Although school has been back for less than a month, it is likely that many children are already experiencing frustration and confusion in math class. Research at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada could change the way we view math difficulties and how we assist children who face those problems.

Daniel Ansari is an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Western. He is using brain imaging to understand how children develop math skills, and what kind of brain development is associated with those skills.

Research shows that many children who experience mathematical difficulties have developmental dyscalculia – a syndrome that is similar to dyslexia, a learning disability that affects a child’s ability to read. Children with dyscalculia often have difficulty understanding numerical quantity. For example, they find it difficult to connect abstract symbols, such as a number, to the numerical magnitude it represents.

“Research shows that many children have both dyslexia and dyscalculia. We are now exploring further the question of exactly what brain differences exist between those who have just math problems and those who have both math and reading difficulties,” says Ansari.

Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study the brains of children with math difficulties, Ansari says that it becomes clear that children with developmental dyscalculia show atypical activation patterns in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex.

This research holds tremendous promise for people who, in the past, had simply accepted that they are ‘not good at math.’ Understanding the causes and brain correlates of dyscalculia may help to design remediation tools to improve the lives of children and adults with the syndrome.

A report of this research is forthcoming in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

“We have some cultural biases in North America around math skills,” says Ansari. “We think that people who are good at math must be exceptionally intelligent, and even more dismaying and damaging, we have an attitude that being bad at math is socially acceptable. People who would never dream of telling others they are unable to read, will proclaim publicly they flunked math.”

Ansari says that math skills are hugely important to life success and children who suffer math difficulties may avoid careers that, with help, might be a great fit for them.

An article by Ansari entitled “The Brain Goes to School: Strengthening the Education-Neuroscience Connection,” will be published in the upcoming Education Canada, the magazine of the Canadian Education Association. In the article Ansari says technological advances such as fMRI have provided unprecedented insights into the working of the human brain.

“A teacher who understands brain structure and function will be better equipped to interpret children’s behaviours, their strengths and weaknesses, from a scientific point of view, and this will in turn influence how they teach,” says Ansari.

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924151007.htm

Youngsters in the United States are three times likelier to be prescribed antidepressants and stimulants and twice as likely to be given antipsychotic drugs than counterparts in Germany and the Netherlands, according to a new study.

The use of antidepressants and stimulants such as Prozac and Ritalin to treat hyperactivity, attention deficit and bipolar disorders in teenagers and young children has become a subject of sharp controversy.

Proponents say these powerful drugs, known as psychotropics, target newly identified conditions that were undertreated or misdiagnosed in the past.

Critics say the medications are being used too broadly, addressing behavioural problems that should be tackled by softer therapies.

Drawing from data on nearly 600,000 youngsters 19 years old and younger, the study is one of the first rigorous comparisons across several countries of how these medications are dispensed among the young.

In 2000, nearly seven percent of children in the US took psychotropics of some kind, while 2.9 and 2.0 percent, respectively, did so in the Netherlands and Germany, according to the study.

One in 12 of American children aged five to nine were taking these medications, four times the European levels.

Lead researcher Julie Zito, a University of Maryland pharmacologist, said psychotropic use in the United States may have increased since the data was collected.

“The US trends appear to be continuing,” she told AFP in an email.

Seeking explanations for the disparity on either side of the Atlantic, the study noted that direct-to-consumer drug advertising was allowed in the United States, but banned in Europe.

“The increased use of medication in the US reflects the individualist and activist therapeutic mentality of US medical culture,” Zito said.

There are also differences in the way behavioural disorders are defined and classified.

The diagnosis of “hyperkinetic disorder” in the European medical system, for example, is more stringent than that of the “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” (ADHD), the equivalent syndrome in the US classification.

Another difference is who is handing out the medication: there are more psychiatrists per capita in the United States, which could influence prescription patterns, the study says.

Reimbursement policies and government regulatory constraints may also be factors.

Amphetamines and other stimulants are rarely prescribed for children in Western Europe. In France, their use was banned during the period covered by the study, 1999 and 2000.

Government health plans in Europe have also cut down on the use of expensive, patent-protected drugs, especially antipsychotics and antidepressants.

The study was published online, on Thursday, in the British-based open access journal BioMed Central.

Source: AFP
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilBNpu4oa62i2RHvWrWC362LFLaA

It’s probably not surprising that mothers excel at recognizing and interpreting the moods and emotions of their infants. Although infants can’t speak, mothers seem to know what their babies are thinking: they smile when their baby smiles and they frown when their baby is upset. Research suggests that the mother’s ability to understand the needs of her infant is very important for establishing a secure mother-infant relationship. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie these behaviors are poorly understood. Such knowledge is crucial for understanding normal as well as abusive and neglectful mothering.

