast, are less able to regulate their behavior and ultimately more likely to develop behavior problems.”
Early childhood development has increasingly become a focus for public policy — in debates over universal preschool, recognition of a “word gap” between rich and poor children, and new pediatric recommendations on reading to infants.
“Children’s brains are most malleable earlier on, especially for language,” said John Bates, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and co-author of the study. “Children are most likely to acquire skills in language and self-regulation early on. Many of the states are starting to focus on preschool, edging toward universal preschool. But early development specialists are not necessarily available. I would have programs more readily available to families — and focused on children most at risk as early as possible.”
The paper, “The Role of Language Ability and Self-Regulation in the Development of Inattentive-Hyperactive Behavior Problems,” appears online this week in the journal Development and Psychopathology. It is also co-authored by Angela Staples, research assistant professor at the University of Virginia.
Many previous studies have shown a correlation between behavior problems and language skill. Children with behavior problems, particularly those with attention deficits and hyperactivity, such as in ADHD, often have poor language skills. Whether one of these problems precedes the other and directly causes it was until recently an open question.
In a longitudinal study published last year, Petersen, Bates and several others concluded that the arrow points decisively from poor language ability to later behavioral problems, rather than the reverse. The current study shows that it does this by way of self-regulation, a varied concept that includes physical, emotional, cognitive and behavioral control. Self-regulation is integral to children’s capacity to adapt to social situations and to direct their actions toward future goals. The absence of self-regulation abilities is a key predictor and component of future behavior problems.
A number of studies have sought to explain the role of language in the development of self-regulation in terms of the cognitive and neurological mechanisms by which they are linked. This study traces the way they unfold over time and the role of self-regulation in this process.
To do this, Petersen, Bates, and Staples followed a group of 120 toddlers for a year, beginning when they were age 2 ½ and following up when they were 36 months and 42 months old. At each of these points they tested the children’s language skills and behavioral self-regulation, using tests for verbal comprehension and spoken vocabulary, as well as three tasks measuring self-regulating abilities. They also used parent and secondary caregiver assessments of behavioral problems. Their findings suggested that language skill predicted growth in self-regulation, and self-regulation, in turn, predicted behavioral adjustment.
The study lends renewed force to the argument that early childhood may offer a pathway for reducing social inequality. For what makes the “developmental cascade” from language to behavior particularly troubling, the researchers point out, is that children most at risk for a deficit in language ability, those from lower-income households, are often the least likely to get the services needed to remedy the problem.
Studies, for example, have shown a “word gap” between children of low income and those in affluent families, who hear 20 million more words by age 3 than their low-income counterparts. This gap results in less developed verbal and reading skills. If, as this study suggests, poor language skills lead to problems with self-regulation and behavior, this can in turn contribute to the less easily reversible and more costly social or academic problems in adolescence and later, adulthood.
Petersen said the study indicates that we could look more closely at language skill earlier on. But, he advises, “Don’t expect all children to be at the same level early on. If their language is slow to develop and self-regulation is lacking, they are likely to catch up with proper supports.
“Among those who are slow, some could develop problems. If, by the age of 3½, a child is still lagging, it may be worth pursuing treatment for language and self-regulation skills — the earlier the better,” Petersen said.
For a copy of the paper or to speak with Petersen or Bates, contact Liz Rosdeitcher at rosdeitc@indiana.edu or 812-855-4507 or Tracy James at 812-855-0084 or traljame@iu.edu. The Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences is in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences.
The research was supported by Indiana University and grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Petersen was supported by Clinical and Translational Sciences Award from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, and a National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Related Links
• Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

The goal of parents, teachers, students, and society should be that all children succeed in obtaining a good basic education. In order to achieve this goal, children must come to school ready to learn. See, Illiteracy in America https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/illiteracy-in-america/

Related:
The importance of the skill of handwriting in the school curriculum https://drwilda.com/2012/01/24/the-importance-of-the-skill-of-handwriting-in-the-school-curriculum/

The slow reading movement https://drwilda.com/2012/01/31/the-slow-reading-movement/

Why libraries in K-12 schools are important https://drwilda.com/2012/12/26/why-libraries-in-k-12-schools-are-important/

University of Iowa study: Variation in words may help early learners read better https://drwilda.com/2013/01/16/university-of-iowa-study-variation-in-words-may-help-early-learners-read-better/

Baby Sign Language: Does It Work? http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/baby-sign-language-does-it-work

Teaching Your Baby Sign Language Can Benefit Both of You http://psychcentral.com/lib/teaching-your-baby-sign-language-can-benefit-both-of-you/0002423

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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Mathematica Policy Research report: Poor kindergarteners NOT READY for school

17 Jul

Educators have long recognized the importance of vocabulary in reading and learning. Francie Alexander writes in the Scholastic article, Understanding Vocabulary:

Why is vocabulary s-o-o important?
Vocabulary is critical to reading success for three reasons:
1. Comprehension improves when you know what the words mean. Since comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, you cannot overestimate the importance of vocabulary development.
2. Words are the currency of communication. A robust vocabulary improves all areas of communication — listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3. How many times have you asked your students or your own children to “use your words”? When children and adolescents improve their vocabulary, their academic and social confidence and competence improve, too.http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/understanding-vocabulary

A University of Chicago study, “Quality of early parent input predicts child vocabulary three years later,” published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the importance of parental involvement at an early stage of learning. See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013/06/24/giving-children-non-verbal-clues-about-words-boosts-vocabularies#sthash.V4f1L1Vb.dpuf

Rebecca Klein of the Huffington Post reported in the article, This Is How Behind Low-Income Children Can Be When They Enter Kindergarten:

A new analysis from Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit group behind Sesame Street, looked at how four risk factors impacted the abilities of kindergarten students right as they entered school. The risk factors included whether:
• the child lived in a home where English was not the primary spoken language
• the child lived in a single-parent household
• the child’s mother had less than a high school education
• the child’s family lived with an income below the federal poverty line
The analysis looked at data from The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11. The study, which was funded by the Department of Education, followed a nationally representative sample of 18,000 kindergarteners — “both children in kindergarten for the first time and kindergarten repeaters” — though fifth grade.
Of the 15,000 students who had entered kindergarten for the first time, Sesame Workshop found that 44 percent had one or more risk factor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more risk factors a child had, the worse he or she did in math and reading school readiness assessments… Children with more risk factors also did worse on tasks that measured memory…..
The analysis found that students who had all four risk factors — dubbed high-risk children — were almost a year behind their risk factor-free peers in reading and math.
“To catch up, high-risk children would need to make almost twice as much progress during kindergarten as low-risk children,” the study said.
Still, students with these risk factors are often concentrated in the same classrooms. Other reports that have analyzed the same data have noted that kindergarten classrooms are largely segregated by race and poverty.
And finally, according to teacher reports, students with more risk factors were less ready for kindergarten. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/kindergarten-risk-factors_n_5589450.html

Here is the press release from Mathematica Policy Research:

ANALYSIS OF KINDERGARTENERS SHOWS WIDE DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL READINESS SKILLS
Sesame Workshop Releases Educational Framework After Study Reveals More Than 40% of Children Enter Classrooms with One or More Factors That Can Negatively Affect School Success
New research shows there is still a strong relationship between socio-economic factors and how well American children fare when entering kindergarten. In fact, a new study finds 44 percent of children enter kindergarten with one or more risk factors based on their home environment. These risk factors are incrementally associated with lower school readiness scores for children than for those with no such circumstances. Despite an increase in programs to level the playing field by giving disadvantaged children opportunities for preschool education, these gaps persist.
The findings are part of the Kindergartners’ Skills at School Entry report released today by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street. The report, commissioned by the Workshop and written by Mathematica Policy Research, provides an analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 focusing on the school readiness and abilities of beginning kindergartners.
“Preparing children for school has been part of Sesame Workshop’s mission since the beginning,” said Dr. Jennifer Kotler Clarke, Vice President, Research & Evaluation, Sesame Workshop. “There has not been an examination of children’s school readiness of this magnitude in more than 10 years and it’s important to us to understand the needs of children as they enter school. Given the risk factors children face, which put them at a disadvantage for school success, we are continuing to find ways to use our educational content to help change these outcomes.”
The analysis examined four risk factors that have been shown to affect children’s development and school achievement: single parent households, mothers with less than a high school education, households with incomes below the federal poverty line, and non-English speaking households. High-risk children (those with all four risk factors) were found to be almost a year behind their peers with no risk factors in their reading and math abilities.
The researchers also created composite readiness scores based on teacher ratings of children’s academic and social skills. Based on the researchers’ calculation, less than one-third of children were rated by teachers as “in-progress” or better on both reading and math skills.
“These nationally representative data show that at-risk children start kindergarten well behind their more advantaged peers,” notes Jerry West, Senior Fellow at Mathematica and director of the study. “The evidence points to an opportunity to better support their healthy development before they enter kindergarten.”
Sesame Workshop is sharing its Sesame Street Framework for School Readiness in response to the findings of the Kindergartners’ Skills analysis. The Framework is a guide for content developers to use to better understand the features of a typical developmentally age-appropriate content experience in relation to the fundamental school readiness skills. Developed by the Workshop’s Education and Research Department, the Framework describes the developmental progressions across the preschool years for specific curriculum objectives within the 20 core school readiness skills. It guides Sesame Street content across all media platforms, as part of the organization’s mission to help children grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. The Workshop is also encouraging developers to use this resource to enhance the educational benefits of their content.
Based on the findings of the analysis, Sesame Workshop will convene an advisory meeting with experts in education and child development to discuss potential uses for Sesame Street’s library of content, as well as other actions that can support school readiness and academic success.
Kindergartners’ Skills at School Entry uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which is a national examination of about 15,000 children who entered kindergarten in fall 2010, and uses direct child assessments in addition to interviews with parents, teachers and school administrators. The study will follow children through the fifth grade. The ECLS is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, which reaches 156 million children across more than 150 countries. The Workshop’s mission is to use the educational power of media to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. Delivered through a variety of platforms, including television programs, digital experiences, books, and community engagement, its research-based programs are tailored to the needs of the communities and countries they serve. For more information, visit http://www.sesameworkshop.org.
Contacts
Jodi Lefkowitz, Sesame Workshop, 212-875-6497, Jodi.lefkowitz@sesame.org
Joanne Pfleiderer, Mathematica, 609-275-2372, jpfleiderer@mathematica-mpr.com
About Mathematica:
Mathematica Policy Research seeks to improve public well-being by conducting studies and assisting clients with program evaluation and policy research, survey design and data collection, research assessment and interpretation, and program performance/data management. Its clients include foundations, federal and state governments, and private-sector and international organizations. The employee-owned company, with offices in Princeton, NJ; Ann Arbor, MI; Cambridge, MA; Chicago, IL; Oakland, CA; and Washington, DC, has conducted some of the most important studies of health care, international development, disability, education, family support, employment, nutrition, and early childhood policies and programs.

