New brain research on adolescents has shown that although teens may look like adults and try to act like them, the area of the brain that regulates emotions and impulses is still developing, and the systems aren’t yet completely connected.

“Biology doesn’t make teens rebellious or have purple hair or take drugs,” says Jay Giedd, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and a leader in this emerging field. “It does not mean you’re going to do drugs, but it gives you more of a chance to do that.”

Such findings may explain the blank teenage expression that so often follows those “What were you thinking?” moments.

But it also should give parents — and society — pause as they struggle with the question of how much freedom and responsibility teens can handle. Are they children in adult-like bodies or very nearly adults?

It’s not that simple, says Ronald Dahl, a professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, where adolescent brain research has been particularly prolific. He says that even though adolescents can appear to reach adult levels of thinking, in some situations they are more vulnerable to impulsivity.

“If you take a kid who has lots of social support and self-discipline and is making good decisions, he is not necessarily going to go out and do crazy things,” Dahl says. “But put him in an environment that activates strong feelings and thrills, and it gets more complicated.” …

Researchers have found the prefrontal cortex, which regulates impulse and emotions, develops later than originally thought — well past age 18 and likely into the mid-20s.

Despite more work, Richard Lerner, director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., says adolescent brain research is “still in its infancy.” …

Earlier views were incomplete: “The newer thinking is the notion of more and more of the brain involved in the decision-making,” Giedd says. “We overlooked probably a more important part, which is this integrating and pulling together of all the brain parts.” …

Parents have a role

The study found that when kids showed resistance to peer pressure, the prefrontal cortex thickened, and areas of the brain showed more connections. Lerner says this illustrates an association between brain function and structure and resistance to peer influence. The association was clearer among girls than boys, but there were no gender differences in resistance to peer influence, he says.

“The issue is, which comes first,” Lerner says. “Can we enhance connections by training on resistance to peer influence or can we find other ways to stimulate the brain to be more connected?”

In his book The Good Teen, to be published in November, Lerner says teens are not inherently difficult or disproportionately emotionally troubled.

“The problem is that parents are often not playing the role of parent,” he says. “Often parents want to be the friend of their adolescents. Teenagers need adults to mentor them, coach them and guide them…”

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-09-26-teen-freedom_N.htm

Black and Hispanic New Jersey fourth-graders are making big strides on a national standardized test, according to data released Tuesday.

While members of the minority groups, on average, still score worse than white students on the National Assessment of Education Progress, they have been narrowing the gaps quickly.

Under the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind education law, schools can be penalized if minority students fail to meet certain levels on standardized tests.

Even before that, New Jersey was giving extra help to 31 low-performing, low-income school districts, most of them with large minority populations.

Many studies have shown that the state’s full-day preschools for 3- and 4-year-olds in the poor districts have made a major difference.

The NAEP test again shows that the efforts in New Jersey seem to be paying off as minority students have been making consistent gains…

“This is the news we’ve been waiting for,” Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy said in a statement. “For the past six years, the department has stressed early childhood literacy and that hard work and, in particular, the hard work of teachers and their young students has produced results worth celebrating today.” …

Source: Asbury Park Press, NJ
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070926/NEWS03/709260316/1007

More needs to be done to encourage boys to engage in learning, education experts said yesterday, as latest figures showed the gender gap in Scottish exam results was as wide as ever.

Eric Wilkinson, professor of education at Glasgow University, urged parents and teachers to encourage boys from nursery school onwards, to prevent them disengaging from education.

The new statistics revealed girls still outperformed boys at every stage of the school exam process…

Professor Wilkinson said teachers needed to target boys from as early an age as possible.

“It is a thorny issue and has been with us for quite some time,” he said. “It requires robust action. There are various solutions, such as single-sex classes and schools, but I don’t think these particularly work, except in maths.

“We need to act where the problem lies - right at the very beginning of the education process, at nursery and primary one.”

He said research demonstrated a difference between the sexes from primary one that could not be explained by girls maturing more quickly.

He said: “We need to get boys much more engaged in the learning process. When boys start to switch off, teachers have to be trained to identify them and question them to keep them interested. We have to put more pressure on them and give them more homework to challenge them. These are fairly radical solutions, but we are not doing enough - we are being complacent.”

He also said parents had a role to play in encouraging their sons to learn: “Boys are getting bored. They are not encouraged by their parents to sit down and read as much as girls are.

“Girls get involved more readily than boys do. This is something that has been happening for 20 years and we need to take action.” …

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “Various schools are encouraging fathers to get involved with their children’s education, because we know children perform better when parents are engaged.” …

Source: Scotland on Sunday, UK
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=493&id=1542892007

As federal health officials offer more evidence that the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal is safe, many vaccine experts say in retrospect that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to remove it from childhood vaccines may have done more harm than good by raising public fears.