Maternal Rewards

In recent years, several studies have been carried out using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to better understand how a mother’s brain responds to her own child’s cues. The most recent, led by neuroscientist Lane Strathearn and colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine, investigated what happens inside the brain of a mother when she looks at the facial expressions of her own infant. In the study, 28 first-time mothers were shown pictures of their seven-month old child that they had never seen before. (The pictures were taken when the mother was not present.) The pictures spanned a wide range of human emotion and included images of the child making happy, sad or neutral faces. These pictures were then matched with images of an unknown infant. The central finding was that seeing the happy face of the mother’s own infant activated all of the key areas in the brain associated with reward processing. These regions include the ventral tegmental area, substantia nigra and the striatum. This finding suggests that for mothers the sight of their smiling baby is a potent reward and represents a uniquely pleasurable experience. Furthermore, this neural response was graded, so that happy faces led to more activation than neutral faces. Sad faces generated the least activation. In other words, the response of mothers in their reward areas seemed to directly mirror the emotions the infant displayed.

The argument put forth by Strathearn and colleagues is that maternal behavior is fundamentally rooted in these reward areas. Positive sensory cues from infants, such as a smiling facial expression, stimulate dopamine release and thus promote responsive maternal care. However, many questions remain. In their paper, Strathearn et al. do not discuss the significance of the orbitofrontal cortex, although its activity was clearly influenced in the experiment by seeing one’s own infant’s compared with an unknown infant. The importance of the orbitofrontal cortex shouldn’t be too surprising, as this brain area is believed to receive ascending dopamine projections from reward areas and is critical in representing the “value” of a reward. Other studies have also demonstrated that the orbitofrontal cortex is correlated with the positive feelings of the mother, suggesting that it plays a key role in modulating maternal behavior.

Is the Smile Enough?

This study also raises a more fundamental question: is the infant smile the most important element for motivating maternal behavior? It goes without saying that the smiling face of one’s own baby is highly rewarding and encourages maternal care. On the other hand, babies aren’t always smiling and mothers must also learn to respond to infants in distress. In fact, a human mother’s response to an infant in distress is a good indicator of how responsive she is to other infant cues. Studies also show that abusive and neglectful mothers show less empathy and more aversive feelings towards a crying infant when compared with nurturing mothers, suggesting that how a mother reacts to a baby when it’s upset and not smiling is a crucial test of maternal behavior.

According to our own recent work, the orbitofrontal cortex and striatum were more activated in the brain of a mother when she looked at her own infant compared with other infants regardless of the infant’s situation or mood. These brain areas also showed a greater activation when mothers were viewing their infant when he or she was crying (the distressed condition) as opposed to when he or she was happy (the play situation). This discovery makes sense, as a distressed baby might require more effort and thought as the mother must quickly identify the source of the distress and respond appropriately. Another reason to highlight the importance of the orbitofrontal cortex in guiding maternal behavior is that, in our experiment, the activity of this brain area showed a positive correlation not only with pleasurable feelings but also the anxious feelings experienced by the mother. Of course, these anxious feelings are important for maternal care, as anxiety and worry can be powerful motivators. Taken together, these findings suggest that maternal behavior is guided by elaborate and complex neural mechanisms. Although reward processing is clearly an important part of this mental process—it seems to mediate maternal love and feelings of joy—other mechanisms are required in order to explain the full range of the mother-infant relationship.

In conclusion, a smiling face of a mother’s own infant is certainly rewarding and it motivates maternal care, but this is not the only motivator. We hope that in the future other aspects of maternal behavior—such as the maternal desire to protect her infant, which is a biologically essential mechanism for preservation of the species—will get investigated and explored.

Source: Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=smiles-and-mother-baby-bond

Parents need lessons in how to cope with their children’s unruly behaviour, new guidelines on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) say.

Teachers would also benefit from training to recognise and help children with this condition, it adds.

Any primary school class is likely to have a child with ADHD, experts say.

Most of the estimated 365,000 children in Britain with ADHD receive no treatment at all.

But of those who do, most - about 37,000 - are prescribed stimulants like Ritalin (methylphenidate).

Children with ADHD have extreme difficulty sitting still, learning or concentrating.

At school they may find it hard to keep friends and suffer from bullying because of their behaviour. Looking after affected children can be exhausting for parents.

Parenting classes

The guidelines, which cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland, say parent training and education programmes should be offered as a first-line treatment for ADHD, both for pre-school and school age children.

Drugs remain a first option for children over five and young people with severe ADHD, say the guidelines, but only as part of a comprehensive treatment plan that includes psychological and behavioural interventions.