Teachers and administrators as well as many politicians if they are honest know that children arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Teachers have to teach children at whatever point on the continuum the children are.

Related:

Baby sign language https://drwilda.com/2013/07/28/baby-sign-language/

The importance of the skill of handwriting in the school curriculum https://drwilda.com/2012/01/24/the-importance-of-the-skill-of-handwriting-in-the-school-curriculum/

The slow reading movement https://drwilda.com/2012/01/31/the-slow-reading-movement/

Why libraries in K-12 schools are important https://drwilda.com/2012/12/26/why-libraries-in-k-12-schools-are-important/

University of Iowa study: Variation in words may help early learners read better https://drwilda.com/2013/01/16/university-of-iowa-study-variation-in-words-may-help-early-learners-read-better/

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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Life is not fair: African American men and negative stereotypes

20 May

Moi has got plenty to say about hypocrites of the conservative persuasion, those who espouse family values, but don’t live up to them or who support corporate welfare while tossing out that old bromide that individuals must pull themselves up by their bootstraps even if they don’t have shoes.
Because of changes in family structure and the fact that many children are now being raised by single parents, who often lack the time or resources to care for them, we as a society must make children and education a priority, even in a time of lack. I know that many of the conservative persuasion will harp on about personal responsibility, yada, yada, yada. Moi promotes birth control and condoms, so don’t harp on that. Fact is children, didn’t ask to be born to any particular parent or set of parents.

Jonathan Cohn reports about an unprecedented experiment which occurred in Romanian orphanages in the New Republic article, The Two Year Window. There are very few experiments involving humans because of ethical considerations.

Nelson had traveled to Romania to take part in a cutting-edge experiment. It was ten years after the fall of the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, whose scheme for increasing the country’s population through bans on birth control and abortion had filled state-run institutions with children their parents couldn’t support. Images from the orphanages had prompted an outpouring of international aid and a rush from parents around the world to adopt the children. But ten years later, the new government remained convinced that the institutions were a good idea—and was still warehousing at least 60,000 kids, some of them born after the old regime’s fall, in facilities where many received almost no meaningful human interaction. With backing from the MacArthur Foundation, and help from a sympathetic Romanian official, Nelson and colleagues from Harvard, Tulane, and the University of Maryland prevailed upon the government to allow them to remove some of the children from the orphanages and place them with foster families. Then, the researchers would observe how they fared over time in comparison with the children still in the orphanages. They would also track a third set of children, who were with their original parents, as a control group.
In the field of child development, this study—now known as the Bucharest Early Intervention Project—was nearly unprecedented. Most such research is performed on animals, because it would be unethical to expose human subjects to neglect or abuse. But here the investigators were taking a group of children out of danger. The orphanages, moreover, provided a sufficiently large sample of kids, all from the same place and all raised in the same miserable conditions. The only variable would be the removal from the institutions, allowing researchers to isolate the effects of neglect on the brain….
Drury, Nelson, and their collaborators are still learning about the orphans. But one upshot of their work is already clear. Childhood adversity can damage the brain as surely as inhaling toxic substances or absorbing a blow to the head can. And after the age of two, much of that damage can be difficult to repair, even for children who go on to receive the nurturing they were denied in their early years. This is a revelation with profound implication—and not just for the Romanian orphans.
APPROXIMATELY SEVEN MILLION American infants, toddlers, and preschoolers get care from somebody other than a relative, whether through organized day care centers or more informal arrangements, according to the Census Bureau. And much of that care is not very good. One widely cited study of child care in four states, by researchers in Colorado, found that only 8 percent of infant care centers were of “good” or “excellent” quality, while 40 percent were “poor.” The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found that three in four infant caregivers provide only minimal cognitive and language stimulation—and that more than half of young children in non-maternal care receive “only some” or “hardly any” positive caregiving. http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/magazine/97268/the-two-year-window?page=0,0&passthru=YzBlNDJmMmRkZTliNDgwZDY4MDhhYmIwMjYyYzhlMjg

Because the ranks of poor children are growing in the U.S., this study portends some grave challenges not only for particular children, but this society and this country. Adequate early learning opportunities and adequate early parenting is essential for proper development in children.

Another obstacle many children must overcome is the negative stereotype. Leland Ware opines in the Diverse Education article, Unconscious Stereotypes and Black Males:

In the decades following the enactment of the civil rights laws of the 1960s, old-fashioned, overt discrimination has begun to fade. Klansmen and skinheads are not socially acceptable. However, extensive research conducted over the last 30 years has shown that racial prejudice is pervasive among many who consciously subscribe to a belief in racial equality. Many individuals who believe they have positive attitudes about racial minorities unconsciously harbor racial prejudices. This can cause individuals to engage in conduct that disadvantages minorities without consciously realizing they are doing so. The discrimination occurs when it is not obvious to the perpetrator or when they can point to a race-neutral justification for the actions. Some academics have labeled this phenomenon “colorblind racism.”
Prejudice and stereotypes are the byproducts of ordinary perceptions, categorization, learning, memory and judgment. Categorization is the process by which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. It is an essential cognitive activity that enables individuals to reduce the enormous amounts of information they encounter every day to a manageable level. Categorization allows individuals to relate new experiences to old experiences; the unfamiliar becomes familiar. Each object and event is perceived, remembered, grouped into a category and identified. The process is automatic and operates in milliseconds.
The categorization process can also trigger stereotypes. When an individual is seen as a member of a social group, perceptions about that group’s characteristics and behavior influence judgments made about them. Stereotyping involves the creation of a mental image of a “typical” member of a particular category. Individuals are perceived as undifferentiated members of a group, lacking any significant differences from other individuals within the group.
When a particular behavior by a group member is observed, the viewer evaluates the behavior through the lens of the stereotype. This causes the observer to conclude that the conduct has empirically confirmed his stereotyped belief about the group. Stereotypes can be so deeply internalized that they persist in the face of facts that directly contradict the stereotype.
Professor Frances Aboud, who conducted research on prejudice in young children, confirmed that stereotypes develop at an early age. In a study with young children aged three to five, volunteers were given a half-dozen positive adjectives such as “good,” “kind,” “clean” and an equal number of negative adjectives such as “mean,” “cruel” and “bad.” They asked children to match each adjective to one of the two drawings. One drawing depicted a White person and the other showed a Black person. The results showed that 70 percent of the children assigned nearly every positive adjective to the White faces and nearly every negative adjective to the Black faces.
Young children experience a world in which most people who live in nice houses are White. Most people on television are White, especially the people who were shown in positions of authority, dignity and power. Most of the storybook characters they see are White, and it is the White children who perform heroic, clever and generous feats.
Children, who are rapidly orienting themselves in their environments, receive messages about race, not once or twice, but thousands of times. Everywhere a child looks, whether it is on television, in movies, in books or online, their inferences are confirmed. As they grow into adults, these messages remain in their unconscious psyches and can be triggered by the categorization process. This provides the foundation for unconscious discrimination.
Eradicating negative stereotypes about Black men will be difficult, as they are longstanding and ubiquitous. Talking about them will not change people who believe they are egalitarian. However, individuals can be made aware of their unconscious biases.
Harvard’s Implicit Association Test is an experiment that measures the speed at which two concepts are associated. The research shows that unconscious stereotyping and prejudice are widespread. Test takers consistently made more associations between the faces of African-Americans and words having negative concepts. Positive concepts were associated with the faces of Whites. Hundreds of thousands of individuals have taken the test producing similar results.
Recognizing and understanding unconscious discrimination provides a starting point for addressing this problem…. http://diverseeducation.com/article/64283/

Moi wrote about “success cultures in HARD QUESTION: Do Black folk REALLY want to succeed in America?
All moi can say is really. One has a Constitutional right to be a MORON. One must ask what are these parents thinking and where do they want their children to go in THIS society and not some mythical Africa which most will never see and which probably does not exist. Remember, their children must live in THIS society, at THIS time and in THIS place.
Moi wrote in Black people MUST develop a culture of success: Michigan State revokes a football scholarship because of raunchy rap video.

