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

There are 70 million Americans with sleep disorders who would like nothing more than to relax at night. Now there’s more reason to keep you up late.

People who sleep fewer than six hours or more than nine hours a night are more likely to have health problems, according to the largest government study linking obesity to irregular sleep.

Health problems also include higher rates of smoking and alcohol use among those who sleep too little or too much.

The report finds that restorative value of sleep has been underappreciated in public health recommendations.

In time of stress, the body is known to hold onto fat stores. That’s why diets often result in weight gain. The lack of sleep may also create a similar stressful situation. Expect to see more emphasis on eight hours a night as a key to good health.

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics surveyed 87,000 Americans from 2004 to 2006.

Among the findings:

* Smoking rates were highest for those who got under six hours of sleep a night. 31 percent were smokers. Heavy sleepers included 26 percent who smoked. The average rate of U.S. smokers is 21 percent. Among those who slept an average of eight hours, 18 percent were smokers.

* Obesity rates for light sleepers were 33 percent, for heavy sleepers 26 percent and 22 percent for normal sleepers.

* Alcohol use among the light sleepers was the heaviest. Regular and heavy sleepers have about the same rate of alcohol use.

* Exercise rates were low for those who slept a lot, worse than regular or light sleepers. Health problems or being elderly age may account for that

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine finds an increasing number of obese youth are not getting enough sleep. Obesity rates among children and teens have doubled in the last 30 years and AASM says sleep may be as important a component in fighting fat as diet and exercise.

Infants to 11 months need 14 to 15 hours of sleep a night; toddlers 12-14 hours; preschool children 11-13 hours and adolescents 9 hours. Adults should get seven to eight hours of sleep a night.

For those who have trouble falling to sleep follow these rules:

* Find a consistent bed time to go to sleep and wake up

* Keep the room completely dark free of lights from clocks or cable boxes

* Keep the room cooler

* Do not consume caffeine, colas or chocolate before bed or in the evening

* Take a break of at least an hour before bedtime from electronics

Also for children:

* Avoid videos or TV shows that are not age appropriate

* Use a half hour before bedtime for a bedtime routine and to read, interact and be close

* Do not let your child fall asleep while being held, rocked or nursed

* Avoid hunger at bedtime

Source: InjuryBoard.com, FL
http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/cdc-sleep.aspx?googleid=238656

Check-out marketing is genius - strategically placed goodies at the point of purchase, designed to entice the wandering eyes of children. Add parents who are tired, running late or too scared of a public tantrum to say no, and you’ve got yourself a sale.

My three-year-old son recently weaselled his way into a toy mobile phone at the register, but it was tech talent, not pester power, that earned him the score.

With the ease of an expert, he flipped open the phone and began an imaginary phone call to his grandmother, announcing he had a new “mobo” and arranging a time to visit. It was hard not to reward such creativity.

The gadget now joins his already impressive tech collection - a toy laptop, portable DVD player, digital set-top box, walkie-talkie and a Nintendo Wii, which his father argued would be great exercise thanks to its motion-sensing remote.

Granted, our junior geek comes from a tech-savvy family, but he’s not uncommon among his generation. Tots of the 21st century have been wired from the womb, with the rise of interactive tech toys such as LeapFrog’s learning system, computer tuition that now begins at kindergarten and “switched on” parents role-modelling the digital age of computers, mobiles and portable media.

The question is: how good is that early tech exposure for our kids, and are the bytes and buttons holding them back from important development that can’t be gained on a machine?

Private tech educators such as Computer Gym and ComputerTots, which run weekly half-hour computer classes at pre-schools across the country, argue there are educational rewards from the preschool PC program where three and four-year-olds learn how to open a document, surf the net and navigate through software.

ComputerTots director Sheri Borman, a trained psychologist and mother of three, says their computer classes are preparing pre-schoolers for primary education, introducing them to the building blocks of mathematics and reading.”

The menu that they navigate through is a left-to-right progression like reading, and you can give a character like a robot a sequence of instructions, which is an important part of mathematics,” Mrs Borman says.

The former crisis counsellor refers to more than a dozen research studies that demonstrate pre-school children who are exposed to technology in a structured way have better schoolreadiness skills, better verbal skills and better cognitive skills. In one US study, four-year-olds with computer skills had IQs that were on average 12 points higher.

“Most of the time it’s working on a computer, but it could also be using a digital microscope or a video camera.

“It’s about submerging the children in a technological culture because we don’t want children to be intimidated by (software such as) Adobe Photoshop; we want them, even at kindergarten level, not to be fearful of trying technology.”