And still others argue that research and funds still being spent on exploring the risks of thimerosal could be directed to more productive enterprises.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that early exposure to thimerosal does not cause any neurological problems. Thimerosal, used in vaccines since the 1930s, has been a topic of controversy since the FDA banned it in 1999.

Some claim that the additive causes autism and other brain development disorders in children. But the latest study joins a growing body of literature that shows thimerosal is safe and causes no long-term negative effects on children’s health.

Although no concrete evidence at the time showed that thimerosal was harmful, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics pushed for its elimination to quell the fears of parents who might otherwise not get their children vaccinated.

But in an editorial published alongside this new research, Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, argues that this move was likely unnecessary — and it could have ended up causing even more alarm among parents…

“Thimerosal was removed from vaccines as a preventive measure, even though there was no indication that it represented a health risk,” Mark Slifka of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute and the Oregon Health and Sciences University says…

Source: ABC News
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/Germs/story?id=3655803&page=1

Offering children bribes for outcomes is not necessarily a bad thing, say some experts, and is actually a widespread practice.

Even the City of New York has been getting in on the act lately, after reports that the city is now paying $25 to fourth-graders who get a perfect score on the state exam.

Associate Professor John Lidstone, from Queensland University of Technology’s faculty of education, prefers to call them incentives.

“We all work better with incentives, he says. “And that’s what makes education really hard for children.

“The incentives in education are so long-term for children, they simply are beyond their horizons.

“It’s not much good telling a child that if you do well you’ll be able to drive a massive car some time in the future when, for most children, three weeks is a very long time.”

Offering modest incentives does not prevent children from becoming self-motivated adults, he says.

Many of us have learnt how to reward ourselves, but as we get older we take a longer-term view…

The trick with children is not to make the incentives too high, or the outcomes unachievable…

“And if parents are going to go broke rewarding their children, it can distort their whole sense of values and give kids totally the wrong impression of what is important in life.” …

Discussing with your children what they think is achievable for them – and then rewarding them accordingly – is another way to benefit from the incentive process.

“The idea of rewards and incentives gives an opportunity to parents and children to discuss what is achievable,” Lidstone says…

Setting priorities and discussing them then turns something that is unpalatable – planning for the future and getting serious about education – into something that is much more fun…

Source: Courier Mail, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22479787-23272,00.html

Music training, with its pervasive effects on the nervous system’s ability to process sight and sound, may be more important for enhancing verbal communication skills than learning phonics, according to a new Northwestern University study.

Musicians use all of their senses to practice and perform a musical piece. They watch other musicians, read lips, and feel, hear and perform music, thus, engaging multi-sensory skills. As it turns out, the brain’s alteration from the multi-sensory process of music training enhances the same communication skills needed for speaking and reading, the study concludes.

“Audiovisual processing was much enhanced in musicians’ brains compared to non-musician counterparts, and musicians also were more sensitive to subtle changes in both speech and music sounds,” said Nina Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology and director of Northwestern’s Auditory

Neuroscience Laboratory, where the work was performed. “Our study indicates that the high-level cognitive processing of music affects automatic processing that occurs early in the processing stream and fundamentally shapes sensory circuitry.” …

“Musicians have a specialized neural system for processing sight and sound in the brainstem, the neural gateway to the brain,” said Northwestern doctoral student Gabriella Musacchia, lead author of the study.

For many years, scientists believed that the brainstem simply relayed sensory information from the ear to the cortex, a part of the brain known for cognitive processing.

Because the brainstem offers a common pathway that processes music and speech, the study suggests that musical training conceivably could help children develop literacy skills and combat literacy disorders…

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/nu-mtl092007.php

‘Why do we do this?” asks Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause, seconds before a deadly car race. “You’ve gotta do something, don’t you?” is the reply.

Now, 50 years later, psychology is ready to offer Jim a more satisfactory explanation. Science is exploring the adolescent brain, that most inscrutable of organs, and the results could save millions.

The real answer to Jim’s question is steeped in complicated neuroscience, but boils down to one simple factor: peer pressure.

That is the view of Prof Laurence Steinberg, of Temple University, Philadelphia. Prof Steinberg has investigated the biological basis for risk taking in adolescence.

Prof Steinberg let teenagers take control in a driving simulation. “The player is encouraged to drive as far as he can in a fixed amount of time,” he explains.

“Along the way, the player encounters eight traffic lights that turn yellow as he approaches the intersection.”

The player is faced with a dilemma: stop and waste time, or risk crashing at the junction. “When adolescents play the game, they take twice as many chances if their peers are in the room than if they are by themselves,” says Prof Steinberg. “No such peer effect is seen among adults.”