The question must be asked, who is responsible for MY or YOUR life choices? Let’s get real, certain Asian cultures kick the collective butts of the rest of Americans. Why? It’s not rocket science. These cultures embrace success traits of hard work, respect for education, strong families, and a reverence for success and successful people. Contrast the culture of success with the norms of hip-hop and rap oppositional culture.
See, Hip-hop’s Dangerous Values
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1107107/posts and Hip-Hop and rap represent destructive life choices: How low can this genre sink? https://drwilda.com/2013/05/01/hip-hop-and-rap-represent-destructive-life-choices-how-low-can-this-genre-sink/

There is no such thing as a “model minority” and getting rid of this myth will allow educators to focus on the needs of the individual student. Still, the choice of many parents to allow their children to make choices which may impact their success should have folk asking the question of what values are being transmitted and absorbed by Black children.

Resources:
Culture of Success http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/culture-success

How Do Asian Students Get to the Top of the Class?
http://www.greatschools.org/parenting/teaching-values/481-parenting-students-to-the-top.gs

Related:
‘Becoming A Man’ course: Helping young African-American men avoid prison

‘Becoming A Man’ course: Helping young African-American men avoid prison

Study: The plight of African-American boys in Oakland, California

Study: The plight of African-American boys in Oakland, California

Schott Foundation report: Black and Latino boys are not succeeding in high school
https://drwilda.com/tag/african-american-male/

We give up as a society: Jailing parents because kids are truant
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/we-give-up-as-a-society-jailing-parents-because-kids-are-truant/

Jonathan Cohn’s ‘The Two Year Window’ https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/jonathan-cohns-the-two-year-window/

Who says Black children can’t learn? Some schools get it https://drwilda.com/2012/03/22/who-says-black-children-cant-learn-some-schools-gets-it/

Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure https://drwilda.com/2011/12/13/inappropriate-discipline-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-education-failure/

Is there a model minority? https://drwilda.com/2012/06/23/is-there-a-model-minority/

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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States getting tough about requiring childhood vaccinations

19 May

Michaeleen Doucleff reported in the NPR story, How Vaccine Fears Fueled The Resurgence Of Preventable Diseases:

For most of us, measles and whooping cough are diseases of the past. You get a few shots as a kid and then hardly think about them again.
But that’s not the case in all parts of the world — not even parts of the U.S.
As an interactive maphttp://www.cfr.org/interactives/GH_Vaccine_Map/index.html#mapfrom the Council on Foreign Relations illustrates, several diseases that are easily prevented with vaccines have made a comeback in the past few years. Their resurgence coincides with changes in perceptions about vaccine safety….
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/25/265750719/how-vaccine-fears-fueled-the-resurgence-of-preventable-diseases?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20140202&utm_source=mostemailed

There are many myths regarding vaccination of children.

Evie Blad reported in the Education Week article, States Tightening Loopholes in School Vaccine Laws:

As outbreaks of preventable diseases have spread around the country in recent years, some states have been re-evaluating how and why they allow parents to opt their children out of vaccines required for school attendance.
Requiring vaccines before school admission has been a key component of a decades-long campaign that had nearly rid the United States of some of its most severe illnesses, from the measles to whooping cough, public-health experts say. But they also warn that broad “personal belief” exemptions that don’t relate to a child’s medical condition or a family’s religious beliefs have made it too easy to bypass vaccines, poking a sizable hole in the public-health safety net.
While some parents act out of a sense of personal conviction, others do so simply because they don’t have time to schedule an appointment, said Stephanie L. Wasserman, the executive director of the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition, an Aurora, Colo.-based group that seeks to increase vaccine coverage in the state.
“We want to close that convenience loophole,” she said. “When you choose not to immunize, there are consequences not only to your child and your family; there are consequences to your community as well.”
Since 2011, Washington, Oregon, California, and Vermont have revised their personal exemption processes.
In Colorado—a state with one of the highest opt-out rates in the country and the most recent one to examine its vaccine-exemption policies—a bill passed this month would draw schools into the public health fight….
Laws at a Glance
While all states have school vaccination laws on the books, states vary on how much leeway parents have to opt their children out of required vaccinations.
50 states require specified vaccines for students, but allow exemptions for medical reasons.
48 states grant exemptions for people who have religious beliefs against immunizations. (Mississippi and West Virginia do not allow this exemption.)
19 states allow exemptions for those who object to immunizations for personal or moral beliefs.
SOURCE: National Conference of State Legislatures
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/05/14/31vaccines.h33.html

Dina Fine Maron wrote in the Daily Beast article, 6 Top Vaccine Myths:

To sort through the onslaught of information and misinformation about childhood immunizations, we asked Austin, Texas-based pediatrician Ari Brown, coauthor of “Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for your Baby’s First Year,” to debunk some of the most common vaccination myths.

Myth 1: It’s not necessary to vaccinate kids against diseases that have been largely eradicated in the United States.
Reality: Although some diseases like polio and diphtheria aren’t often seen in America (in large part because of the success of the vaccination efforts), they can be quite common in other parts of the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that travelers can unknowingly bring these diseases into the United States, and if we were not protected by vaccinations, these diseases could quickly spread throughout the population….

Myth 2: Mercury is still in kids’ vaccines.
Reality: At the center of this issue is a preservative called thimerosal (a compound containing mercury) that once was a common component in many vaccines because it allowed manufacturers to make drugs more cheaply and in multidose formulations. But public concern, new innovations and FDA recommendations led to its removal from almost all children’s vaccines manufactured after 2001. (More thimerosal background can be found at the FDA’s Web site) Since flu vaccines are not just for children, manufacturers still put thimerosal in some flu-shot formulations. You can ask your pediatrician for the thimerosal-free version, says Brown.
If your child does not have asthma and is at least 2 years old, Brown recommends the FluMist nasal-spray vaccination over the flu shot. “It seems to have better immune protection and it could help your child avoid another shot,” she says. (Caveat: the spray does contain a live version of the virus, which can result in a slight increase in flulike symptoms).

Myth 3: Childhood vaccines cause autism.
Reality: There is no scientific evidence that this link exists. Groups of experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), agree that vaccines are not responsible for the growing number of children now recognized to have autism…..

Myth 4: Getting too many vaccines can overwhelm the immune system and cause adverse reactions or even serious illness.
Reality: Children’s immune systems are capable of combating far more antigens (weak or killed viruses) than they encounter via immunizations. In fact, the jury is still out on if there’s an actual limit on how many the body can handle—though one study puts the number around a theoretical 10,000 vaccines in one day.(Visit the American Academy of Pediatrics’ site or the Network for Immunization Information for more information)
Currently, “There is even less of a burden on the immune system [via vaccines] today than 40 years ago,” says Edgar Marcuse, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington who works on immunization policy and vaccines…..

Myth 5: It’s better to let my kid get chickenpox “naturally.”
Reality: Before the chickenpox vaccine was licensed in 1995, parents sometimes brought their child to a party or playground hoping that their child might brush up against a pox-laden kid to get their dose of chickenpox over since cases were usually less severe for children than adults. But pediatricians say severe complications are possible with chickenpox—including bacterial infections that could result in a child’s hospitalization or death….

Myth 6: The flu shot causes the flu.
Reality: The flu shot does not contain a live virus, so your child can’t get the flu from this shot. But, after the shot, it’s not uncommon to feel a bit achy while the immune system mounts its response. Remember that for two weeks following the shot, your child can still get the flu, so be sure to help your child avoid that feverish kid next door.http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/02/22/six-top-vaccine-myths.html

A question in the current climate is what can be done to make parents responsible for putting other children at risk.

Jed Lipinksi wrote in the Slate article, Endangering the Herd: The case for suing:

As you’d expect, the growing anti-vaccination movement responded in fury. After Caplan wrote a related post for the Harvard Law Blog, angry comments poured in. “This article is industry propaganda at its worst,” one commenter declared. Another wrote: “Caplan would have familiar company in fascist Germany.” The blog eventually shut down the comments for violations of the site’s policies against “abusive and defamatory language” and the sharing of personal information.
Here’s why the anti-vaxxers are wrong and Caplan and his co-authors are right to raise the idea of suing or criminally charging them: Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids for reasons of personal belief pose a serious danger to the public.
Measles vaccines are about 95 percent effective when given to children. That leaves a 5 percent chance that kids who are vaccinated will contract measles. This means that no matter what, the disease still poses a public health risk, but we rely on others to get vaccinated to hugely reduce the likelihood of outbreaks. That’s the process known as herd immunity.
Unvaccinated children threaten the herd. Take the San Diego measles outbreak of 2008. After unknowingly contracting the disease on a trip to Switzerland, an unvaccinated 7-year-old boy infected 11 other unvaccinated kids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of the cases occurred in kids whose parents had requested personal belief exemptions (or PBEs) through the state of California, one of 17 states to allow them. But three of the infected were either too young or medically unable to be vaccinated. And overall, 48 children too young to be vaccinated were quarantined, at an average cost to the family of $775 per child. The CDC noted that all 11 cases were “linked epidemiologically” to the 7-year-old boy and that the outbreak response cost the public sector $10,376 per case.
Today, several states blame a rise in preventable diseases on the declining child vaccination rates. In Michigan, less than 72 percent of children have received their state-mandated measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines. In New York, as Caplan noted in his blog post, pockets of Brooklyn’s Hasidic Jewish community are experiencing a mini measles epidemic. Thirty cases have been confirmed so far. According to Dr. Yu Shia Lin of Maimonides Medical Center, some members of the community avoid the measles vaccine because they think it causes autism. The most visible proponent of this idea, former Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy, will receive a giant new platform for her viewpoints when she joins the daytime gossipfest The View on Sept. 9.
The belief that the MMR vaccine causes autism goes back to a 1998 study published in the Lancet by a British gastroenterologist named Andrew Wakefield. In 2010, after years of criticism, the journal finally retracted Wakefield’s study, announcing that it was “utterly clear, without any ambiguity at all, that the statements in the paper were utterly false.” Britain’s General Medical Council later revoked Wakefield’s medical license, noting that he’d failed to disclose his role as a paid consultant to lawyers representing parents who thought vaccines had harmed their kids. The CDC makes clear there is no connection between vaccines and autism.
Yet this dangerous idea persists. Often, it persists among people who are simply doing what they think is best for their kids. Which is why it’s necessary to take extra measures to ensure nonvaccinators understand the risk they pose to other people’s children….
There are legal obstacles to penalizing parents who don’t vaccinate their kids. Courts are generally less likely to impose liability on someone who fails to act than they are on someone who acts recklessly. Also, proving cause and effect will sometimes be difficult. Then again, to win damages, a plaintiff would only have to prove that it’s “more likely than not” that a nonvaccinated child infected another person.parents who don’t vaccinate their kids—or criminally charging them….http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013