Computer Gym’s director Chris Bouwmeester says its pre-school computer classes reach 2000 children nationally, but demand has changed very little in the past 15 years.

What has shifted is parental expectation that early childhood education will include computers.

“One of the biggest restrictions facing parents is having appropriate software that remains engaging for children. Parents might have one or two such titles, but it’s hard to cover the range of topics that we do - that’s one of the reasons parents appreciate the service,” Mr Bouwmeester says.

What both kiddie computer groups agree on is that the ultimate benefit of the tech classes for tots lies not in the curriculum but in the personal interaction and social experience.

“Our teachers are with the children and can build on the learning experience they are getting - very different from plonking a child in front of a computer and letting them go for it,” Mr Bouwmeester says. “The lessons are valuable for children because they are in a group - having a great laugh and sharing discoveries and experiences.”

Leading pediatric researcher and author Professor Frank Oberklaid, who is the director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, says before the age of five a child needs one thing above all else to fully develop their brain - people.

“What children need more than anything in those early years is relationships so they can learn to socialise, take turns, deal with frustrations. That’s infinitely more important than anything else,” he says.

What concerns him about the rising interest in tech toys and tuition is the unfounded belief that parents are giving their children a head start in learning.

“Do children of today need to learn computer skills? Yes, of course. It’s the new literacy,” Professor Oberklaid says. “But there’s a real concern about “hothousing” - exposing two, three and four-year-olds to stimulating activities like Baby Einstein and flash cards that help teach your child to read by three. There’s no evidence that ‘hothousing’ makes any long-term difference (to education).”

He says the commercialism of “hothousing” is simply preying on the guilt of middle-class parents who want to give children the best of everything, with technology the latest arena in which to compete.

“I’m concerned about the pressure on parents,” Professor Oberklaid says. “Hugh Mackay calls it the ‘overscheduled’ child. I’ve seen it in my patients. Technology is one more pressure on guilty parents.”

Child psychologist Evelyn Field believes working parents and our culture of “busyness” has created a generation of passive parents, who often turn to “cyberia” for baby-sitting.

“Parents are scrambling towards technology. They’re busy and tired and under pressure and a lot of them don’t have the time or energy. They’re putting children in front of the screen, and you can’t blame them,” she says.

Ms Field says the problem with unsupervised tech time is that young children can miss out on wide-ranging experiences such as creative play, exercise and friendships.

“Life changes all the time. Even if you watch the fish pond or the clouds every day, it’s going to change, but you don’t have the same variety of combinations on a digital screen,” she says. “It’s so important that kids get sensory experience to build the brain in the first three to four years of life.”

Dr Joe Tucci, CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, says the latest research shows that excessive tech consumption by children can lead to depression, anxiety and aggression.

“Technology tends to be an isolating experience,” he says. “Some of the problems we’re seeing with aggression and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in kids can be traced back to socially limiting experiences that technology forces kids to have.”

Child psychiatrist Professor Philip Graham, of London’s Institute of Child Health, also notes an increase in children’s mental health problems over the last quarter of the 20th century - which coincides with the dawn of the computer age and rising consumerism.

He says a recent survey in Britain showed that adults are concerned about the negative impact of materialism on children, incuding devices such as iPods, computers and mobile phones.

“Children have always been acquisitive and always will be, but increasingly they are defined by what they own rather than what they are,” he told Livewire.

Dr Tucci says that while some of these tech toys offer important stimulation, they’re also priming toddlers to be consumers before their time. “Yes, it’s cute and it’s role-playing, but equally it’s also preparing children to be consumers, and that’s the rub.”

All the experts agree that the healthiest way to introduce young kids to technology is with supervision and limits - no more than two hours of technology time a day with a balance of activity both indoors and outdoors, alone and in a group, involving both structured and free play.

Dr Tucci warns that to combat ballooning rates of child obesity, brain games need to be curbed to allow for real life action. “Unlike activities like sport or reading, technology has the potential to swamp children because it is so exciting with all of the colour and movement,” he says.

“We have to ground children in the physical space to learn about their bodies. Otherwise we’ve got a job in front of us to make exercise as exciting and interesting as technology.”

Dubbed the “genius” in her play group, two-year old Annika displays the makings of an IT whizz, having already mastered redial on her mother’s mobile, the CD-ROM and the TV remote.

“If she wants to talk to her Nanny she just presses and holds number 3 on my mobile,” says her mum, Donna Evans.

“Yesterday she rang my mother-in-law. I have to put the mobile phone out of her reach now.”