Dr Tim Kendall, a consultant psychiatrist from Sheffield who is joint director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health and helped draw up the guidelines, said: “There is an over-reliance on medicines.

“Quite commonly, people tend to revert to offering methylphenidate or atomoxetene. When they do that it’s not always because there’s a good balance of risk and benefits. It’s because the child has got what appears to be ADHD and that’s what’s available.

“Its easier to prescribe a drug when other options like parent training programmes are not available.”

Dr Kendall said it was important to diagnose ADHD correctly, rather than label all bad behaviour as ADHD. The symptoms of ADHD persist in all settings - both at school and at home - and cause real impairment.

Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the ADHD charity ADDISS, welcomed the NICE recommendations but questioned how helpful the parent training programmes would be to parents.

“Parenting programmes are extremely important, but they need to be specific for ADHD.

“The ones that NICE are recommending were designed for the parents of children with conduct disorder, which is completely different from ADHD,” she said.

The Scottish InterCollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) is rewriting its guidelines on ADHD diagnosis and treatment and will take the NICE guidelines into consideration.

Their new guidance will come out in the first half of 2009.

Source: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7630926.stm

American taxpayers invest heavily in education. Last year, spending on public K–12 education totaled $553 billion, about 4 percent of gross domestic prod­uct (GDP) in 2006. For each child enrolled in a pub­lic elementary or secondary school, expenditures averaged $9,266 that year—an increase of 128 per­cent, adjusted for inflation, since 1970.

Despite this increase in public spending, student achievement and educational attainment over the last four decades has remained relatively flat. In 2007, a significant portion of students, disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds, scored “below basic” in reading and math on the National Assess­ment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Sadly, in many of the nation’s largest cities, fewer than half of high school students graduate.

While academic research has consistently shown that increased spending does not correlate with edu­cational gains, the research does show a strong rela­tionship between parental influences and children’s educational outcomes, from school readiness to college completion. Two compelling parental factors emerge:

2. parents’ involvement in their children’s schoolwork.

Consequently, the solution to improving educa­tional outcomes begins at home, by strengthening marriage and promoting stable family formation and parental involvement.

The Erosion of Family Stability in America

“Perhaps the most profound change in the American family over the past four decades,” writes sociologist Paul Amato, “has been the decline in the share of children growing up in households with biological parents.” In 1960, 88 percent of all children lived with two parents, compared to 68 percent in 2007. In 1960, 5 percent of all children were born to unmarried mothers. That figure rose to 38.5 per­cent in 2006. Demographers have estimated that, overall, one child in two will spend some portion of his or her childhood in a single-parent family.

Studies show that children raised in intact families, i.e., with two con­tinuously married parents, tend to fare better on a number of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes than children living in other family forms. Not surprisingly, the changes in family structure over the last 40 years have affected child and adoles­cent well-being. In 2002, nearly 7 million children between the ages of 12 and 18 repeated a grade. Based on this figure, Professor Amato estimates that if the share of two-parent fami­lies had remained unchanged be­tween 1980 and 2002, some 300,000 fewer teens would have repeated a grade. Some 750,000 fewer students in 2002 would have repeated a grade if the share of two-parent families remained at the level it was in 1960.

Social science research over the past decades suggests that family structure affects children’s school outcomes, from preschool to college. Some of the variations in school performance could be explained, in part or in whole, by the differences in family resources such as time and money, family dynamics and parental characteristics that are asso­ciated with the various family forms. These are mediating factors, or mechanisms through which family structure affects schooling outcomes. Family structure may also exert a direct influence, inde­pendent of mediating factors. Thus, depending on the outcome, family structure’s total effect may con­sist of one or more mediating influences or a com­bination of both direct and mediating influences.

Though various methodological research issues— e.g., data quality, inconsistent definitions of family structure, the selection effect (e.g., are individuals who possess better parenting qualities more likely to choose marriage and stay married, or does mar­riage per se bolster children’s well-being?)—limit the findings, the evidence, nonetheless, is strong: Fam­ily structure matters.

School Readiness. A number of early-childhood outcomes contribute to children’s eventual school readiness. The evidence suggests that potentially important early-childhood outcomes vary by family structure. One study, analyzing 1,370 mothers in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who were continuously married or in cohabiting rela­tionships from the child’s birth to age three, found that three-year-olds born to cohabiting mothers tended to exhibit more aggressive, withdrawn, and anxious or depressive behavior than children born to married mothers. For aggressive and with­drawn behaviors, the association was explained by income differences. For anxiety and depressive symptoms, even controlling for income, the cohab­itation effect remained.