It is just a matter of time before there will be lawsuits regarding whether a parent owed a duty to the public to vaccinate their child.

Here is information from the 6 Top Vaccine Myths regarding vaccination schedules:
For Health Care Professionals
Birth-18 Years and Catch-up
• View combined schedules (birth-18 years and catch-up)
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6201a2.htm
• Print combined schedules (including intro, summary of changes, references…) [355 KB, 7 pages]

Click to access mmwr-0-18yrs-catchup-schedule.pdf

• Print combined schedules in color (chart in landscape format) [202 KB, 5 pages] also in black & white [348 KB, 5 pages]

Click to access mmwr-0-18yrs-catchup-schedule.pdf

• Print full MMWR supplement (birth-18 years, catch-up, adult, adult medical and other indications, adult contraindications and precautions) [1MB, 21 pages]

Click to access mm62e0128.pdf

• Order free copies from CDC
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/pubs/ncird.aspx#schedules
For Everyone
Easy-to-read Schedules for All Ages
Easy-to-read formats to print, tools to download, and ways to prepare for your office visit.
• Infants and Children (birth through 6 years old)Find easy-to-read formats to print, create an instant schedule for your child, determine missed or skipped vaccines, and prepare for your office visit…
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/easy-to-read/child.html
• Preteens & Teens (7 through 18 years old)Print this friendly schedule, take a quick quiz, fill out the screening form before your child’s doctor visit, or download a tool to determine vaccines needed…
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/easy-to-read/preteen-teen.html
• Adults (19 years and older)Print the easy-to-read adult schedule, take the quiz, or download a tool to
• determine vaccines needed…
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/easy-to-read/adult.html
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/

Here is information from the American Academy of Pediatrics regarding vaccination.
http://www2.aap.org/immunization/ Parents must consult their doctors about vaccinations.

Related:

3rd World America: Tropical diseases in poor neighborhoods

3rd World America: Tropical diseases in poor neighborhoods

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University of Iowa study: Children learn aggressive ways of thinking and behaving from violent video games

14 Apr

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.”

Science Daily reported in the article, Life lessons: Children learn aggressive ways of thinking and behaving from violent video games, study finds:

Children who repeatedly play violent video games are learning thought patterns that will stick with them and influence behaviors as they grow older, according to a new study by Iowa State University researchers. The effect is the same regardless of age, gender or culture. Douglas Gentile, an associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study published in JAMA Pediatrics, says it is really no different than learning math or to play the piano…
Researchers found that over time children start to think more aggressively. And when provoked at home, school or in other situations, children will react much like they do when playing a violent video game. Repeated practice of aggressive ways of thinking appears to drive the long-term effect of violent games on aggression.
“Violent video games model physical aggression,” said Craig Anderson, Distinguished Professor of psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State and co-author of the report. “They also reward players for being alert to hostile intentions and for using aggressive behavior to solve conflicts. Practicing such aggressive thinking in these games improves the ability of the players to think aggressively. In turn, this habitual aggressive thinking increases their aggressiveness in real life.”
The study followed more than 3,000 children in third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades for three years. Researchers collected data each year to track the amount of time spent playing video games, the violent content of the game and changes in a child’s behavior. The length and size of the study made it possible for researchers to detect and test even small effects.
Boys reported doing more physically aggressive behaviors and spending more time playing violent games than girls. However, even when researchers controlled for gender, the violent video game effects on behavior were the same for girls and boys.
To test whether violent games had a greater effect on children who were more aggressive, researchers compared children with high and low levels of aggression. Much like gender, they did not find a significant difference in terms of the effect from violent games.
“The results make a pretty strong argument that gender and age really don’t affect this relationship between video game play, aggressive thinking and aggressive behavior,” said Sara Prot, a graduate student in psychology at Iowa State. “There are lasting effects on thinking and behavior. You can’t say one group, because of their gender, age or culture, is protected from the effects in some special way.”
Children learn both good and bad behavior
More than 90 percent of children and teens play video games, and researchers say the majority of those games contain some type of violent content. However, that does not mean all games are bad and that children will only develop bad habits. These latest results build upon a previous study, published in Psychological Science, that analyzed the influence of prosocial media….
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140324181255.htm

Citation:

JAMA Pediatrics
Original Investigation|March 24, 2014
Mediators and Moderators of Long-term Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior Practice, Thinking, and Action
ONLINE FIRST
Douglas A. Gentile, PhD1; Dongdong Li, PhD2; Angeline Khoo, PhD2; Sara Prot, MA1; Craig A. Anderson, PhD1
[+] Author Affiliations
JAMA Pediatr. Published online March 24, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.63
Text Size: A A A
Article
Figures
Tables
References
Comments
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT | METHODS | RESULTS | DISCUSSION | CONCLUSIONS | ARTICLE INFORMATION | REFERENCES
Importance Although several longitudinal studies have demonstrated an effect of violent video game play on later aggressive behavior, little is known about the psychological mediators and moderators of the effect.
Objective To determine whether cognitive and/or emotional variables mediate the effect of violent video game play on aggression and whether the effect is moderated by age, sex, prior aggressiveness, or parental monitoring.
Design, Setting, and Participants Three-year longitudinal panel study. A total of 3034 children and adolescents from 6 primary and 6 secondary schools in Singapore (73% male) were surveyed annually. Children were eligible for inclusion if they attended one of the 12 selected schools, 3 of which were boys’ schools. At the beginning of the study, participants were in third, fourth, seventh, and eighth grades, with a mean (SD) age of 11.2 (2.1) years (range, 8-17 years). Study participation was 99% in year 1.
Main Outcomes and Measures The final outcome measure was aggressive behavior, with aggressive cognitions (normative beliefs about aggression, hostile attribution bias, aggressive fantasizing) and empathy as potential mediators.
Results Longitudinal latent growth curve modeling demonstrated that the effects of violent video game play are mediated primarily by aggressive cognitions. This effect is not moderated by sex, prior aggressiveness, or parental monitoring and is only slightly moderated by age, as younger children had a larger increase in initial aggressive cognition related to initial violent game play at the beginning of the study than older children. Model fit was excellent for all models.
Conclusions and Relevance Given that more than 90% of youths play video games, understanding the psychological mechanisms by which they can influence behaviors is important for parents and pediatricians and for designing interventions to enhance or mitigate the effects.

Here is the press release from the University of Iowa:

Life lessons: Children learn aggressive ways of thinking and behaving from violent video games
Posted Mar 24, 2014 3:00 pm
AMES, Iowa – Children who repeatedly play violent video games are learning thought patterns that will stick with them and influence behaviors as they grow older, according to a new study by Iowa State University researchers. The effect is the same regardless of age, gender or culture. Douglas Gentile, an associate professor of psychology and lead author of the study published in JAMA Pediatrics, says it is really no different than learning math or to play the piano.
“If you practice over and over, you have that knowledge in your head. The fact that you haven’t played the piano in years doesn’t mean you can’t still sit down and play something,” Gentile said. “It’s the same with violent games – you practice being vigilant for enemies, practice thinking that it’s acceptable to respond aggressively to provocation, and practice becoming desensitized to the consequences of violence.”
Researchers found that over time children start to think more aggressively. And when provoked at home, school or in other situations, children will react much like they do when playing a violent video game. Repeated practice of aggressive ways of thinking appears to drive the long-term effect of violent games on aggression.
“Violent video games model physical aggression,” said Craig Anderson, Distinguished Professor of psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State and co-author of the report. “They also reward players for being alert to hostile intentions and for using aggressive behavior to solve conflicts. Practicing such aggressive thinking in these games improves the ability of the players to think aggressively. In turn, this habitual aggressive thinking increases their aggressiveness in real life.”
The study followed more than 3,000 children in third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades for three years. Researchers collected data each year to track the amount of time spent playing video games, the violent content of the game and changes in a child’s behavior. The length and size of the study made it possible for researchers to detect and test even small effects.
Boys reported doing more physically aggressive behaviors and spending more time playing violent games than girls. However, even when researchers controlled for gender, the violent video game effects on behavior were the same for girls and boys.
To test whether violent games had a greater effect on children who were more aggressive, researchers compared children with high and low levels of aggression. Much like gender, they did not find a significant difference in terms of the effect from violent games.
“The results make a pretty strong argument that gender and age really don’t affect this relationship between video game play, aggressive thinking and aggressive behavior,” said Sara Prot, a graduate student in psychology at Iowa State. “There are lasting effects on thinking and behavior. You can’t say one group, because of their gender, age or culture, is protected from the effects in some special way.”
Children learn both good and bad behavior
More than 90 percent of children and teens play video games, and researchers say the majority of those games contain some type of violent content. However, that does not mean all games are bad and that children will only develop bad habits. These latest results build upon a previous study, published in Psychological Science, that analyzed the influence of prosocial media.
That earlier cross-cultural study, led by Prot, Gentile and Anderson, found that prosocial media – video games, movies or TV shows that portray helpful, caring and cooperative behaviors – positively influence behavior regardless of culture. The study, the first of its kind, tested levels of empathy and helpfulness of thousands of children and adolescents in seven countries. In combination, these studies show that the content of the video games youth play – prosocial or antisocial – determines their impact on real world behavior.
-30-
Contacts Douglas Gentile, Psychology, 515-294-1472, dgentile@iastate.edu Craig Anderson, Psychology, 515-294-3118, caa@iastate.edu Sara Prot, Psychology, 515-294-1742, sprot@iastate.edu Angie Hunt, News Service, 515-294-8986, amhunt@iastate.edu
– See more at: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2014/03/24/violentgamesbehavior#sthash.wx5lqpjA.QnKTrSDE.dpuf