While Annika’s parents are happy to foster the tech interest, they’re also wary of overexposure. “We make sure she’s not a drone in front of the TV. We also incorporate a lot of the imaginary toys, like the kitchen appliances, so that she’s role playing and not just pressing buttons.”

Ms Evans admits she likes the learning benefits of Annika’s tech talent - as long as it remains enjoyable.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m pushing her learning, but she has the potential to be bright quite young and the tech stuff really gives her an interest in learning. I just don’t want an expectation placed on her to perform.”

The couple are also considering the unstructured education of Montessori, which doesn’t introduce computers until primary level.

“The Montessori perspective is that young children before the age of six need to learn with their hands,” Montessori trainer Amy Kirkham says.

“Computers tend to be more abstract, which is why we don’t use them until primary school.” Young mum Sandra Griffin says her friends always joke that her three-year-old son, Matt, is going to be in IT when he grows up.

He’s already mastered the computer, he has a list of his favourite websites and performs regular virus checks on the PC.

Thanks to the online games he plays he knows his colours, the alphabet, patterns and some basic maths, including counting to 20.

“I honestly believe that computers are a valuable tool in teaching kids,” Ms Griffin explains.

“Not only has it helped with Mattie’s knowledge and brain development but it also helped his fine motor skills and increased his attention span to the point where at just three years of age he can concentrate on one activity for an hour.”

The only downside is what it’s costing the family in gadgets - including a Nintendo DS for the next birthday - and $70 for each game after that.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/3p7a7s

A positive parenting style can help protect young people from becoming involved with substance use, delinquency and violent behaviour, a new study suggests.

The 87-page report released Tuesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information analyzed various research and policy initiatives and crunched data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth from Statistics Canada.

“One of the things we wanted to do with this is really sort of step back and through a lens of mental health examine some of the factors that are associated with youth delinquency and criminal behaviour,” said Jean Harvey, director of CIHI’s Canadian Population Health Initiative.

Young people who never reported engaging in aggressive behaviour had high self-esteem, good stress management and self motivation, she said.

“Those were found to be sort of the protective factors around not being involved with delinquent behaviour and criminal activity.”

In terms of risk factors, those aged 12 and 13 who reported hyperactivity and depression were more likely to report high levels of aggressive behaviours, and high levels of delinquent acts involving property.

When parents nurtured and monitored their children, those kids had fewer contacts with peers who were engaged in criminal behaviour, Harvey said.

And not surprisingly, kids who reported positive school experiences were more likely to report not being aggressive than youth who reported fewer positive experiences.

“Children that are connected to the school and they feel a positive bond to their community and their society … had reduced delinquency,” Harvey said.

She said the report, entitled Improving the Health of Canadians: Mental Health, Delinquency and Criminal Activity, is intended to help policy makers with decisions, but the findings would also be of interest to the general public, parents and the school system.

Source: The Canadian Press, TORONTO
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gx3K6tO23TUDYyQ5AkgmST3gaPcQ

America’s increased focus on standardized test scores has meant more widespread use of drugs for ADHD—whether kids need ’em or not

Over the past few weeks, many thousands of Georgia elementary and middle school students sharpened their No. 2 pencils and waited for the teacher’s signal to turn over their answer sheets and hunker down to business on the Georgia Criterion Reference Test. Most did so without being under the influence of drugs, but some had been “juiced” for the test well in advance, perhaps even months or years in advance, through the use of drugs prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD).

Jennifer Fox, author of Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them, has seen the phenomenon herself. Fox, who is president of The Purnell School, a boarding school in New Jersey, describes a student she calls “Kate” (not her real name) who was extremely effervescent. She smiled a lot. She laughed a lot. She played a lot, even in class. Teachers complained that she wasn’t focused, so her parents had her put on a drug that was supposed to treat ADHD, and she lost that bubbly personality. It was as if the life “had been sucked out of her.”

“Kids are rushed to get diagnosed as learning-disabled so they can get extra time on tests and they can get put on drugs to perform better on tests,” says Fox, who is scheduled to sign her book at Wordsmiths in Decatur on Wednesday, April 30. “What we have in this country is a system that puts kids on drugs and gets them hooked on drugs for the rest of their lives.”

Though Fox acknowledges that there are children who definitely need medication, the problem, as she sees it, is an unhealthy focus on standardized test scores—a focus that parents often share with teachers, one that puts performance ahead of a child’s health and well-being.

“The schools are failing. The standardized tests are failing. And we are putting kids on drugs to try to overcome that,” she says. “That, to me, is like child abuse in a way.”

