Channelling a child’s energy into skateboarding may be their saving grace.

Adam Walker is all too aware of society’s penchant for stereotyping and pigeonholing individuals. The 30-year-old father of two has dedicated much of his life to skateboarding, a sport and art form that has been mostly misunderstood by the wider community.

Adam is used to the negative comments people make about those who choose skateboarding as their pastime, sport, hobby, even profession.

However, there may be another side to what appears to be the wild antics and often gravity-defying skills of the ‘boarder and it is this side Adam will attempt to expose in his studies at James Cook University.

Having attained a Bachelor of Psychology and Social Sciences (majoring in anthropology and sociology), he is now writing a thesis on reducing the manifestations of ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder) by using skateboarding as a psychosocial intervention tool. His interest in finding an alternative treatment for those diagnosed with ADHD comes from personal experiences.

“Yes, I was diagnosed with it,” he says. “I found skateboarding and music were great releases for my energies.

“At school I didn’t fit in with what was perceived as the ‘norm’ because while I had no problems socialising, I was not interested in the whole concept of playing team sports and group activities.”

Adam spent his childhood in Adelaide playing the guitar and skateboarding while his peers were out playing football, cricket and other team sports. He wants to highlight the difference between skateboarding and traditional team sports.

“There are a number of kids who don’t fit that ‘team sport’ criteria and get labelled as misfits, even troublemakers,” he says.

“What we need to do as a society, and educators in particular, is recognise the signs that they may have such children in their class/care but rather than sideline or exclude them, develop or use programs which identify their skills and talents. It’s about understanding how to channel that energy and turn what can so often be a negative situation into a bright, positive one which benefits the community as well as develop the individual’s self-esteem,” Adam says.

Adam has already been playing a role and walking the talk. Eight years ago Adam was sharing a house with a friend on the Gold Coast when a light-bulb moment came to him.

“I was skating, playing music and basically enjoying life,” he says. “But one night I sat at home and jotted down a few ideas of where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do with my life as a career/profession.

“I asked myself: ‘What if there was such a thing as a skateboarding coach?’.”

He thought little more about it until he moved to Airlie Beach where he worked at the town’s surf shop.

Within a month he was asked to manage the store, which in turn led to him rubbing shoulders with “corporate bigwigs”. Adam seized the moment, proposing the store expand to include a skate shop to capitalise on the growing calls from locals and visitors for such an outlet.

The skate shop took off and was a success, resulting in its thriving business which prompted the local council to ask Adam if he would be interested in taking a skateboarding coaching course in Brisbane. “It was the first fully accredited course in skateboard coaching in Australia,” Adam says.

Upon his return to Airlie Beach and the surf/skate shop, Adam developed and ran skate programs at the town’s newly built skate park. He was then approached to move up to a senior management position but felt he was not ready for that major step. “I didn’t feel I was qualified enough,” he says.

Instead, Adam moved to Cairns to embark on studies to gain the necessary management skills. But four years later, his focus has shifted slightly while his passion for skating has remained as resolute as ever.

“Since coming to Cairns I’ve realised I still have those dreams … my own dreams of coaching kids and helping them,” he says.

“But I also recognise that to be able to do that I have to work and earn and that means study to a higher level so I can deliver appropriate programs to them.

“I find it very liberating to teach kids and see the enjoyment they get from learning new skills and building confidence.”

Adam runs his programs through his company SkateMethod and this year had his efforts recognised by the Australian Sports Commission which awarded him a grant to purchase boards, helmets and related equipment for clinics at local schools.

While the skate clinics and courses are primarily fun, they also are designed to promote discipline, respect and dedication, qualities Adam learned from another individual art form.

“I trained for 12 years in Wing Chun (Chinese martial arts) and have transported all of the elements of discipline from that art form to these programs,” he says.

“In martial arts you need to be committed to practising constantly in order to perfect the moves and be dedicated to completing a task and not walk away when the going gets a ‘bit too challenging’.”

Adam has built in certain mechanisms to ensure the children apply themselves and are rewarded in a similar style to martial arts, except instead of different-coloured belts upon completing their grading, they receive a board sticker or decal.