Science Daily reported in the article, Violent video games delay development of moral judgment in teens:

Mirjana Bajovic of Brock University set out to discover whether there was a link between the types of video games teens played, how long they played them, and the teens’ levels of moral reasoning: their ability to take the perspective of others into account.
She quizzed a group of eighth-graders (aged 13-14) about their playing habits and patterns, as well as determined their stage of moral reasoning using an established scale of one to four.
Blagovic’s results, published in Educational Media International, indicate that there was a significant difference in sociomaturity levels between adolescents who played violent video games for one hour a day and those who played for three or more.
Bajovic suggests that both the content of the games and the time spent playing contribute to the fact that many of the violent gamers achieved only the second stage of sociomoral maturity… http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140204101716.htm

That old saying that you are what you eat referring to what people put in their stomach is looking more like children and others are what the watch, read, and put into their mind.

Related:

Stanford University study: Sexualization of women in the tech world
https://drwilda.com/tag/how-using-sexy-female-avatars-in-video-games-changes-women/

Two studies: Social media and social dysfunction https://drwilda.com/2013/04/13/two-studies-social-media-and-social-dysfunction/

Brock University study: Violent video games can delay children’s moral judgment

Brock University study: Violent video games can delay children’s moral judgment

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Parent involvement: Mobile apps increase parent involvement

6 Apr

Moi wrote about the importance of parental involvement in Missouri program: Parent home visits:
One of the mantras of this blog is that education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), teacher(s), and the school. All parts of the partnership must be involved. Many educators have long recognized that the impact of social class affects both education achievement and life chances after completion of education. There are two impacts from diversity, one is to broaden the life experience of the privileged and to raise the expectations of the disadvantaged. Social class matters in not only other societies, but this one as well. A few years back, the New York Times did a series about social class in America. That series is still relevant. Janny Scott and David Leonhardt’s overview, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/national/class/OVERVIEW-FINAL.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0describes the challenges faced by schools trying to overcome the disparity in education. The complete series can be found at Class Matters http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/

Teachers and administrators as well as many politicians if they are honest know that children arrive at school at various points on the ready to learn continuum. Teachers have to teach children at whatever point on the continuum the children are. Jay Matthews reports in the Washington Post article, Try parent visits, not parent takeovers of schools. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/try-parent-visits-not-parent-takeovers-of-schools/2012/05/30/gJQAlDDz2U_story.html

The key ingredient is parental involvement. The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (Council) has a great policy brief on parental involvement. http://www.wccf.org/pdf/parentsaspartners_ece-series.pd
Parent involvement is crucial to the success of children.

Heather B. Hayes reported in the EdTech article, School Districts Use Mobile Apps to Engage Parents:

When Michael Thurmond, superintendent of the DeKalb County School District near Atlanta, challenged his staff to come up with new, innovative ways to bridge the gap between their highest- and lowest-performing schools, CIO Gary Brantley had a ready response: a mobile app for parents.
That might seem like a knee-jerk ¬reaction, given the current zest for all things mobile, but Brantley’s solution was strongly rooted in need and fact. The lowest performers among the district’s 137 schools also had the lowest levels of parent engagement, in large part ¬because a majority of parents didn’t have the time or ability to travel to school for parent-teacher conferences or other functions. However, an internal survey showed that those same parents had access to mobile technology, with more than 90 percent of all district parents owning either a mobile phone or tablet.
“The idea was, parents can’t always come to us, so let’s try to take this information to them,” Brantley says. “When a grade is entered into the system, their student is late to class or there’s an emergency notification, let’s push that out to their mobile devices immediately, so they know what’s ¬happening at all times.”
Parents also can email teachers, get real-time notifications of bus pickup and drop-off times, access calendars, and receive Twitter and Facebook news feeds and sports scores. The app, which launched in early January, is already seen as a success, having been downloaded more than 6,000 times in its first month and earning rave reviews from users…
The Added Benefits of Having a Mobile App
How do mobile apps pay off for schools?
• During the ice storms of 2014, parents who downloaded the DeKalb County (Ga.) School District’s mobile app were able to receive school ¬closing and delay alerts in real time — a fact that earned praise for district officials, even as other district leaders were criticized for their delayed and confusing communication efforts.
• Parents at Wichita (Kan.) Public Schools can now view a single calendar of all academic and athletic events at any schools they choose to follow — a capability that’s impossible to create on a regular website and that helps parents keep up with what’s happening at all times. http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2014/04/school-districts-use-mobile-apps-engage-parents

It is going to take coordination between not only education institutions, but a strong social support system to get many children through school. This does not mean a large program directed from Washington. But, more resources at the local school level which allow discretion with accountability. For example, if I child is not coming to school because they have no shoes or winter coat, then the child gets new shoes and/or a coat. School breakfast and lunch programs must be supported and if necessary, expanded. Unfortunately, schools are now the early warning system for many families in crisis.

Related:
Tips for parent and teacher conferences https://drwilda.com/2012/11/07/tips-for-parent-and-teacher-conferences/

Common Sense Media report: Media choices at home affect school performance

Common Sense Media report: Media choices at home affect school performance

Parents can use tax deductions to pay for special education needs https://drwilda.com/2012/10/24/parents-can-use-tax-deductions-to-pay-for-special-education-needs/

Intervening in the lives of truant children by jailing parents https://drwilda.com/2012/10/07/intervening-in-the-lives-of-truant-children-by-jailing-parents/

Making time for family dinner https://drwilda.com/2012/09/10/making-time-for-family-dinner/

Embracing parents as education leaders https://drwilda.com/2012/11/28/embracing-parents-as-education-leaders/

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/

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University of California, San Diego study: Lying parents tend to raise lying children

20 Mar

Cheating is increasingly a concern in education. Some colleges in an attempt to curb academic dishonesty on campus are beginning to employ methods one has usually associated with Las Vegas casinos. Minnesota State University Mankato has an excellent newsletter article about academic dishonesty. Richard C. Schimming writes in Academic Dishonesty:

A recent survey found that 1/3 of all students admitted to cheating on an examination, 1/2 admitted to cheating on a class assignment, 2/3 admitted to cheating at least once during their college career, and 2/3 have seen classmates cheat on exams or assignments. Paradoxically, 3/4 of those in that survey believe that cheating is not justified under any circumstances. Finally, 1/2 of the students surveyed believe that the faculty of their university do not try to catch cheaters… http://www.mnsu.edu/cetl/teachingresources/articles/academicdishonesty.html

For some students, cheating starts early. By the time some kids reach college they have already established a pattern of cheating. ABC News has a good report, A Cheating Crisis in America’s Schools http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132376&page=1 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/cheating-in-schools-goes-high-tech/ Apparently, kids are modeling what they learned at home.