Fox points out that “Kate” had a strong suit—that bubbly personality that the drug erased. She says that she envisioned Kate someday working in a profession that required that kind of energy and vivaciousness. But since that strength was drugged out of her, who knows if Kate will ever make the most of the gift that she naturally had? Though Fox admits that there are kids who need medication to treat ADHD and other disorders, she adds, “I believe that it may be that these drugs are getting rid of the very thing that is best about these kids, something unique that the world needs.”

“Before You Take That Pill”

In his book Before You Take That Pill: Why The Drug Industry May Be Bad For Your Health, which hit bookstores in March, J. Douglas Bremner, a professor of psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine, explains that although its exact causes are not known, some scientists think that ADHD is related to alterations in the brain chemical dopamine, which modulates attention. Nonetheless, he views with skepticism the popularity of a plethora of stimulants used to treat ADHD, including Ritalin, Adderall and, a slow-release version of Ritalin, Concerta.

In his book, Bremner writes: “An entire generation of kids who cannot pay attention is being diagnosed more and more frequently (and sometimes inaccurately) with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. It seems strange that it has been increasing so dramatically over the past few years. Certainly in the last generation many children with concentration problems were simply labeled unintelligent or ‘problem kids.’ However, with current competition for children to excel in school having reached such a fever pitch, it is no longer acceptable to let children fall behind. The elimination of recess, the lengthening of the school year, and the insistence that children remain rigidly fixed in their chairs without making a peep flies in the face of the realities of normal childhood.”

Bremner cites a three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions in the four years between 1991—which just happens to be the year that the U.S. Congress agreed that an ADHD diagnosis should qualify children for extra time on tests—and 1994. He goes on to point out that fully 10 percent of boys in America are prescribed some kind of stimulant for ADHD or other mental conditions.

On a recent weekday morning, Bremner, a soft-spoken man with a reserved demeanor, balances a laptop across his knees at a coffee shop, accepts an offered cheese cracker and explains his skepticism: “Do all of the kids who are taking Ritalin meet the requirements for ADHD? Probably not.”

There are reasons, not necessarily medical, that children might be prescribed a drug for ADHD, Bremner says. It may be that their parents want them to perform better in school, and those parents can pressure a doctor who is already pressured by pharmaceutical sales reps to write the prescription. It may also be the case that the child’s tendency to, well, be a child, is a problem.

“What we do know about these drugs and playfulness,” he says, “is that they tend to decrease playfulness.”

But how and why the drugs get prescribed isn’t the concern of the drug companies. The job of drug companies, he says, is not to make people well, but to sell drugs, and it’s a job that they do very, very well. Children, in particular, can provide a business boon, because once they’re on a drug, at what point is it OK to take them off? “Before You Take That Pill,” explores the risks of a wide range of drugs—not just those prescribed to children—and begins with the startling revelation that “Now, more than half of all Americans are taking a prescription drugs.”

All of the amphetamine-like stimulants used to treat ADHD, writes Bremner, act as appetite suppressants, and therefore may impede a child’s growth. They also “have been linked to approximately a doubling of heart-related deaths in children.” Such deaths are still rare, however. What he would like to see, Bremner says, is a little more skepticism on the part of Americans toward the extremely profitable drug companies.

Watching cartoons and drug commercials

Don’t count on the current crop of kids to be the ones to develop that skepticism. Rick McDevitt, executive director of the Georgia Advocacy for Children, says that drug use to solve problems has become an assumed part of American life, beginning when children are plopped in front of a television, where they view one pharmaceutical commercial after another. At school, he says, they are given to understand that if they do not do well on standardized tests, there might be something wrong with them that a drug can fix. Teachers tell parents their child isn’t focused and that they should seek help, and “help” turns out to be “take these pills.”

“The drugging of kids has become commonplace, the drug is a means of social control and the schools have become agents of that social control,” McDevitt says. “It’s about the test scores, it’s not about solving the problems at the source. The kids take the drugs, the test scores are better, and everyone says ‘They’re doing better.’ They’re not doing better. They are on drugs.”

Local child psychologist Sunaina Jain was listening to the radio recently when she happened upon a on a show on which people were talking about “our child-obsessed society.”

“I thought ‘What child-obsessed society?’ We don’t even like children in this society,” she says. “We do everything we can to make them become adults quickly.”

Jain, who has been in practice since before Ritalin hit the market in the late 1980s, says that the enormous use of drugs to treat ADHD is one more symptom of the need to make children become grown-ups. Although such drugs have helped many children, she says there is little doubt that they are over-prescribed. ADHD, she explains, affects about one boy in15 and girl in 25, but the number of prescriptions would seem to suggest that ADHD is epidemic in the United States.