“It’s about rewarding the achievement of learning that special turn, jump or flick they may have been practising,” Adam says.

Adam’s thesis and programs will attempt to educate the wider community on the benefits of using skateboarding as a key to unlock the minds of individuals whose learning experiences may not fit so comfortably with the established and, as he calls it, “rigid” curriculum. But in his attempt to do this he is acutely aware of being seen as “selling out” the underground culture.

“Am I trying to regulate skateboarding? Yes, but only to explain there is a science behind its execution. You have to do things the right way for them to look as good or cool as they do,” he says. “Skateboarding has its origins in a non-conformist culture.

“So in a way, I’m trying to help turn around the lives of children who are often sidelined, even demonised as social misfits, and help them prove they have skills and energies that, when channelled correctly, can enable them to be contributing members of society.

“Also, the art form is always going to have its street edge. It’ll always be funky and cool and retain its underground following.”

Adam hopes to use his collected data to convince governments to invest in “niche activities” such as skateboarding and create an avenue for drug-free intervention strategies to treat conditions such as ADHD.

“I think there is a need to look at alternative treatments and this strategy is strong on education and discipline as well as fun and freedom,” he says. “It’s just delivered in a caring and nurturing environment and with different tools. This is a way to get kids to express themselves and learn.

It needs to be supported.”

Source: cairns.com.au, Australia
http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/05/13/3776_lifestyle.html

Young children whose parents read aloud to them have better language and literacy skills when they go to school, according to a review published online ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Children who have been read aloud to are also more likely to develop a love of reading, which can be even more important than the head start in language and literacy. And the advantages they gain persist, with children who start out as poor readers in their first year of school likely to remain so.

The authors explain that the style of reading has more impact on children’s early language and literacy development than the frequency of reading aloud. Middle class parents tend to use a more interactive style, making connections to the child’s own experience or real world, explaining new words and the motivations of the characters, while working class parents tend to focus more on labelling and describing pictures. These differences in reading styles can impact on children’s development of language and literacy-related skills.

The Reach Out and Read programme in Boston has improved the language skills of children in low income families by increasing the proportion of parents reading to their children.

The programme provides books and advice to the parents about the importance of reading aloud. Parents who have been given books were four times more likely to say they had looked at books with their children or that looking at books was one of their child’s favourite activities, and twice as likely to read aloud to their children at least three times a week.

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512191126.htm

Recently a friend dropped off an Education Commentary from the Times Union newspaper that presented some relevant data on schools. The author wrote: “the qualities of the families from which children come to school matter much more than money as predictors of schools’ effectiveness.”

The research tells us that there are two prime factors in a child’s education: the teacher and the parents. Individually each has an impact on student success in school. The possibilities when a child has both - probably much greater.

So what’s a parent to do? Glad you asked.

Learning begins at a young age. Simply by reading to your child at a young age begins to help students learn about language and communication. Children mimic parents and will “read” the pages to them.

Get them to school. I suspect there are only a few who are self-motivated or disciplined. Successful students have parents who make sure they get out of bed each morning and get them to school on time. Successful students have parents who understand that getting up for school is not always fun but their parents push them anyway.

The nice thing about these expectations is they do not cost anything. They do require some persistence and patience. For some parents the challenge is more difficult. And yet, if you want your child to succeed in school you are the partner in learning that your child needs.

Parents: I know you care that your child succeeds in school. Too often I do not get to talk to parents until the child is in trouble. Yet, when I do, I hear the same message: parents care about their children; they want them to succeed; they know that education is important. To those of you struggling, hang in there and do not give up.

Our goal is for every child to graduate. Working without the help of parents we will not reach that goal. With parent help we will all succeed!

Source: Marion Star, OH
http://tinyurl.com/54g3pj

Be it the growing power of rights over duties, feminism over traditionalism, or simply a society that makes it economically feasible to parent as a never-married woman, there is hope that the trend is turning around

It was a symposium on same-sex marriage that cold January day in Vermont, but on the subject of marriage generally, Patrick Fagan’s power-point presentation went much further. There, on a large screen, a bar graph demonstrated how for psychological health, wealth and other optimal outcomes for children, a biological mom and a dad in an intact marriage did the best job.