Studies show that reading to young children aids their literacy development. Toddlers and preschool-age children in married-parent families are read to more often than peers in non-intact families. One study of 11,500 kindergartners living with two par­ents orparent figuresreported that, accounting for parental education and income, children living with married parents averaged higher reading achieve­ment test scores than peers living in cohabiting or stepparent families.

Elementary and Secondary Education. The research on family structure and elementary and secondary educational outcome is extensive. Studies have reported that:

1. First-graders whose mothers were married when they were born are less likely to engage in dis­ruptive behavior with peers and teachers than those whose mothers were single or cohabiting at the time of their birth.

2. Children aged three to 12 who live in intact fam­ilies have higher average math scores than peers whose mothers live in cohabiting relationships.

3. The association between family structure and nine-year-olds’ science and math achievement appears to be cross-national.

4. Children aged seven to 10 who live in continu­ously intact families tend to score higher on read­ing tests than peers who have lived in other family structures.

5. Children aged six to 11 who live in intact fami­lies tend to be more engaged in their schoolwork than peers in other family structures.

6. Eighth-graders in two-parent families perform, on average, better on math and science tests than peers in single-parent or stepparent families.

7. The predominant family structure of a school’s student population appears to be linked to the individual science and math scores of eighth-graders.

8. Ninth-graders whose mothers were married when they were born are more likely to complete an algebra course than are peers whose mothers were single when they were born.

9. Middle school and high school students who expe­rience a parental divorce tend to suffer declines in their grade point averages and are more likely to fail a course one year later compared to peers of married parents; the evidence suggests a causal link.

10. Among middle school and high school students, the portion of childhood spent in a single-parent family is associated with declines in GPAs over time; and living in a single-mother family with a cohabiting partner is associated with a greater likelihood of suspension or expulsion from school at a later time.

Finally, studies have also shown a robust link between family structure and high school dropout or graduation rates, and the evidence suggests that the relationship may be causal.

Higher Education and Educational Attainment. The impact of family structure on educational out­comes appears to last into young adulthood. Throughout the college entrance process, students from non-intact families tend to fall behind their peers from intact families. The gap increases when the process involves selective college admission. Overall, children from intact families complete more years of schooling and achieve higher educational attainment than do peers from other family forms.

One study, analyzing two nationally representa­tive data sources, reported that longer durations in single-parent or blended families during child­hood appear to have a negative impact on college attendance and graduation. Though family income and parental education explained the association between single-parent families and lower college attendance and graduation rates, the disparities in these outcomes between children in intact families and those in blended families persisted.

Similarly, another study showed that, accounting for family income and estimated financial aid, an average student from a non-intact family was 5 per­cent less likely to attend a four-year college and 6 percent less likely to graduate from college than an average student from an intact family.

Parental Involvement

Parental involvement emerges as another robust influence on educational outcomes. It is multi-dimensional. Examples include monitoring chil­dren’s activities outside home and school; setting rules; having conversations about and helping chil­dren with school work and school-related issues; holding high educational expectations; discussing future planning with children and helping them with important decision making; participating in school-related activities such as meeting with teach­ers and volunteering in the classroom; and reading to children or engaging in other enrichment or lei­sure activities together.

A meta-analysis of 77 studies, consisting of 300,000 elementary and secondary students, found that parental educational expectations are a particu­larly important aspect of parental involvement. Parenting style, reading to children, and, to a lesser extent, participation in school-related activities appeared to be influential as well. Furthermore, parental involvement is associated with multiple measures of student achievement, for the entire stu­dent population as well as for minority and low-income student populations. Overall, “the academic advantage for those parents who were highly involved in their education averaged about 0.5–0.6 of a standard deviation for overall educational out­comes, grades and academic achievement.”

Parental Involvement and Family Structure. The level of parental involvement varies by family structure, and the relationship between parental involvement and educational outcomes depends on the family context as well. One study, for exam­ple, found that compared to high school students from intact families, those from single- or step­parent families reported less parental involvement in their school work, supervision, and parental educational expectations, which, in turn, affected school outcomes.

Early Childhood. Studies show that a sensitive, warm, and respon­sive type of parenting and engaging in play activities with young children bolster their social and emotional development, communication skills, and ability to focus. Doing arts and crafts with children, reading to them, showing them how to write words, and using a more complicated vocab­ulary around them also aid their liter­acy and language development. One study reported a link between these types of parental engagement and a range of school readiness out­comes such as “children’s motivation to learn, attention, task persistence, and receptive vocabulary and…fewer conduct problems.”