“Part of the problem is parents who are looking for a way to improve their children’s test scores,” says Jain. “For these parents, these are ‘showcase’ children—their children’s success reflects on them. They want success, they want good grades, and if that can be obtained by popping a pill, that is what they do. There are also kids whose parents just don’t have time to pick them up from school and help them with their homework.”

The tendency to resort to drugs, she says, cuts through all economic classes. Like Fox, Bremner, and McDevitt, she points to a culture that makes it tough to be a kid. It’s a problem that affects the poor and the rich, though in different ways.

“If you have nanny-raised kids, you have the same problem that you have with poor, disadvantaged kids. With a nanny, they are not getting what they would from parents—they don’t learn how to connect with people,” Jain says. “Our strongest need is to connect with other human beings, and if you don’t learn how to do that, that’s a problem.”

The complaint she hears most from parents and teachers goes a long way in explaining what’s going on: “I don’t have time for this.”

The view of childhood as a time when competition makes or breaks one, as a screening process for winners and losers that needs to be gotten out of the way in time to join the adult world, is a view that distorts the children. Jain says the situation of children in America has steadily deteriorated since the 1980s. She believes that as a country, we have shifted away from seeing childhood as “practice” for adulthood and more as the game itself.

“But you know, you need practice to be good at the game,” she says. “A kid needs a coach, someone to say, ‘this is how you hold the bat.’ Then, after thousands of practices, one day they’re ready to go out into the world, to the game. A drug can’t tell them how to hold the bat.”

Source: Sunday Paper, GA
http://tinyurl.com/3o777x

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should get careful cardiac evaluation and monitoring – including an electrocardiogram (ECG) – before treatment with stimulant drugs, a new American Heart Association statement recommends.

The scientific statement on Cardiovascular Monitoring of Children and Adolescents with Heart Disease Receiving Stimulant Drugs is published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In 1999, concerns over potential cardiovascular effects of psychotropic drugs, especially tricyclic antidepressants, but including stimulants, prompted an American Heart Association Scientific Statement: Cardiovascular Monitoring of Children and Adolescents Receiving Psychotropic Drugs. However, no specific cardiovascular monitoring was recommended for the use of stimulant medications. Warnings from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about stimulant medications and public concern for the safety of using them have prompted the current statement.

Studies have shown that stimulant medications like those used to treat ADHD can increase heart rate and blood pressure. These side effects are insignificant for most children with ADHD; however, they’re an important consideration for children who have a heart condition. Certain heart conditions increase the risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD), which occurs when the heart rhythm becomes erratic and doesn’t pump blood through the body.

Vetter also said doctors should evaluate children and adolescents already taking these medications if they were not evaluated when they started the treatment.

If heart problems are suspected after the evaluation, children should be referred to a pediatric cardiologist. Once stimulant treatment begins, children should have their heart health monitored periodically, with a blood pressure check within one to three months, then again at routine follow-ups every six to 12 months.

“Children can have undiagnosed heart conditions without showing symptoms,” Vetter said. “Furthermore, a child’s body changes constantly, with some conditions not appearing until adolescence.”

If the initial ECG was taken before age 12 years, it may be useful to do a repeat ECG after the child is over age 12 years, the statement says.

Widespread use of ECGs to detect heart abnormalities, including screenings for competitive athletes, is not routinely recommended by the American Heart Association. However, the writing group found using ECG screening in this specific population of children prescribed ADHD medication is medically indicated and reasonably priced. That said, however, lack of an ECG shouldn’t mean that kids who need ADHD treatment can’t get it.

“While we feel that an ECG is reasonable and helpful as a tool to identify children with cardiac conditions that can lead to SCD, if, in the view of their physician, a child requires immediate treatment with stimulant medications, this recommendation is not meant to keep them from getting that treatment,” said Vetter, who added that some children may not have access to a pediatric cardiologist who can evaluate an ECG or perform a cardiology consultation.

In 2003, an estimated 2.5 million children took medication for ADHD. Surveys indicate that ADHD affects an estimated 4 percent to 12 percent of all school-aged children in the United States, and it appears more common in children with heart conditions. Studies report that, depending on the specific cardiac condition, 33 percent to 42 percent of pediatric cardiac patients have ADHD, Vetter said. The number of undiagnosed children with heart conditions is unknown as routine heart screening is not performed, but Vetter said that a recent pilot study she presented at the American Heart Association’s 2007 Scientific Session indicated that up to 2 percent of healthy school aged children had potentially serious undiagnosed cardiac conditions identified by an ECG.