At the opposite, bottom end of the graph, well past the married stepfamilies, the divorced single parents and the co-habiting couples, was the never-married single mother, whose grim prospects included grinding poverty, little hope of a future marriage and children with behavioural problems that too often led to a life of crime and yet more unwed pregnancy.

The debate among top American academics is over, the distinguished psychologist, one-time presidential appointee on the family and now a Senior Fellow at the Family Research Council in Washington, later told me in a telephone conversation. Though if any doubt remains about the importance of an intact family in a child’s development, a study undertaken by Swedish social scientists and published by Acta Paediatrica in March buries it once and for all. Their systematic review of fathers’ involvement with children from the time they are newborn to the time they are young adults spanned 24 papers from 16 different longitudinal studies from a variety of countries. It concludes that “father engagement reduces the frequency of behavioural problems in boys and psychological problems in young women; it also enhances cognitive development while decreasing criminality and economic disadvantage in low (socio-economic status) families.”

If the United States more generally represents the traditional family and Sweden less-traditional families, the debate about the arrangement that best meets the needs of children would indeed appear to be over: kids need both mothers and fathers. But can the developments of the past half-century be reversed? In that time, the never-married single mother has been Canada’s fastest-rising parenting demographic. And why did these developments occur in the first place?

There was a time when an unwed pregnancy meant a shotgun wedding. It wasn’t the best start to a marriage, but it secured social and other obligations for the child from his parents. It also provided him with a sense of his genetic and social origins — that is, a sense of his identity — and clear role models upon which to build his future behaviour.

The existence of shotgun weddings didn’t preclude what sociologists and Statistics Canada now call lone-parent or one-parent families. These have been an established feature of Canadian familyhood for some time and have included widows, the divorced or separated, as well as never-married mothers. In 1951, for instance, 13.9 per cent of families were lone parents, a figure not far removed from 2006 figures at 15.6 per cent, although, significantly, they fell to 8 per cent between 1951 and 1966.

The difference between then and now is the altered composition of the lone-parent cohort. In 1951, only 1.5 per cent of lone parents were never-married, whereas 30 per cent were divorced or separated and 66.5 per cent were widowed. By 2006, and despite the availability of birth control, abortion and adoption services, the proportion of never-married, at 29.5 per cent, and divorced or separated, at 49.5 per cent, had increased dramatically.

Why?

Conventional wisdom says poverty is the primary cause of never-married mothering, but increasingly evidence suggests both poverty and never-married mothering are symptoms of a deeper problem.

“Although there are many exceptions,” writes Anne-Marie Ambert in a 2006 paper on one-parent families for The Vanier Institute of the Family, “over half of women who bear children alone not only create poverty … but come from poverty.”

The professor emeritus of sociology at York University adds that, in any case, “less than 50 years ago, the poor were not so likely to produce as many one-parent families as is now the case.” And even today, the poor do not uniformly inhabit one-parent families, while the rich do produce one-parent families via divorce and occasionally through intentional single motherhood.

Values, beliefs and morality are also factors, she says, beginning with an ethos of individualism that emphasizes rights rather than duties. This, coupled with an ideology of gratification, particularly sexual and psychological, meant procreation became increasingly separated from marriage even as women, often conspicuously unprepared for motherhood, were encouraged to keep and to bond with their newborns as a “right.”

Add impoverishment, and such adolescents may feel they have little to lose and even something to gain by engaging in unprotected sex.

In 1999, similar views were expressed by Maggie Gallagher, an American author and president of the Institute of Marriage and Public Policy. “What has changed most in recent decades is not who gets pregnant, but who gets married,” she wrote in The Age of Unwed Mothers. If a good marriage is unlikely and if marriage isn’t an essential support to motherhood anyway, she argues, it is hardly surprising adolescent girls decide to become pregnant. “If it is not marriage that confers special meaning to the sexual act, then perhaps it is her giving the gift of unprotected sex, or making a baby.”