Frequent contact between parents and their children’s preschools as well as parent participation in school-related activities, such as volunteering in the classroom or meeting with a teacher, appear to benefit children on a num­ber of dimensions, including classroom performance and social interaction with peers and adults. One study reported that children whose teachers per­ceived more parental involvement tended to exhibit fewer problems and higher language and math com­petencies compared to children whose teachers per­ceived less parental engagement. The evidence also suggests that parental school involvement’s pos­itive influences buffer against some of the negative effects of poverty.

Elementary Education. Parental involvement during elementary school affects children’s school­ing outcomes as well. The quality of the parent-child relationship is significant. Middle school stu­dents who received sensitive, supportive parenting from their mothers during kindergarten tend to per­form better in school. Children of parents who frequently praise and show affection to them are less likely to require classroom attention for behavior and socio-emotional issues.

Studies also show that parental involvement in school-related activities during elementary school is associated with long-term educational gains. One study reported that among low-income African-American families, children of highly involved par­ents during elementary school were more likely to graduate from high school. In the same study, children of parents who were involved in school-related activities for three or more years completed more years of schooling compared to peers of less involved parents. Involvement, specifically by fathers, is significant as well. Children of fathers who visit their classrooms and meet with teachers tend to fare better in school than peers whose moth­ers are the only involved parent.

Reading with children and the way in which par­ents read to their children affect children’s reading ability. The research shows a distinction between reading storybooks to children, which contributes to their literacy development, and teaching children to read and write, which aids their language devel­opment. Both types of activities affect third- and fourth-grade performance.[50] Furthermore, parents’ use of vocabulary and their attitude toward home­work appear to influence corresponding outcomes in their children. Not surprisingly, children of parents who provide appropriate help with their homework tend to fare better in school.

The home environment in which children are raised plays a role in schooling outcomes. For ex­ample, in a study of middle-class families, elemen­tary students whose parents offered them math and science learning materials showed greater incli­nation toward and interest in math and science activities. Finally, parental expectations of achieve­ment, particularly adolescents’ perceptions of such expectations, appear to strengthen their actual mo­tivation and ability in school.

Secondary Education. Parent-child relation­ship quality continues to be an effective factor in schooling outcomes throughout adolescence. For example, in one study, youths who felt bonded to their parents and enjoyed good communication with them tended to have higher grades and physical well-being. In another study, among low-income youths, those whose parents encouraged individual decision making in their children during early ado­lescence were more likely to graduate from high school and attend college. Beyond academics, teens who receive more support from their parents are more likely to participate in structured after-school activities, which, in turn, are positively corre­lated with achievement and social competence.

During adolescence, parental monitoring to the extent to which parents know their children’s activ­ities outside of home and school, plays a crucial role in adolescent outcomes, particularly when children and adolescents perceive genuine care from their parents. Parental monitoring is associated with fewer school problems, less substance use, and reduced delinquency. Moreover, parental monitor­ing is positively linked to social development, school grades, and school engagement, such as pay­ing attention in class and being motivated to do well in school. The evidence also suggests that paren­tal monitoring may have different effects on boys and girls.

Not only does parental involvement in their chil­dren’s school-related activities send a positive mes­sage to students and teachers, such involvement is also related to high school completion. The research also suggests that minority students benefit from their parents’ participation in formal leader­ship roles at the school district level. The effects of parental involvement, however, may vary by par­ents’ education. One study showed that involve­ment from more-educated parents was associated with fewer behavioral problems in students, which, in turn, affected achievement and aspirations. Among students whose parents are less educated, parental involvement was related to student aspira­tions but not achievement.

At the secondary education level, high parental expectations continue to yield significant schooling benefits. In one study of high school seniors, “parental expectations for achievement stand out as the most significant influences on [their] achieve­ment growth, high school credits completed, and enrollment in extracurricular academic high school programs.” High parental educational expecta­tions are also associated with math and reading scores, interest in school, academic self-discipline, future planning, and motivation for school work. In one study of African-American families, when parents taught that success originates from effort rather than surpassing peers, their expectations had a strong effect on eighth- and ninth-grade math grades. Overall, parental expectations appear more influential than peer effects.

Finally, discussions with parents about the future and pursuing further education support teens’ aspi­rations and college preparation. One study of high-achievement Latino college students found that their parents imparted strong encouragement and values that emphasized education as a means to escape poverty.

Policy Implications

Social science research over the last few decades indicates a strong relationship between family struc­ture, parental involvement and children’s educa­tional outcomes, with enduring influences from early childhood to young adulthood. The empirical evidence points to several policy implications:

* Family policy intersects critically with education policy. Fortifying the intact family structure may lead to improvements in individual student out­comes as well as the American education system as a whole.