Data from the FDA showed that between 1999 and 2004, 19 children taking ADHD medications died suddenly and 26 children experienced cardiovascular events such as strokes, cardiac arrests and heart palpitations. Since February 2007, the FDA has required all manufacturers of drug products approved for ADHD treatment to develop Medication Guidelines to alert patients to possible cardiovascular risks.

Future studies are necessary to assess the true risk of SCD in association with stimulant drugs in children and adolescents with and without heart disease, Vetter said. However, studying SCD associated with drugs is difficult because the government’s reporting system is voluntary, which means local data on these types of deaths isn’t always reported nationally.

A registry of SCD events is necessary for further investigating this issue, the writing committee said. Such a registry would allow for a more accurate understanding of SCD, including the true incidence of it and the potential effectiveness of universal ECG testing and pre-participation screening questionnaires.

The statement writing committee said its recommendations are not intended to limit the appropriate use of stimulants in children with ADHD.

“Our intention is to provide the physician with some tools to help identify heart conditions in children with ADHD, and help them make decisions about the use of stimulant medications and the follow-up of children who take them,” Vetter said. “The goal is to allow treatment of ADHD, while attempting to lower the cardiac risk of these products in susceptible children.”

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/aha-cwa041808.php

Sharon Rechter remembers the day four years ago when a friend dropped by for lunch.

“She had one baby, two bottles, three diapers and five baby DVDs,” Rechter, now 32, says. “Not having children then, I wasn’t familiar with baby DVDs, and I asked her what they were. She said with kind of a straight face, `They make my baby smarter.’”

“I said, `How do you know?’ and she said, `Because it says so on the box.’”

Rechter had her doubts. Intrigued, she and her partner, Guy Oranim, investigated the $1.5 billion baby-DVD industry and discovered “it was not supervised by anybody. You and (I) could take my 1-year-old, video her playing with a puppy, put classical music in it and claim it was educational.”

She also learned there was nothing like it on television. Not on the Public Broadcasting System _ “Barney” and “Dora the Explorer” skew to an older demographic _ not on the Cartoon Network, and not in any of the “family blocks” on network television.

Seeing a niche with a ready market of consumers, Rechter and Oranim founded BabyFirstTV, a subscription-based network available via satellite (channel 293) and cable for $4.99 a month. Its programs air 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are targeted to children ages 6 months to 3 years.

Did you just shudder?

Or did you reach for the phone to call DirecTV?

Lots of adults have done both.

Since its launch on Mother’s Day 2006, BabyFirstTV has found its way to 30 countries, making the network available to some 80 million homes. A DVD line of the programming is coming to stores soon.

Of the 500 hours of content on the network now, “80 percent we produce ourselves,” Rechter says.

That programming has features unique to the network that are intended to assure parents that the programming isn’t harmful. For one thing, there are no commercials on the network. For another, all of the “shows” _ really two- to-seven-minute segments _ are signed off on by chief educational adviser Arthur Prober, a doctor of educational psychology; and a self-regulatory review board including pediatricians, authors of parenting books and others.

“If they don’t like it, we don’t show it,” she says. “Believe me, we’ve spent a lot of money on things that haven’t aired.”

POSITIVE EFFECTS QUESTIONED

Still, the general idea of parking babies in car seats on the floor in front of a television troubles childhood-development professionals. The American Academy of Pediatrics says simply, “Don’t do it!” (exclamation theirs).

“Any positive effect of television on infants and toddlers is still open to question, but the benefits of parent-child interactions are proven. Under age two, talking, singing, reading, listening to music or playing are far more important to a child’s development than any TV show.”

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood added BabyFirstTV to a suit filed with the Federal Trade Commission a month after the network launched, complaining that it _ as well as the Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby line of DVDs _ were falsely advertising educational benefits without evidence.

In December, the FTC found in favor of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and this year, Walt Disney Video, which produced Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein, stopped advertising the programs as educational. The FTC’s findings would apply to BabyFirstTV and “any marketer of products claimed to provide educational or developmental benefits to children under 2.”

BabyFirstTV still labels itself as “a brand-new educational tool.” They have reports that 3-month-olds are tuning in, but they stick by their 6-month start age because “that’s the age where a child can really follow from an eye-development perspective, and it’s the recommendation of our pediatricians.”

To fulfill their commitment to parents that the programming will be beneficial and interactive, says Rechter, programming on BabyFirstTV “comes with parenting subtitles so they don’t interfere with the child’s viewing but help mom interact. For example, if you see a red ball bouncing on the screen, it would say to you as a dad, `Ask what color is the ball?’.”