British journalist Melanie Phillips agrees that the collapse of marriage is behind today’s changing family fortunes, but she blames “gender” feminism as its primary cause. By viewing marriage as the principle instrument of oppression by males of females, she says, gender feminism marginalized men from their roles as husbands and fathers while its radical agenda has become the stuff of public policy. Meanwhile, fear of appearing judgmental about its consequences has led to moral paralysis on the subject.

Her book, The Sex-Change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male, argues that any explanation based on economics — for instance, that a lack of jobs makes young men unmarriageable or that too much welfare makes it too easy for young women to be single mothers — is only a small part of the puzzle. The missing piece is the change in girls’ sexual behaviour and the collapse of social stigma. “The legalizing of abortion and the availability of contraception, along with the changes in social attitudes, brought about the end of ’shot-gun’ marriages by which unmarried sexual incontinence had previously been regulated,” Phillips says.

Fewer men wanted to marry women who, they felt, brought their pregnancy on themselves, while women who did want to marry and have children “found their bargaining position had been undermined since men could go elsewhere for sex without responsibility.” And while men seek sexual favours, it is women who — unless they are being coerced — have the power of selection.

To be sure, mistakes are a factor — but abortion and adoption services exist to address these. Coercion is also a factor in very disadvantaged groups, as is a hyper-sexualized media and celebrity culture that feeds peer pressure and promotes sexual activity.

If women were engaging in more-adventurous sexual behaviours, does that mean men were feckless cads? Not entirely, says Phillips. “All societies struggle with the problem of attaching men to their children,” she writes. “This is almost always solved through marriage and legitimacy, which is very important in establishing paternal certainty, the most important precondition for paternal investment.” Moreover, she says, family life socializes young men, who must get jobs and settle down. It also contributes to the development of kinship, the primary structure that supports individuals.

But now, “marriage has been weakened, divorce has got easier and no stigma is any longer attached to children born outside of wedlock. The result has been a snapping of the bonds that have tied men into family life.”

In Canada, as elsewhere, liberalized divorce laws were adopted by the end of the 1960s. In Britain, says Phillips, they turned marriage into an institution of contempt and “just a piece of paper.” Divorce produced “damaged children (who) grew up into embittered adults incapable of lasting attachments and deeply mistrustful of the institution whose failure had let them down so badly.” The non-existent or low-commitment requirements of lone parenting or co-habitation became a better option than a perceived “bad” marriage while “no-fault” divorce laws that also gave women custody of the children and most of the family assets bestowed “the seal of social approval upon families constructed around the absence of the father.”

In a recent blog item on The Spectator’s website, Phillips discusses the murder of a 15-year-old and the life of her mother and others with several children by several men. An affluent, complacent and materialistic Britain has created an underclass, she writes, “where successive generations of women have never known what it is to be loved and cherished by both their parents … How can such women know how to parent their own children?”

Similarly, and in the U.S., where 37 per cent of pregnancies are those of unwed, mostly black and Hispanic mothers, commentators describe a de facto caste system based on the marriage gap. In Canada, the proportion of Aboriginal single mother families is twice as high as other Canadian families.

Yet reasons for hope persist. According to “Crime, Drugs, Welfare — And Other Good News,” published in last December’s edition of Commentary magazine, American college graduates are marrying and staying married for the sake of the children, while the number of Canadian fathers who have joint custody of theirs now rivals the never-married mother as Canada’s fastest rising parenting demographic. Abortion and fertility rates among the young are declining.

Many lessons, too, are emerging from the trials and triumphs of the sexual revolution, among them that if feminism’s biggest mistake was the marginalization of men, so, too, has it given women greater control of their sexuality. And that means tremendous power to re-order their lives, the lives of their families and to turn the situation around.

Source: Canada.com, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/5uo7oe

Children whose fathers are depressed have smaller vocabularies than those who do not, a US study suggests.