Science Daily reported in the article, Lied-to children more likely to cheat, lie:

People lie — we know this. People lie to kids — we know this, too. But what happens next? Do children who’ve been lied to lie more themselves?
Surprisingly, the question had not been asked experimentally until Chelsea Hays, then an undergraduate student in psychology at the University of California, San Diego, approached professor Leslie Carver with it. Now the pair have a paper out in Developmental Science, suggesting that adult dishonesty does make a difference, and not in a good way.
“As far as we know,” said Carver, associate professor of psychology and human development in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences. “This is the first experiment confirming what we might have suspected: Lying by an adult affects a child’s honesty.”
The study tested 186 children ages 3 to 7 in a temptation-resistance paradigm. Approximately half of the children were lied to by an experimenter, who said there was “a huge bowl of candy in the next room” but quickly confessed this was just a ruse to get the child to come play a game. The others were simply invited to play, with no mention of candy.
The game asked children to identify character toys they couldn’t see by their sounds. Sounds and toys were pretty easy to pair: a “Tickle me” audio clip for Elmo; “I love cookies” for Cookie Monster; and “There is a rumbly in my tummy” for Winnie the Pooh. One sound was a deliberately tricky exception: Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” which is not associated with any commercially available character toy.
When the classical music cue was played, the experimenter was called out of the room to, supposedly, take a phone call — leaving the children alone in the room for 90 seconds and tempting them to take a peek at the mysterious toy making that sound. The children were explicitly asked not to peek. On returning, the experimenter also explicitly asked the children to tell the truth. Cameras rolled the whole time.
And? The 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds who had been lied to were both more likely to cheat and then more likely to lie about having done so, too.
About 60 percent of the school-aged children who had not been lied to by the experimenter peeked at the tricky temptation toy — and about 60 percent of the peekers lied about it later. Among those that had been lied to, those figures rose to nearly 80 percent peeking and nearly 90 percent of the peekers lying.
“Why?” remains an open research question, Carver and Hays note in their paper. It could be the 5- to 7-year-old children were simply imitating the behavior modeled by the adult, or it could be they were making judgments about the importance of honesty to this adult. Or, it could be more nuanced: “Perhaps,” they write, “the children did not feel the need to uphold their commitment to tell the truth to someone who they perceived as a liar.”
But it didn’t seem to make any difference to the younger set, the preschoolers, whether they had been deceived by the experimenter earlier. They peeked and lied at about the same rates. That may be because 3- and 4-year-olds don’t have very sophisticated theory-of-mind abilities yet.
The study was not designed to get at the reasons that children are more likely to lie when they have been lied to, but to demonstrate that the phenomenon can occur, Carver said…. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140319093802.htm

Citation:

Journal Reference:
1. Chelsea Hays, Leslie J. Carver. Follow the liar: the effects of adult lies on children’s honesty. Developmental Science, 2014; DOI: 10.1111/desc.12171
March 19, 2014
University of California, San Diego
Summary:
A new experiment is the first to show a connection between adult dishonesty and children’s behavior, with kids who have been lied to more likely to cheat and then to lie to cover up the transgression. Research has documented that the majority of parents admit to lying to their children even as they maintain that honesty is an important value. “The actions of parents suggest that they do not believe that the lies they tell their children will impact the child’s own honesty. The current study casts doubt on that belief,” the authors say. The study has implications not only for parenting but also for teaching scenarios and for forensic situations, said Carver: “All sorts of grown-ups may have to re-examine what they say to kids. Even a ‘little white lie’ might have consequences.”

Here is the press release from the University of California, San Diego:

Lied-to Children More Likely to Cheat and Lie
UC San Diego experiment first to show connection between adult dishonesty and children’s behavior
People lie – we know this. People lie to kids – we know this, too. But what happens next? Do children who’ve been lied to lie more themselves?
Surprisingly, the question had not been asked experimentally until Chelsea Hays, then an undergraduate student in psychology at the University of California, San Diego, approached professor Leslie Carver with it. Now the pair have a paper out in Developmental Science, suggesting that adult dishonesty does make a difference, and not in a good way.
“As far as we know,” said Carver, associate professor of psychology and human development in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences. “This is the first experiment confirming what we might have suspected: Lying by an adult affects a child’s honesty.”
The study tested 186 children ages 3 to 7 in a temptation-resistance paradigm. Approximately half of the children were lied to by an experimenter, who said there was “a huge bowl of candy in the next room” but quickly confessed this was just a ruse to get the child to come play a game. The others were simply invited to play, with no mention of candy.

Children were asked to identify well-known character toys they couldn’t see by their associated sounds.
The game asked children to identify character toys they couldn’t see by their sounds. Sounds and toys were pretty easy to pair: a “Tickle me” audio clip for Elmo; “I love cookies” for Cookie Monster; and “There is a rumbly in my tummy” for Winnie the Pooh. One sound was a deliberately tricky exception: Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” which is not associated with any commercially available character toy.
When the classical music cue was played, the experimenter was called out of the room to, supposedly, take a phone call – leaving the children alone in the room for 90 seconds and tempting them to take a peek at the mysterious toy making that sound. The children were explicitly asked not to peek. On returning, the experimenter also explicitly asked the children to tell the truth. Cameras rolled the whole time.
And? The 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds who had been lied to were both more likely to cheat and then more likely to lie about having done so, too.
About 60 percent of the school-aged children who had not been lied to by the experimenter peeked at the tricky temptation toy – and about 60 percent of the peekers lied about it later. Among those that had been lied to, those figures rose to nearly 80 percent peeking and nearly 90 percent of the peekers lying.
“Why?” remains an open research question, Carver and Hays note in their paper. It could be the 5- to 7-year-old children were simply imitating the behavior modeled by the adult, or it could be they were making judgments about the importance of honesty to this adult. Or, it could be more nuanced: “Perhaps,” they write, “the children did not feel the need to uphold their commitment to tell the truth to someone who they perceived as a liar.”

School-aged children, ages 5 to 7, who had been lied to were both more likely to peek and then to lie about having done so. Click on image for larger view.
But it didn’t seem to make any difference to the younger set, the preschoolers, whether they had been deceived by the experimenter earlier. They peeked and lied at about the same rates. That may be because 3- and 4-year-olds don’t have very sophisticated theory-of-mind abilities yet.
The study was not designed to get at the reasons that children are more likely to lie when they have been lied to, but to demonstrate that the phenomenon can occur, Carver said.
What happens when trusted care-givers do the lying also remains an open research question. But Carver and Hays are still urging restraint. Even if it’s expedient for an adult to lie – to get cooperation through deception, for example, or to get children to control their emotions – it’s probably a bad idea in the long run.
Earlier research, Carver and Hays note in the paper, has documented that the majority of parents admit to lying to their children even as they maintain that honesty is an important value.
“The actions of parents,” Carver and Hays write, “suggest that they do not believe that the lies they tell their children will impact the child’s own honesty. The current study casts doubt on that belief.”
The study has implications not only for parenting but also for teaching scenarios and for forensic situations, said Carver: “All sorts of grown-ups may have to re-examine what they say to kids. Even a ‘little white lie’ might have consequences.”
Related Links
Leslie Carver, UC San Diego Psychology and Human Development
Developmental Science
UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences

Indiana University has a concise definition of character education in Creating a Positive Climate: Character Education:

Character education simply does that in a more systematic way. Character education includes two primary components: 1) Education in civic virtue and in the qualities that teach children the forms and rules of citizenship in a just society, and 2) Education in personal adjustment, chiefly in the qualities that enable children to become productive and dependable citizens.4
Character education may include a variety of subcomponents that can be a part of a larger character education program or that can be self-standing.
These can include social skills instruction and curricula, moral development instruction and curricula, values clarification instruction and curricula, caring education and curricula,5 and school values statements. Other programs such as cooperative learning strategies, participatory decision-making for students, and service learning are sometimes also classified as components of character education. Character education itself is often viewed as simply one component of some larger school reform and improvement strategies. For example, the “Basic School” has four components, one of which is a “Commitment to Character.”6According to Likona,7 the moral or character education of elementary students is designed to accomplish three goals:
• To promote development away from self-centered thinking and excessive individualism and toward cooperative relationships and mutual respect;
• To foster the growth of the capacity to think, feel, and act morally; and
• To develop in the classroom and in the school a moral community based on fairness, caring, and participation – such a community being a moral end in itself as well as a support system for the character development of each individual student. http://www.indiana.edu/~safeschl/charactereducation.pdf

See, Character Education Partnership http://www.character.org/key-topics/what-is-character-education/

“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Thomas Jefferson

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

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School personnel must be aware of epilepsy among children with physical disabilities

17 Mar

The Epilepsy Foundation has a great synopsis of the issues for schools regarding children with epilepsy. In Educators, the Epilepsy Foundation says:

About 300,000 American children and adolescents have seizure disorders, also known as epilepsy. Today, thanks to regular treatment with medicines that prevent seizures, many children with epilepsy have these episodes infrequently or not at all and are able to participate fully in school activities. However, children who are still having seizures may run into problems at school, problems like isolation from other students, low self-esteem and a lower level of achievement. Fortunately, many of these problems can be overcome or prevented through appropriate management by an informed school staff, particularly the classroom teacher and the school nurse.
Scholastic Achievement
Most children with epilepsy develop and learn similarly to children without epilepsy; however, as a group their risk for problems with learning is increased threefold. Approximately 9 percent of children with epilepsy have IQ’s below 70, a percentage that is three times greater than in the general population.
Children who achieve seizure control relatively quickly with few side effects and no cognitive impairments generally have the best chance for average or above average educational achievement. However, it is worth noting that children with epilepsy with average I.Q. may not achieve up to their potential, and attention problems have been identified across the spectrum. Loss of school time because of previously undiagnosed seizures or medical tests may also affect performance, even among children who are otherwise doing well.
Students with epilepsy are at increased risk for academic underachievement, particularly in the basic skills of reading, language, and arithmetic. Many of them are found to be significantly behind their peers in academic achievement levels, ranging from 16 percent below grade in reading to 50 percent in general knowledge. In addition, children with epilepsy have been found more likely to have impairment of self-concept and behavior than are children with asthma. Children with severe epilepsy are also likely to experience social rejection from peers.
Social Issues: Teachers & School Nurses Promote Understanding
Teacher attitude is an important factor in a child’s social adjustment at school; programs for the school community form an important part of most Epilepsy Foundation programs in local areas. Such programs generally focus on teacher awareness of seizure symptoms, seizure management and full integration of the child within the community. School nurses also play an important role in the management of the child with epilepsy at school, especially in dispensing of antiepileptic medication during the school day, and in educating the rest of the school community about epilepsy.
Education Rights
Gaining access to needed educational services is often difficult for parents of children with epilepsy. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal law which states that every child with a disability is entitled to a free, appropriate education in the least restrictive setting. Children with epilepsy may be entitled to special education and related services under the Act if having epilepsy affects their educational performance. Every state has laws providing for some kind of educational services for children with disabilities.
Students of all ages may face obstacles to participation in educational programs, sports or housing programs. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) forbids discrimination against qualified students with disabilities by educational institutions, including colleges and universities. If a school or college receives federal funds, the anti-discrimination regulations of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 may also apply. http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/livingwithepilepsy/educators/

Many children with physical disabilities also have epilepsy.