The network’s on-air logo is color-coded to represent “which educational aspect is being taught,” she says. “So when you are watching on the screen, the flower will be only one color, let’s say blue, and that means to mom we are now teaching numbers. Again, that’s to promote interaction between mom and the baby.”

PROGRAMMING FOR DIFFERENT AGES

Because children of various stages of development will be tuning in, the programming is developed so it is interesting to different age groups within the demographic, she says. “Say we have a sand painting segment, so you see the hand painting in the sand and you hear classical music; if you’re a 3-month-old, we’re training your eye movement and showing you contrast of colors and movement and music; to a 1-year-old, we’re drawing a horse and giving you another way to learn the word `horse’; to a 3-year-old, it’s a guessing game.”

At night, when all good babies should be sleeping through until morning, BabyFirstTV goes into a drowsy mode: It’s all kaleidoscopic images, videos of dangling mobiles and fish swimming in a tank, accompanied by soothing classical music.

“In February we had a technical issue with DirecTV and they got hundreds of calls at 2 in the morning asking, `Where is BabyFirst?’ That just shows people are watching.”

Source: RedOrbit, TX
http://tinyurl.com/47tf8y

Computer games and fast food have been blamed by doctors for a startling rise in the number of children being treated in hospital for sleep disorders.

Eating too much sugary food is also blamed for preventing children from dropping off to sleep.

Newly released NHS figures show that the number of under-11s referred to hospital specialists for insomnia, sleep-walking and sleep-related breathing problems has rocketed by 26 per cent over the past five years.

But the true numbers affected could be much higher because the figures reflect only those seeking medical help.

Studies have linked poor sleep to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). And lack of sleep harms children’s ability to learn at school.

Psychologist Chireal Shallow, of the Naturally Nurturing clinic for children’s sleep disorders in London, said: “There are likely to be thousands more children whose parents do not seek treatment.

“A lot of the problem is guilty parenting where kids are allowed the rule of the roost because Mum and Dad come home from work late.

“The light, sound and movement of television or computer screens is stimulating and keeps children awake and there should be at least an hour’s gap before going to bed.”

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “It’s absolutely crazy for parents to let their children go to bed any time they like.

“Parents need to exert more authority and remove computer games from bedrooms to make sure kids have the best start in life. I’m sure teachers would be delighted.”

The NHS statistics show nearly 3,000 children under 11 had their sleep monitored overnight by specialists during 2006 compared with only 2,200 in 2002.

Of those, 1,733 were boys.

Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, said that children aged five to eight are particularly vulnerable to sleep problems as a result of ‘electronic distractions’ because having a rigid bedtime routine is so important to them.

“If they sleep better, the ADHD symptoms disappear.”

Jane Howell, 34, from Morden, South West London, struggled for years to get her son Marcel, now 13, to sleep.

After spending most of the day at school in front of a computer, Marcel would spend the evenings watching television but then found it hard to drop off, often not falling asleep until just a few hours before he had to be up again. “Eventually the problem got so bad that Jane approached a sleep clinic. “She said: “The clinic asked me about his routines and said computers, televisions and mobile phones were a distraction.

“They told me to minimise the time he uses computers and after 8pm it’s now wind-down time.

“He now has much more energy and is sleeping better. As parents you have to be hard on your kids. They want to do their own thing but you have to be strict.”

Dr Rob Primhak, a consultant paediatric respiratory physician at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, said there was now a shortage of specialists due to the numbers coming in.

“There has been a huge surge in demand,” he said.

Mandy Gurney, of the Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic in London, said: “Not getting a good night’s sleep can have the same effect as four units of alcohol, so imagine what it is like for a child.”

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://tinyurl.com/4ktvhr

They are age-old questions, from the moment of birth: What’s your baby thinking? How much does your child really understand?

“They’re not just wailing away. There’s something going on that’s important to their development, right from the very beginning,” said speech professor Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington.

Researchers at the UW are now using baby caps that can detect the most minute electrical current being sent out by a baby’s brain.

Little Isabella is listening to a very unusual audio tape.

To most adults the syllables all sound alike, but in fact they are just slightly different. Believe it or not, Isabella, who isn’t even yet talking, can tell the difference and her brain waves prove it.

“Their brains are set automatically to capture this information in ways that are completely surprising,” said Kuhl.

Kuhl and her husband, psychology professor Andy Meltzoff, are two of the world’s top scientists in the growing field of early learning.

Their research has shown up in every major magazine. Their book, The Scientist in the Crib, is now published in French, German, Chinese - more than 10 languages in all.