But the Eastern Virginia Medical School study of 5,000 families found language development in children whose mothers had similar symptoms seemed unaffected.

Researchers said by the age of two, children with depressed fathers used 1.5 fewer words than the average of 29.

This could be because depressed fathers spent less time reading to their children, they wrote in New Scientist.

The researchers, led by paediatric psychologist James Paulson, surveyed about 5,000 families.

When the children were nine months old, 14% of the mothers and 10% of the fathers were clinically depressed.

The researchers assessed the impact on language development by measuring what proportion of 50 common words the children were using at two years of age.

On average the children in the study were using 29 of the 50 words by the time they reached two.

‘Significant difference’

However, those children whose fathers were depressed when they were nine months old used an average of 1.5 fewer words than those whose fathers were fine.

Dr Paulson said the difference might seem small, but when scaled up across a child’s complete vocabulary it might make a significant difference.

In contrast, there was no difference in the size of the vocabulary of children whose mothers were depressed, and of those whose mothers were not.

The researchers found that depressed mothers did not reduce the amount of time they spent reading to their nine-month-old baby, but depressed fathers read on average 9% less than those who had no problem.

Dr Paulson, who presented the findings to a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, said he hoped the study would encourage depressed fathers to seek help.

He said: “Men may not be likely to seek help for themselves but when other people who depend on them become affected, that may change the landscape.”

Ruth Coppard, a psychologist with an interest in child development, said depressed people tended to withdraw and go quiet, but that women often had no choice, but to continue with child care duties regardless.

BBC News, UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7388367.stm

Over the last decade or so there has been mounting concern about the effect of television and videos on young children.

A huge increase in television programmes now available which are particularly aimed at young infants has occurred, despite warnings from experts that children younger than 2 years should not watch any television at all.

Along with the plethora of such programmes has come more and more evidence of the potential adverse effects of television exposure on young children.

Researchers in the U.S. are now saying because infants in low-income families are watching television or videos, with a supposedly ‘educational’ basis, their mothers rarely speak to them.

Lead author Dr. Alan L. Mendelsohn says many of the programmes marketed as educational have limited data to support such claims and these claims were even less so if no co-viewing with a parent took place.

Dr. Mendelsohn and his colleagues set out to measure the verbal interaction between mother and infants associated with media exposure and maternal co-viewing; to do so they carried out an analysis of 154 low socio-economic status mothers-infant pairs who were taking part in a long-term study on early child development.

It was revealed that over one 24-hour period, 149 of 154 mothers reported that their 6-month-old infants had a total of 426 exposures to television or videos.

These included 139 exposures to educational programs for young children; 46 to non-educational programs for young children; 205 to programs for school-aged children, teenagers or adults; and 36 to unknown programs.

The researchers found that of those 426 television and video exposures, mothers talked to their infants during only 101 of them.

They say their findings support their hypothesis that interactions were most commonly reported in association with educational content, especially programs that had been co-viewed; however half of the exposures consisted of programs not intended for young children.

Even when they were intended for young children they did not involve frequent interactions when they were co-viewed.

The researchers say the findings are important, because parent-infant interactions are associated with long-term developmental-behavioural outcomes and they say verbal exchanges happen more often with reading and playing with toys.

The researchers say given the large amount of media exposure and low verbal interaction, more research is called for to determine whether such media exposure is of benefit to young children.

They say programs with educational content were no more likely to be co-viewed than were other programs and the research does not support the development of infant-directed educational programmes on the basis that they increase co-viewing and interaction.

The study is published in the current issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Internal Medicine.

Source: News-Medical.net, Australia
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=38136

Prolonged, exclusive breastfeeding appears to give children a cognitive advantage over formula-fed kids, increasing IQ by three to four points on average and boosting later academic performance, a Canadian study suggests.

The research by McGill University is not the first to link the method of infant feeding to brain development, but the size and the design of the study lends weight to the idea that breastfeeding actually causes an increase in intelligence.

“Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter,” said lead investigator Dr. Michael Kramer, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at McGill.