* Policies that strengthen healthy marriage and stable family formation may bolster child well-being, including school outcomes, both at the individual and aggregate levels.

* Conversely, policies and laws that facilitate fur­ther family breakdown may have adverse impacts on children’s educational outcomes and provide additional stress on the education system.

* In education reform efforts, greater emphasis on parental involvement and parental choice could yield significant gains in student achievement and attainment. Importantly, the research shows consistent benefits of high parental involvement for minority and low-income students, which deserves serious consideration in light of the achievement gap.

* On the other hand, education initiatives that dis­regard the importance of families and parental involvement, instead focusing on strategies such as increased expenditures, are likely to continue to prove less effective or ineffective altogether.

Conclusion

American taxpayers invest heavily in education, with annual public education spending totaling $553 billion. The average annual expenditure per child enrolled in a public school amounts to $9,266. Though per-pupil expenditures have increased dra­matically over the past few decades, student achieve­ment has remained relatively flat. A significant portion of students attending public schools score “below basic” in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In some of the most disadvantaged central cities in America, fewer than half of high school students graduate.

While numerous education reforms over the last quarter century have demonstrated little impact on overall student achievement, the research clearly shows that the intact family structure and strong parental involvement are significantly correlated with educational outcomes, from school readiness to college completion. Instead of favoring proven ineffective education policies, policymakers seeking effective education reform should consider policies that strengthen family structure in America and bol­ster parental involvement and choice in education.

Christine C. Kim is Policy Analyst in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.

Source: Heritage.org
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2185.cfm

The English language will adopt its millionth word in April, according to the Global Language Monitor (www.languagemonitor.com). Of course, educators cannot possibly teach students the meaning and pronunciation of a million words, so they teach techniques that students can use to figure out unfamiliar words on their own. Parents can reinforce these lessons by reminding their children of the techniques when they read at home.

If you have an elementary-age child who’s struggling to read a word, ask the child to say the sound of each letter. Then ask the child to say the sounds more quickly and connect them to pronounce the word. You also might want to ask your child to look for familiar chunks in the word. Many children know what this means because “chunks” is a word that teachers use to refer to letter combinations. Encourage your child to read each chunk and then to say the chunks more quickly and connect them.
You might be able to ask your child to look for familiar words within an unfamiliar one. For example, if your child cannot figure out the word “unusual,” point out that it contains the word “usual,” but it has been changed into a word that means the opposite because of the prefix “un-.”

Tell your child to look for clues to the meaning of an unfamiliar word by thinking about the other words in the sentence. For instance, if your child asks what “gleeful” means in a sentence such as “Dawn was gleeful when she got good news,” ask your child to think about another word that would make sense in the sentence besides “gleeful.” You also could ask, “How do people feel when they get good news?” If the child says “happy,” point out that a reader can figure out that “gleeful” means “happy” because of the other words in the sentence.

Make sure your child knows how to use a dictionary. Children enjoy kid-friendly ones such as Merriam Webster Children’s Dictionary or the Scholastic Children’s Dictionary. On the Web, the Little Explorers Picture Dictionary is available at www.enchantedlearning.com/dictionary.html. Merriam-Webster’s Word Central offers a dictionary for students ages 11-14 at www.wordcentral.com. (…)

Source: Louisville Courier-Journal
http://tinyurl.com/4hnpln

Up to one in 11 children in Britain may suffer from an attention deficit disorder, government advisers will say this week.

Recommendations on the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) say families in which pre-school children have behavioural problems should be given parenting classes, reigniting a debate about whether the condition is a medical diagnosis or the result of poor upbringing.

The guidance by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) is expected to say that up to 9 per cent of children and 2 per cent of adults fall within broad definitions of ADHD. It will recommend that the stimulant Ritalin be prescribed to all children and adults with a severe form of the condition and to all moderate cases which do not respond to talking therapies or parenting classes.

Prof Philip Asherson, one of the experts who produced the guidance, due out on Wednesday, said they tried to avoid following the model of ADHD care in the United States, where medication is the norm and routinely used to tackle minor behavioural and educational problems.

He said: “We worked very hard to avoid the approach in the US, where one in 10 children are being treated with stimulants. The guidance makes it clear that medication is the right approach in some cases but that it should not be used for everyone and certainly not to tackle minor educational problems.”

The psychologist Oliver James accused psychiatrists of medicalising a problem that was caused by upbringing. He said: “Psychiatrists invented this category to medicalise when in fact it is a social problem linked to low incomes and parenting difficulties.” He said the best approach to children with ADHD-like symptoms was to give them more attention and affection.

Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the National Attention Deficit Disorder Information and Support Service, also attacked the guidance. She said the parenting programmes it recommended were not specific to ADHD and would offer little help to families.

Dr Sami Timimi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Lincolnshire, who does not believe ADHD is a valid diagnosis, said Nice had produced no evidence that the condition existed, or that medication worked, despite coming to conclusions supporting its use.

Dr Timimi, author of Naughty Boys: Anti-social Behaviour, ADHD and the Role of Culture, said draft guidance produced by Nice cited a study that showed Ritalin improved the performance of patients after 14 months but did not consider the longer-term results of the same study, which showed that after three years it made no difference.

Stoke uses drug 23 times less than the Wirral

Doctors are 23 times more likely to prescribe drugs such as Ritalin for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in some areas of the country than in others.

In the Wirral, one prescription of the drug class methylphenidate, which includes Ritalin, was dispensed for every seven children last year, according to the Health Service Journal. Other areas with high rates included the Isle of Wight, Great Yarmouth and Medway in Kent.

Doctors in Stoke on Trent handed out the drugs least frequently, with one prescription per 159 children.

Latest figures show almost 500,000 prescriptions for stimulants for under-16s last year, more than double the 200,000 issued in 2003. The Department of Health said the figures reflected the number of prescriptions, which could include repeat orders for the same child.

Solurce: Telegraph.co.uk
http://tinyurl.com/53uulo

The addition of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers to the ranks of Robert Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson is helping Scottish schoolchildren become enthused about learning and reaping ground-breaking educational results, according to researchers and teachers.

Experts say in games-based learning, using technology such as the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS in the classroom, Scotland leads the world.

According to the Consolarium, the Scottish centre for games and learning which is funded by Learning and Teaching Scotland, the number of pilot schemes around the country has grown exponentially. Last year 10 local authorities were using games-based learning. At the start of the new school term, 27 are investigating its possibilities.

As further evidence of growth, Derek Robertson, head of the Consolarium, points to this week’s Scottish Learning Festival at the SECC in Glasgow. With titles ranging from Thinking Out of the Xbox to Scotland’s Got Game: How Scotland Has Embraced Games-Based Learning, there are 10 seminars sharing examples of how classrooms are using computer games. Last year there were only four related talks.

“I don’t think there is any other place in the world that has done what LTS did,” said Robertson. “I’m continually asked who does my job in England, and there isn’t anyone. For LTS it was a risk, a maverick idea from the left field that has moved into the mainstream. It’s even mentioned in the Curriculum for Excellence. That’s the impact we’ve had.”

The world is now looking to Scotland. Robertson has been asked to speak in Germany, Australia the US. He has already advised the Singapore government. A section of the influential Handheld Learning Conference in London will be given over to what is happening in Scotland.

“People recognise that Scotland is a place that is keen to integrate these things into the curriculum,” said Robertson.

Teachers are reporting that by using games such as Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports and Endless Ocean, pupils’ motivation, attendance, personal skills and academic performance have improved, particularly among young boys and hard-to-reach children.

Meldrum Primary school in Aberdeenshire employed the game Endless Ocean as a hook for cross-curricular project for its P7 class. After playing the game on the Wii, which involves controlling a diver exploring a seascape, the pupils learned about bio-diversity, wrote stories and staged a debate about developing the a section of the ocean for tourists.

“It got so heated the person acting out the part of the tourist development person was in tears,” said Kim Aplin, the deputy-head teacher. “The quality of the learning that took place was tremendous. There is no doubt at all it improved their academic ability.”

Other examples around the country include West Lothian nurseries and primary schools using dance mats as a way to develop early-years phonics and reading skills, with “huge success”, according to Laura Compton, the authority’s information and communications technology development officer.

In Elrick and Banchory primary schools in Aberdeenshire, P2 pupils learned how to be responsible for looking after a pet using the Nintendogs game on the Nintendo DS.

In Clepington Primary School in Dundee, Jo-Anne Bell used Mario and Sonic at the Olympics on the Wii as a hook to teach her P6 class about the solar system. Pupils were placed into teams named after planets, wrote stories about the creatures that would live there, and competed against each other every morning on the Wii.

After last year’s trial involving a Dundee primary school class using Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training on the Nintendo DS for 20 minutes a day, which sparked a 10% improvement in their basic arithmetic, the project was rolled out to 16 other schools. The results will be revealed on Thursday at the Scottish Learning Festival.

The head teachers’ organisation, School Leaders Scotland, said while it welcomed the rise of Nintendo and Sony consoles in the classroom, it had reservations.