Special Education News posted Facts About Epilepsy Teachers Should Know:

A lot of teachers do not know but some children with physical disabilities will also suffer from problems like epilepsy.
Post by SEN Team | march 14th, 2013
There is a high chance of this occurring and because of that, special education teachers need to know the basic facts of what epilepsy is and how to deal with seizure first aid inside the classroom.
The Chance of Epilepsy Occurring
The occurrence of epilepsy in children is high. In a survey with over 200 children, there is a 0.5% chance of epilepsy from happening. Using this data, the special education services are making changes in the curriculum and teacher training in order for them to be able to handle epilepsy alongside another disability that the child is experiencing.

Teachers would have to understand how children are affected by these conditions. They need to learn what the long-term applications are in order for them to be able to adjust the well-being and daily functioning of the child.
General Facts and Myths about Epilepsy:
Truths:
1. Epilepsy can be diagnosed when seizures happen repeatedly without another trigger event.
2. Individuals who take correct treatment and medication can get rid of epilepsy.
3. There are over 40 various types of epileptic seizures with different range and ways of attacking a person.
4. Not every child with disability will have what they call tonic clonic seizure or grand mal.

False Statements:
1. A person can swallow their tongue when being attacked with seizure.
2. Epilepsy can be transferred from one person to another
3. People who have epilepsy have intellectual problems
What causes epilepsy?
Epilepsy occurs when there is a problem in the transmission and receiving of electrical activity in the brain. When an interruption occurs it can happen in different places in the brain and it will affect behavior, consciousness level as well as sensation and movement.

Children suffering from epilepsy will have a different brain activity, sometimes it will run at a much faster rate than what is normal causing the epileptic seizure to occur. Some types of seizure are easier to detect when compared with others.

Types of Epilepsy and Seizures
Other types of seizure are not easily detectable. Some seizures are described as simple or partial and will have no direct effect on the conscious level of the individual while the other will be described as more complex.

A person suffering will have an altered state of consciousness and it would be best for teachers to know the standard emergency procedures needed to help solve the problem while it is occurring in class.
http://www.specialednews.com/news/facts-about-epilepsy-teachers-should-know.htm

The Epilepsy Foundation also has great resources which explain to parents their children’s rights for an education.

In Elementary and Secondary Education Law, the Epilepsy Foundation advises:

IDEA and Your Right to a “Free, Appropriate Education”
IDEA, formerly known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 92-142), guarantees children with disabilities a “free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting.” This means that local school districts must develop and pay for an educational program that is tailored to the individual needs of the child with a disability. In some situations, the local school district may even be legally required to pay tuition at a private school or the cost of an outside provider if it is unable to provide the needed services in its own schools.
To qualify for protection under IDEA, a child must have a disability that adversely affects his or her ability to learn, and thus needs special education and related services. “Special education” includes instruction that is specifically designed to meet the child’s unique needs that result from a disability. It can involve adapting the content, methodology or delivery of the instruction. Disabilities covered under IDEA may include health impairments such as epilepsy, as well as traumatic brain injuries, learning disabilities, mental retardation and autism. (A child with epilepsy or another disability who does not qualify for services under IDEA may, however, qualify for services under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, as discussed below.)
By law, public schools are required to educate children with disabilities in the “least restrictive environment” possible. This means schools cannot place a child with epilepsy in a special education classroom, away from students who do not have a disability, simply because the child with the disability requires special services. Instead, the school must allow these children to be mainstreamed and provide the related service in some other way, such as having the child visit the nurse at a designated time each day to receive medication.
For a child with epilepsy, commonly requested related services include: health services (such as administration of medication in the event of a prolonged seizure), specialized recreation services (for a child with uncontrolled seizures), counseling (to compensate for the social adjustment aspects of epilepsy) and other non-instructional services. Specialized instruction may also be necessary to compensate for accompanying learning disabilities or other cognitive impairments resulting from frequent losses of consciousness or other impairment of attention or learning ability. In some situations, it may be appropriate for the child to receive this instruction once a week for an hour at a time, for example, whereas in other situations, the severity of a child’s disability requires he or she receive specialized instruction full time. Under IDEA, the school is required to provide effective educational services in the least restrictive environment, including any related services that may be necessary to educate the child…. http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/livingwithepilepsy/educators/educationlaws/elementary-and-secondary-education-law.cfm

All children have a right to a good basic education.

Resources:

What Is Epilepsy
http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org/aboutepilepsy/whatisepilepsy/index.cfm?gclid=CKrPqJSmmr0CFc9AMgodchQA5w

Epilepsy and Your Child’s School http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/guide/children-school

Epilepsy http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/epilepsy.html

Related:

Father’s age may be linked to Autism and Schizophrenia https://drwilda.com/2012/08/26/fathers-age-may-be-linked-to-autism-and-schizophrenia/

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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University of Strathclyde study: Obese children get lower grades

13 Mar

The media presents an unrealistic image of perfection for women and girls. What they don’t disclose is for many of the “super” models their only job and requirement is the maintenance of their appearance. Their income depends on looks and what they are not able to enhance with plastic surgery and personal trainers, then that cellulite can be photoshopped or airbrushed away. That is the reality. Kid’s Health has some good information about Body Image http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/body_image/body_image.html

Huffington Post reported in the article, Children Diet To Keep Off Pounds And Ward Off Bullying, Survey Says:

A recent survey of 1,500 of children between ages 7 and 18 revealed that young teens diet and worry about their weight.
About 44 percent of children between the ages of 11 and 13 say they’ve been bullied because of their weight, and more than 40 percent of kids younger than 10 admitted they were concerned about packing on the pounds, with nearly one-fourth reporting having been on a diet in the last year, according to the Press Association….
Last year, 13-year-old Nicolette Taylor resorted to plastic surgery to escape harassment and name-calling, particularly on social networking sites such as Facebook.
“All my friends could see [my nose], all my new friends, and I didn’t want them saying things,” Taylor told Nightline about her decision to get a nose job. “Gossip goes around, and it really hurts.”
Other teens have felt suicide was their only way to escape daily scrutiny about their appearance or sexuality.
Although adolescents get picked on for a variety of reasons, weight is the top reason children are bullied at school, Yahoo! Shine reports.
And according to Rebecca Puhl, Director of Research at the Rudd Center for Food Policy at Yale University, a new ad campaign in Georgia is only “perpetua[ting] negative stereotypes.”
The ads, which aim to curb childhood obesity rates, feature photos of overweight children accompanied by text, such as “WARNING: It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/children-diet-bullying_n_1186422.html?ref=email_share

It is situations like this which cause unhealthy eating habits and disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

Linda Poon of NPR reported in the story, Obesity Linked To Lower Grades Among Teen Girls:

Since the 1990s, the U.K has seen childhood obesity rates grow at an alarming rate, says John Reilly, specialist in the prevention of childhood obesity at the University of Strathclyde, and the study’s lead author. Today, nearly a quarter of children in U.K. are obese by the time they reach 12. Increasingly, researchers in both the U.S. and the U.K. have been interested in how obesity might affect students’ academic achievement, but Reilly says few studies have examined the same students over several years, or been able tease out obesity’s effects from the influence of social factors, such as socioeconomic status.
The current study analyzed data from nearly 6,000 adolescent students in the U.K., comparing their body mass index from ages 11 to 16 with how well they performed in standardized tests during those years. About 71 percent of the students surveyed were of a “healthy weight” at the start, the researchers said, and about 15 percent were obese. The academic exams, which tested the students’ English, math and science abilities, were given three times — at ages 11, 13 and 16. After adjusting for factors like socioeconomic status, IQ and menstruation cycles, the researchers found that, on average, girls who were obese at age 11 performed worse at age 11, 13 and 16 than girls deemed to have a healthy weight. Being obese at 11, the scientists found, was enough “to lower average attainment to a grade D instead of a grade C,” by age 16…. Though the study followed British teens, Reilly says the findings are likely also applicable to students in the United States, where the proportion of children between the ages 12 and 19 who are obese grew from 5 percent in 1980 to nearly 21 percent by 2012.
“The similarities between the environment, the culture, [and] school systems between the U.S. and the U.K. are more similar than may be obvious,” Reilly says….
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/11/289070502/obesity-linked-to-lower-grades-among-teen-girls?
utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign=storyshare

See also, Obesity associated with lower academic attainment in teenage girls, says new study http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140311100604.htm

Citation:

Journal Reference:
1.J N Booth, P D Tomporowski, J M E Boyle, A R Ness, C Joinson, S D Leary, J J Reilly. Obesity impairs academic attainment in adolescence: findings from ALSPAC, a UK cohort. International Journal of Obesity, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2014.40

Here is the news release from the Universities of Strathclyde, Dundee, Georgia and Bristol