Kramer and his team evaluated about 14,000 children in 31 hospitals and clinics in Belarus starting in 1996, following their progress until they were 6 1/2 years old. Half the mothers were exposed to an intervention that encouraged prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding (experimental group), while the other half continued usual maternity hospital and out-patient pediatric care (control group).

Mothers who visited a facility promoting breastfeeding in the former Soviet country were more likely to feed their infants only breast milk at age three months (43.3 per cent versus 6.4 per cent in the control group) and at all ages through 12 months.

By the time children reached an average age of 6 1/2, those in the breastfeeding group scored higher on tests measuring verbal intelligence, non-verbal intelligence and overall intelligence. Breastfed children also performed significantly higher academically than formula-fed children, found the study, published in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

The children’s cognitive ability was assessed by IQ tests administered by their pediatricians and by their teachers’ ratings of their performance in reading, writing, mathematics and other subjects.

“I think that what this says is your average mother in a developed country like Canada who succeeds in breastfeeding for the duration and the degree of exclusivity achieved by the women in our experimental group … can expect her child to be a few points higher in IQ.”

The average jump in IQ is not so crucial when it comes to the individual child, Kramer said. “But if you consider for the whole population shifting the mean (IQ score) up three or four points, that means fewer difficulties for kids at the lower end and more Einsteins and Mozarts at the high end.”

Still, Kramer stressed that women who are unable to breastfeed or choose not to for a variety of reasons should not feel guilty or worry their child will be less intelligent as a result of being formula-fed.

“I think this (prolonged, exclusive breastfeeding) is a goal that’s achievable by the vast majority of mothers,” he said. “Those who cannot - and there are some who cannot - and there are some who could but don’t want to, have other ways of stimulating their children and improving their IQ, like reading and playing with their children.”

“And it might even be that the effect that we’re seeing is not something in the (breast) milk but has something to do with the nature of the contact, the physical contact or with what transpires between the mother and the baby verbally or emotionally at the time of the feeding, and that maybe is transposable to other feeding modes.”

Putting the study’s findings into context for parents, Kramer said “the difference of three or four IQ points is not going to make a difference between a child finishing school or being a success or a failure.”

“This is not the difference between mental retardation and a genius.”

Commenting on the study,Dr. Jack Newman said that while the research does not prove without a doubt that breastfeeding raises intelligence levels in children, there are sound reasons for believing it could.

For one, breast milk contains naturally occurring omega 3 and 6 fatty acids and a compound known as insulin-like growth factor I, all of which have been linked to increased cognitive ability.

“It may be the breast milk itself, although it could be all the things that are associated with it,” he said, referring to the physical and emotional contact inherent in breastfeeding.

The co-founder of the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic and Institute in Toronto also said many women who are unable to breastfeed feel terrible guilt, but he believes too often they have been failed by the medical system.

“Whether every mother can successfully breastfeed is an issue, but in fact most of the mothers who have difficulty with breastfeeding shouldn’t have problems with breastfeeding,” he said. “Most mothers produce plenty of milk and if they got the help and the advice that they should be getting they would not ‘fail.”‘

The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, although a mother can continue to breastfeed along with giving solid foods until the child is two years or more.

Source: The Canadian Press, TORONTO
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gmevM3DMQG78F-YAQcLYU4FdwOrg

A tide of recent research on early childhood development is inspiring prominent scientists and politicians to argue for an unprecedented investment in schooling that begins virtually at birth.

But as decades of academic studies on brain development start to land in the real world, experts are divided on whether to focus new funding on infants and toddlers, or conventional preschool. Many now think some policies popular with politicians and the public, such as universal prekindergarten, may fail to reach at-risk kids at a young enough age.

The scientific controversy also is spilling into the presidential contest, where the Democratic candidates have taken divergent positions on universal preschool and other early childhood issues.

Studies have suggested that intervening before children start preschool improves academic outcomes for low-income kids and may reduce the risk that they will end up in prison. Such interventions stem from the theory that experiences in the first five years of life set a lifelong course for brain development.