“It’s a great extra resource, a great motivational tool, but it has resource implications and you have to keep it in perspective of the other things that you really need to do in terms of education,” said Ken Cunningham, the general secretary. “The projects are product-dependent and not readily available to everyone all the time. They have to balance all that with all the more traditional style of teaching, the interpersonal skills. So it’s about getting the balance right.”

Source: Sunday Herald
http://tinyurl.com/42tzq2

Momlogic’s Andrea: I thought timeouts were the progressive way to punish. But are even they too cruel?

Yesterday, when I picked my daughter up from her new preschool, the teacher told me my two-year-old was having trouble following directions that day. I nodded in weary agreement — she’s been very defiant this week.

“I give her timeouts,” I offered, “That’s what you guys do, right?”

Oh. Crap. This discipline thing is tricky. And here I was secretly patting myself on the back for not spanking my toddler’s backside. Meanwhile, it turns out the preschool’s mode of discipline makes mine seem like Abu Ghraib. But, hey, it’s not like I’m waterboarding.

As the teacher expounded on the preschool’s principles of punishment, my mind wandered to my timeout experience the night before. My daughter was locked in her chair prison — it’s amazing to me she stays put. She can escape any time — instead, she begs for mercy. Her crime? Hitting me in the face when I tried to put on her new Dora pajamas. (Maybe I should’ve bought Diego instead?) I don’t know if “distracting” her would’ve helped either of us at that moment. It took every bit of my moral strength not to punch her back.

Has the pendulum swung too far when it comes to doling out punishment for our kids? I don’t even know ANY moms these days who spank. Maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong crowd?

Source: Mom Logic
http://www.momlogic.com/2008/09/time_outs_are_the_new_spanking.php

Is your child already struggling to pay attention in school? Don’t jump to Ritalin for the answer. Check out his eyes, ears and teeth for possible trouble spots.

One Davidson, N.C., mother of a first-grader says she has been pleased that several months of eye exercises with a vision therapist have helped her son focus better in school this year.

“Parenting is very educational,” the mother says, as there’s always something new to learn to care for your child. “Who even knew there was such a thing as vision therapy?”

Young kids generally don’t complain about their eyes, but parents need to be aware of symptoms that may indicate a vision problem. The American Optometric Association says that even though a child may have 20/20 vision, these habits can signal less obvious vision problems:

l Loses his or her place while reading.

l Avoids close work.

l Has headaches.

l Holds reading material closer than normal.

l Tends to rub his eyes.

l Turns or tilts head to use one eye only.

l Makes frequent reversals when reading or writing.

l Uses his finger to maintain place when reading.

l Omits or confuses small words when reading.

l Consistently performs below potential.

l Has difficulty with hand-eye-body coordination when throwing a ball or riding a bike.

l Avoids detailed work such as coloring or puzzles.

The eye association recommends that children receive comprehensive eye exams — beyond a brief screening — beginning at 6 months, 3 years and again when a child enters school.

A simple vision screening in school could miss what some parents have realized: Their underachieving children cannot keep written text in focus. Their eyes tire easily, so they look up often from what they’re reading. They appear bored and distracted, when actually their eyes are not working together.

Similarly, some kids may pass an initial hearing screening, but still be at risk for hearing loss that fluctuates, gets worse or is acquired later in development, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

The goal of screening for hearing loss in preschoolers age 3 to 5 is to identify children most likely to have hearing loss that may interfere with how they speak, understand language and perform later in school.

Attentive preschool teachers have a special vantage point: To flag vision and speech difficulties if a child is behind his peers in development.

Toothaches can also keep kids from paying attention in school or cause difficulty learning. Progressive dental decay is one of the most common childhood diseases, and mouth pain and tooth complaints are a common reason kids miss school, according to the University of Southern California School of Dentistry Pediatric Dental Clinic.

“When you’re in pain, you can’t concentrate and you can’t learn,” says Gardner Beale of USC.

Keeping an eye on your child’s oral health and instilling good habits is one more important job on a long list for parents. A new toothbrush and dental floss belong on the back-to-school shopping list, but what your child eats is just as important in preventing cavities as oral hygiene.

Snacks such as chips, cookies and dried fruit have cavity-inducing sugars that can stick on teeth for long periods, Beale warns. Fresh fruits, veggies and string cheese make the healthiest snacks, she says.

Beale reminds parents that sodas, with both their sugar and acid content harmful to teeth, should be consumed sparingly.

Addressing oral-health concerns before they turn into painful, expensive problems is crucial, Beale says.

And it is one more thing for parents to keep track of to give kids the best chance in school.

Source: Connecticut Post
http://www.connpost.com/women/ci_10510035