News Releases
main content
Obesity associated with lower academic attainment in teenage girls, says new study
Obesity in adolescent girls is associated with lower academic attainment levels throughout their teenage years, a new study has shown.
The research conducted by the Universities of Strathclyde, Dundee, Georgia and Bristol is the most comprehensive study yet carried out into the association between obesity and academic attainment in adolescence. The results are published in the International Journal of Obesity.
The results showed that girls who were obese, as measured by BMI (body mass index) at age 11 had lower academic attainment at 11, 13 and 16 years when compared to those of a healthy weight. The study took into account possible mediating factors but found that these did not affect the overall results.
Attainment in the core subjects of English, Maths and Science for obese girls was lower by an amount equivalent to a D instead of a C, which was the average in the sample.
Associations between obesity and academic attainment were less clear in boys.
University of Strathclyde Professor of Physical Activity and Public Health Science, John Reilly – the Principal Investigator of the study – said: “Further work is needed to understand why obesity is negatively related to academic attainment, but it is clear that teenagers, parents, and policymakers in education and public health should be aware of the lifelong educational and economic impact of obesity.”
Dr Josie Booth, of the School of Psychology at the University of Dundee, said: “There is a clear pattern which shows that girls who are in the obese range are performing more poorly than their counterparts in the healthy weight range throughout their teenage years.”
The study examined data from almost 6000 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), including academic attainment assessed by national tests at 11, 13 and 16 years and weight status. 71.4% were healthy weight (1935 male, 2325 female), 13.3% overweight (372 male, 420 female) and 15.3% obese (448 male, 466 female).
The researchers took into account potentially distorting factors such as socio-economic deprivation, mental health, IQ and age of menarche (onset of the menstrual cycle) but found these did not change the relationship between obesity and academic attainment.
This study was funded through a BUPA Foundation grant to the University of Strathclyde. ALSPAC receives core support from the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the University of Bristol.
11 March 2014
Web MD has some excellent information about Anorexia
Anorexia nervosa, commonly referred to simply as anorexia, is one type of eating disorder. More importantly, it is also a psychological disorder. Anorexia is a condition that goes beyond concern about obesity or out-of-control dieting. A person with anorexia often initially begins dieting to lose weight. Over time, the weight loss becomes a sign of mastery and control. The drive to become thinner is actually secondary to concerns about control and/or fears relating to one’s body. The individual continues the ongoing cycle of restrictive eating, often accompanied by other behaviors such as excessive exercising or the overuse of diet pills to induce loss of appetite, and/or diuretics, laxatives, or enemas in order to reduce body weight, often to a point close to starvation in order to feel a sense of control over his or her body. This cycle becomes an obsession and, in this way, is similar to an addiction.
Who is at risk for anorexia nervosa?
Approximately 95% of those affected by anorexia are female, most often teenage girls, but males can develop the disorder as well. While anorexia typically begins to manifest itself during early adolescence, it is also seen in young children and adults. In the U.S. and other countries with high economic status, it is estimated that about one out of every 100 adolescent girls has the disorder. Caucasians are more often affected than people of other racial backgrounds, and anorexia is more common in middle and upper socioeconomic groups. According to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), other statistics about this disorder include the fact that an estimated 0.5%-3.7% of women will suffer from this disorder at some point in their lives. About 0.3% of men are thought to develop anorexia in their lifetimes
Many experts consider people for whom thinness is especially desirable, or a professional requirement (such as athletes, models, dancers, and actors), to be at risk for eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. Health-care professionals are usually encouraged to present the facts about the dangers of anorexia through education of their patients and of the general public as a means of preventing this and other eating disorders.
What causes anorexia nervosa?
At this time, no definite cause of anorexia nervosa has been determined. However, research within the medical and psychological fields continues to explore possible causes.
Studies suggest that a genetic (inherited) component may play a more significant role in determining a person’s susceptibility to anorexia than was previously thought. Researchers are currently attempting to identify the particular gene or genes that might affect a person’s tendency to develop this disorder, and preliminary studies suggest that a gene located at chromosome 1p seems to be involved in determining a person’s susceptibility to anorexia nervosa.
Other evidence had pinpointed a dysfunction in the part of the brain, the hypothalamus (which regulates certain metabolic processes), as contributing to the development of anorexia. Other studies have suggested that imbalances in neurotransmitter (brain chemicals involved in signaling and regulatory processes) levels in the brain may occur in people suffering from anorexia. http://www.onhealth.com/anorexia_nervosa/article.htm

Beautiful people come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The key is to be healthy and to live a healthy lifestyle

Related:

Helping Girls With Body Image http://www.webmd.com/beauty/style/helping-girls-with-body-image

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In the rush to produce geniuses, are we forgetting the value of play

10 Mar

Children are not “mini mes” or short adults. They are children and they should have time to play, to dream, and to use their imagination. Dan Childs of ABC News reports in the story, Recess ‘Crucial’ for Kids, Pediatricians’ Group Says:

The statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics is the latest salvo in the long-running debate over how much of a young child’s time at school should be devoted to academics — and how much should go to free, unstructured playtime.
The authors of the policy statement write that the AAP “believes that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child’s development and, as such, it should not be withheld for punitive or academic reasons.”
“The AAP has, in recent years, tried to focus the attention of parents, school officials and policymakers on the fact that kids are losing their free play,” said the AAP’s Dr. Robert Murray, one of the lead authors of the statement. “We are overstructuring their day. … They lose that creative free play, which we think is so important.”
The statement, which cites two decades worth of scientific evidence, points to the various benefits of recess. While physical activity is among these, so too are some less obvious boons such as cognitive benefits, better attention during class, and enhanced social and emotional development. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/recess-crucial-kids-aap-policy-statement/story?id=18083935#.UOZ606zIlIq

The goal of this society should be to raise healthy and happy children who will grow into concerned and involved adults who care about their fellow citizens and environment. In order to accomplish this goal, all children must receive a good basic education and in order to achieve that goal, children must arrive at school, ready to learn.

Debbie Rhea wrote the thoughtful Education Week commentary, Give Students Time to Play:

It seems counterintuitive to think that less classroom time and more outdoor play would lead to a better education for kids. After all, what many in our country, including most recently New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have prescribed are longer days in the classroom. But longer days on task don’t equate to better results. Instead, they translate into more burnout, lower test scores, and more of the same. All work and no play really does make dull boys and girls.
For years, educators have tried different strategies of more testing and of more time on task to reverse these trends, but they have proved to be unsuccessful. The answer is not additional in-class sitting time. What kids need is time to move and have unstructured play.
On a recent sabbatical, I spent six weeks in Finland studying how that country practices education. Reading, science, and math are important in the Finnish education system, but so are social studies, physical education, arts, music, foreign languages, and a number of practical skills. The school day in Finland looks much different from the school day in the United States.
“We should not sacrifice recess time for classroom time, and neither should be used to discipline students.”
In the United States, for example, a 1st grader attends school 35 hours a week, seven hours a day. In Finland, a 1st grader spends 22.5 hours a week in school, or 4.5 hours a day. Three hours each day are spent on content in the classroom, and another 1.5 hours are spent on recess or “unstructured outdoor play.” Some elementary schools in the United States do not have recess time built into their schedules, let alone outdoor recess.
Kids are built to move. Having more time for unstructured outdoor play is like handing them a reset button. It not only helps to break up their day, but it also allows them to blow off steam, while giving them an opportunity to move and redirect their energy to something more meaningful once they return to the classroom.
When a human sits for longer than about 20 minutes, the physiology of the brain and body changes. Gravity begins to pool blood into the hamstrings, robbing the brain of needed oxygen and glucose, or brain fuel. The brain essentially just falls asleep when we sit for too long. Moving and being active stimulates the neurons that fire in the brain. When you are sitting, those neurons don’t fire.
Getting students out of their chairs and moving outdoors is essential. A 2008 study published in JAMA Opthamology found that 42 percent of people in the United States between the ages of 12 and 54 are nearsighted. But 40 years ago, that number was only 25 percent, a change that can’t be explained by heredity. Time indoors can weaken our vision, especially if we are staring at computer screens and not looking away for long periods of time. Additional studies have also shown that when people have inadequate daylight exposure at work, particularly in areas that have poor indoor lighting, it can disrupt their circadian rhythms—the cycle that allows for healthy sleep. When these rhythms are thrown off, it can have a negative impact on academic performance.
I’m such a believer in more unstructured outdoor play and recess throughout the day that I’ve launched a pilot program called Project ISIS—Innovating Strategies, Inspiring Students—that is being implemented in two Texas private schools, with an additional three public elementary schools in that state coming on board by the fall. While the program doesn’t reduce the number of hours spent at school, it does build in more outside recess time. Students get two 15-minute unstructured outdoor-play breaks in the morning (one is right before lunch, the other is a full lunch with a short recess afterward), and then two more 15-minute recess breaks in the afternoon. These schools will continue to have physical education as a content area.
We should not sacrifice recess time for classroom time, and neither should be used to discipline students. The more movement children have throughout the day, the better they will be with attentional focus, behavioral issues, and academic performance…. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/02/26/22rhea.h33.html?tkn=VRYFMBKESIDvZIGHetFWpKk1lBN%2FPqxFrjSh&intc=es

We must not so over-schedule children that they have no time to play and to dream. Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

The ‘whole child’ approach to education
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

Childhood obesity: Recess is being cut in low-income schools

Childhood obesity: Recess is being cut in low-income schools

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests

Seattle Research Institute study about outside play
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/childrens-physical-activity/

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