Chicago has become a national proving ground for schooling during the first three years and is home to prominent advocates such as Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman of the University of Chicago, who said reaching kids before preschool could offer the best long-term economic return.

“Even at age 4 or 5, you may be starting too late,” Heckman said. “I wouldn’t say it’s hopeless to help kids after those early years, but it’s extremely expensive.”

Backers of universal preschool say the evidence for even earlier intervention is not yet solid and offering conventional prekindergarten to everyone would help build popular support for early education.

In theory, starting to intervene soon after birth should help kids more because that’s when experience starts to shape their brains, many experts said.

Children’s brains change more between conception and kindergarten than at any other time. University of Chicago neuroscientist Peter Huttenlocher showed in studies over the last 30 years that connections between cells in most brain areas peak by age 3, then decline gradually as experiences mold the brain’s circuitry.

The zero-to-3 period is not necessarily a magical and irreplaceable window for teaching children. But studies show that babies raised in poverty get fewer of the early experiences that spur vocabulary growth and good social judgment, making it harder for them to catch up later.

For example, toddlers whose parents speak more words to them develop bigger vocabularies than children who hear less speech, studies have found. One University of Kansas study concluded that kids from upper-income backgrounds hear 30 million more words by age 3 than those from poor families.

Early intervention with enrichment programs can narrow that gap, researchers and advocates say.

“The basic science of brain development says you need to start as early as possible for kids in the greatest danger to get the best outcomes,” said Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, said he feared focusing on universal prekindergarten — making preschool a middle-class entitlement — could divert help from low-income families that need it most.

“Why would we use scarce public dollars to subsidize all families if we know the biggest impact is with poor kids?” he said.

Source: Detroit Free Press, United States
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/NEWS07/805020328

Parents have some homework to do, according to new findings presented at the Pediatric American Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, this weekend.

The research shows that 31% of U.S. parents know very little about the pace of a typical infant’s development, whether it’s when a child should start talking or begin potty training. The data is based on an analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study’s Birth Cohort, a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 9-month-old babies and their primary caregivers. Parents were asked to answer 11 questions, where those who got four or fewer correct were considered to have low-level knowledge.

While it may not sound like a big deal, experts say that this lack of knowledge can negatively affect parents’ interactions with their babies.

We asked study author Dr. Heather Paradis, a fellow in pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, why so many parents don’t know what to expect after expecting and what they need to know about their babies’ development.

Why do so many parents lack knowledge about infant development?

I think that parents get parenting information from a variety of sources, from reading magazines and books … most importantly, parents look for information from their child’s doctors.

There’s a lot of information that’s out there about what to expect when people are pregnant, but I don’t know that there is quite as much information on what to expect about how your child grows and develops in the first years of life, and there’s a tremendous amount of change. This study was surprising in just how many parents don’t have knowledge of normal infant development.

Do you have a sense as to whether this is a new trend?

I think that a lot of emphasis in the past has been placed maybe on what we would call “high-risk” parents–those with a lower education, lower socioeconomic status. But one of the surprising things that this study showed is that it’s not only those parents we should be targeting, but it’s something we should expand to the general population of parents. Everyone could benefit.

What was one of the most surprising things the study revealed in terms of parents’ confusion?

The most surprising thing to me was not necessarily what knowledge they did or didn’t have, but how that knowledge translated into actual behavior, or observed interaction with the child. That connection is something lacking in previous studies. This study showed that parents who have higher knowledge of normal infant development were shown to have higher (quality) observed interactions with their children.

The other thing is that we looked at not only parent/child interaction but parents’ reports of frequency of what I would call enrichment activities, such as reading books with a child, singing songs. We know early enrichment activities with kids leads to higher IQs, earlier reading, better school preparation. The parents with the higher knowledge of normal infant development also had a significantly higher reported frequency of doing those enrichment activities with their kids.

What are the potential negatives?

Parents who have unrealistic expectations could misinterpret a child’s normal behavior and could respond inappropriately. An example would be like a mom who expects an 18-month-old child to sit still during an appointment. Eighteen-month-olds are normally curious. I would expect them to be wandering around the room. If parents are expecting a child to sit still on a chair for an entire appointment, they may take normal curiosity and interpret it as intentional defiance, rather than the normal curiosity it is. That could lead to inappropriate harsh discipline or the withdrawal of affection.