The strong association between peer pressure and risk taking may be a side-effect of brain development. During adolescence, two brain networks emerge: the cognitive-control and the socio-emotional.

The cognitive-control network encourages us to take sensible decisions by weighing up the pros and cons of our actions, judging possible rewards against potential risks. The socio-emotional network helps us deal with social situations and emotions, but is linked to reward processing.

When the network is active it can cloud our judgment by amplifying the appeal of a reward. Our judicious self is drowned out by impulse.

By adulthood, the struggle between recklessness and restraint is all but won. The cognitive-control network ensures we act with prudence, even at times of high emotion. But the networks mature at different rates.

Cognitive-control is underdeveloped in adolescence. The teenager’s socio-emotional network is likely to govern behaviour, especially at times of social interaction or intense emotion.

The prospect of a reward acquires such an allure that it impairs risk perception. Because peer pressure involves a potent mix of high emotion in a social group, it leaves adolescents at the mercy of their rash self.

They decide that completing the driving game in the quickest time and gaining the respect of their peers is more important than avoiding a crash…

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/25/sciteen125.xml

Those who cheered an end to Utah’s math wars might have celebrated prematurely.

The Utah Board of Education this summer approved new state math standards, a move that was supposed to signal the end of a battle that began years ago in the Alpine School District over the best way to teach math. The new standards dictate which math skills and concepts are to be taught at each grade level across the state.

But no one was happily shaking hands over the new standards at the state Capitol last week. Instead, lawmakers, educators and mathematicians spent nearly three hours debating whether the new state math standards are world-class or embarrassingly inadequate. Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, even suggested forming a new task force to study the issue further.

On top of that, some in the Alpine district say the problems there, where the war essentially began, aren’t over either. The district had to stop using a controversial math curriculum as its primary textbook, but still uses it alongside more traditional math lessons, continuing to draw the ire of some parents and teachers.

“It seems like the math wars are alive and well,” said Aaron Bertram, chairman of the University of Utah math department…

Source: Salt Lake Tribune, United States
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6982084

There are so many different ways to rear your child. Some do like their parents did while others find their own style of bringing up baby. One style that’s gaining popularity is attachment parenting.

Austinite Marianne Baker Bolduc is an attachment parent. What that means is she raises her two children, including two-and-a-half-year-old Will, in a way meant to create a strong bond between parent and child. “Our goal ultimately is to raise emotionally, healthy happy child who are compassionate and happy in the world and kind to other people,” says Bolduc. How Bolduc does this is by making sure Will’s needs are met at all times. Like when he’s hungry. Attachment parents believe breastfeeding is best. “A lot of people stop at six months or the theoretical twelve months and you’re over and done. But research has shown that the benefits of breast feeding continue as long as you do it,” says Bolduc. So when Will asked to eat, Bolduc stopped the interview to breastfeed.

Co-sleeping is another principle of attachment parenting. Monica Mueller co-sleeps with her one-year-old baby, Willow. “In our society we have a tendency to want to put babies in their room. We continue parenting at night as well,” says Mueller. While the U.S. Consumer and Product Safety Commission has warned that co-sleeping can be dangerous, citing suffocation or strangulation, Mueller insists it’s safe…

Source: CBS 42, TX
http://keyetv.com/local/local_story_267140714.html

“Only in recent times have women acquired significant control over their own fertility, and many are preferring not to be saddled with the burden of raising children,” says Lonnie Aarssen, a Biology professor who specializes in reproductive ecology.

“The question is whether this is just a result of economic factors and socio-cultural conditioning, as most analysts claim, or whether the choices that women are making about parenthood are influenced by genetic inheritance from maternal ancestors that were dominated by paternal ancestors.”

In a new article, Dr. Aarssen suggests that because of inherited inclinations, many women when empowered by financial independence are driven to pursue leisure and other personal goals that distract from parenthood.

“The drive to leave a legacy through offspring can be side-tracked by an attraction to legacy through other things like career, fame, and fortune – distractions that, until recently, were only widely available to men.”

Dr. Aarssen speculates that the now widespread incidence of childlessness in developed countries will subside, not because of cultural evolution but because of biological evolution.

The women who leave the most descendants will be those with an intrinsic drive for motherhood. The ones who would rather forego parenthood in order to have a career, lavish vacations and leisurely lifestyles will of course leave no descendants at all. Over time those genetic traits that influence women away from motherhood will necessarily be ‘bred out.’

In this way future generations of women will inherit a stronger genetic predisposition for mating and having children as a priority in their lives. Dr. Aarssen predicts that an increased desire for marriage and having children, in both men and women, will be an inevitable product of evolution within the next few generations…

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070921100328.htm