I think quite often parents maybe underestimate a child’s ability to pick up language skills. A lot of parents don’t think that it’s worthwhile to read a book to their infant, to their 2-month-old, and they definitely should be doing that, even if it’s to look at pictures and let the child hear the normal qualities of voice. They might not understand the words the parent is saying but they definitely understand what’s going on and the interaction going on between the two of them.

How should parents go about educating themselves?

Certainly, I think it’s an opportunity for pediatricians that, even during our brief office encounters with parents, we can potentially do something that can have a large impact on the way that parents and children interact. I do think that getting information from reputable sources, asking a child’s doctor for recommendations on books and Web sites to get high-quality information, is something parents could do.

Source: Forbes, NY
http://tinyurl.com/68hrk2

Targets for “toddler technology” skills laid down by the Government, which will require children to master basic computer skills by the age of 4 and understand how to use a television remote control, pose serious risks to child development, experts have said.

Aric Sigman, a psychologist and author of Remotely Controlled, said that the Government’s new early years curriculum, which requires underfives to be taught on computers, risked creating a generation of screen addicts.

Exposure to screen technology during key stages of child development may have counter-productive effects on cognitive processes and learning, particularly language development and competency in reading and maths, Dr Sigman said.

“Legally requiring the introduction of screen technology to 20 to 60-month-old children is likely to lead to even higher levels of daily screen viewing. Early introduction to ICT [information and communications technology] is likely to lead to a greater lifetime dependency on screens,” he said.

The Government’s new early years curriculum, known as the EFYS (Early Years Foundation Stage), will become statutory in all nurseries and childcare settings in England from September. It sets out specific computer-related tasks for underfives.

From the age of 22 months children should “show an interest in ICT. Seek to acquire basic skills in turning on and operating some ICT equipment.” From 30 months schools should “draw young children’s attention to pieces of ICT apparatus they see or they use with adult supervision”.

From 40 months children should “Complete a simple program on a computer. Use ICT to perform simple functions such as selecting a channel on the TV remote control. Use a mouse and keyboard to interact with age-appropriate computer software.”

These goals are set against a background of growing use of IT in state schools at all ages. Dr Sigman said that there was increasing evidence to suggest that this approach carried substantial risks. Supposedly educational DVDs and computer programs were very often nothing of the sort, he said.

He cited a recent study in the Journal of Pediatrics, which found that the use of such software produced no positive effects on children under 2 and might retard language development.

He observed the emergence of a “video deficit” phenomenon whereby young children who have no trouble understanding a task demonstrated in real life often stumble when the same task is shown on screen.Exposure to television and computer games over a long period might also have long-term consequences on children’s ability to concentrate.

Richard House, senior lecturer in psychotherapy and counselling at Roehampton University, said that there was no compelling evidence to support the Government’s view that screen-based learning was good for very young children.

“One would think the Government must have had convincing evidence for incorporating computer and screen technology into legislation that is legally binding for all nursery or child care settings, but none exists,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Families and Schools said it was not mandatory for children to achieve all the learning goals. “The EYFS says that most – though not all – children should have the chance to find out about everyday technology through their play,” she said.

What little surfers will have to know

The Government’s computer literacy goals for children aged 22-36 months
— Acquire basic skills in turning on and operating some ICT equipment
— Talk with carer about what it does, what they can do with it and how to use it safely
— Use the photocopier to copy their own pictures and other equipment such as karaoke machines

Children aged 30-50 months
— Know how to operate simple equipment

Children aged 40-60 months
— Complete a simple computer program
— Use ICT to perform simple functions, such as selecting a channel on TV remote control
— Use a mouse and keyboard to interact with age-appropriate computer software
— Find out about and identify the uses of everyday information and communication technology and use it together with programmable toys to support learning. Click on icons to cause things to happen in a computer program

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3864656.ece