Several years ago, they started the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, bringing together 50 scientists at the UW, studying both the brain and behavior, and discovering that babies understand far more than parents or scientists ever thought possible.

“Babies learn more in the first three years of life than we ever will again,” said Dr. Meltzoff.

What we know is they learn by copying us. In a very simple experiment, Dr. Meltzoff stuck out his tongue and found that even a two-week-old baby knows how to imitate.

“It shows that they’re born learning. Really, babies are born learning,” he said.

Perhaps more remarkable is what Dr. Meltzoff discovered with slightly older babies. If you show them how to play with a toy, even if you don’t let them imitate immediately, they will save it in their brain. They’ll imitate you when you give them the toy - up to four months later, demonstrating that babies have incredible memory.

“Often times, the parents would say, oh I know I’ve seen that toy before, but I can’t remember what to do with it. And the baby would do the right thing,” said Dr. Meltzoff.

“That’s what’s different about the brain of a baby,” said Dr. Kuhl.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kuhl has spent years focusing on language. What struck her is that all mothers have a special way of talking to a baby.

Kuhl calls it “motherese,” or “parentese,” because dads do it naturally too.

Why do we talk that way? Are babies getting anything out of it?

It turns out they are.

“The vowels, if you measure ee, ah and ooh, in words like sheep and shoe and keys, they’re much more distinct in motherese. They’re further apart acoustically. It’s like being able to show a baby, here’s what to listen for. Here are the components,” said Dr. Kuhl.

She discovered that babies learn about language long before they utter their first word.

In a speech lab, she took 9-month-old babies and exposed them to a second language, either Spanish or Mandarin. And after just 12 sessions over one month, the babies could detect subtle phonetic sounds in the foreign language.

“The babies in the United States, exposed in that way, are as good as the babies in Taiwan for example, at hearing the Chinese distinctions,” said Dr. Kuhl.

Isabella was exposed to Spanish for a month, which is why she now distinguishes sounds that most English-only speakers cannot.

In another lab, Dr. Meltzoff is studying the crucial moment when a baby learns not just to look at mom, but to follow where mom’s eyes are focused.

He said 10-month-old babies, who are good at following where an adult is gazing, had about twice as many words in their speech eight months later.

“So when she’s around in the living room and says, ‘here’s a rattle, look at the rattle,’ the babies need to know to follow where she’s looking and that’s what the word refers to,” he said.

All these studies suggest that babies are learning an incredible amount that first year, and yet scientists cannot explain why we as adults have no specific memories of our time as babies.

We’re tempted to think maybe there isn’t that much going on in their brains, but Kuhl and Meltzoff say it’s just the opposite, that babies absorb culture, language, social interaction, emotions - the most basic building blocks of who they’ll become some day.

“The news is that babies are even learning from their peers at day-care centers, and learning from us so we’re role models right from the beginning,” said Dr. Kuhl.

“It is lasting learning. It’s the kind of learning that makes a profound effect on the baby’s brain and mental operations, and that sets them up for later.”

Source: KING5.com, WA
http://tinyurl.com/6a7zh6

· Anti-psychotics may cause long-term harm, say critics
· Youngsters under 6 being given unlicensed drugs

New evidence has shown children’s lives are being put at risk by a surge in the use of controversial tranquillising drugs which are being prescribed to control their behaviour, the Guardian has learned.

The anti-psychotic drugs are being given to youngsters under the age of six even though the drugs have no licence for use in children except in certain schizophrenia cases, the report says.

The number of children on the drugs has doubled since the early 1990s as the UK begins to follow a trend started in the US, but critics say they are a “chemical cosh” that could cause premature death.

The first comprehensive analysis, carried out by Ian Wong, professor of paediatric medicines research at the London School of Pharmacy, suggests the number of children on the drugs has surged sharply.

His analysis, to be published next month in the US journal Pediatrics, shows that between 1992 and 2005, 3,000 UK children were given anti-psychotics.

Although the drugs are not licensed for children, doctors can prescribe them on their own responsibility.

The increase follows a huge rise in the use of the drugs in children in the US. Yet nobody knows how the drugs affect a growing child’s body or what may happen in the long term. The increase has come at a time when former psychiatric best-sellers Prozac and its class of anti-depressants have gone out of patent. Wong says children on anti-psychotic medication are more likely to die earlier - something which may not be caused by the drug but which gives cause for concern. “The mortality rate is much higher. It could be some underlying problem of the brain. It doesn’t show the drug is causing any deaths, but there is this inequality.”

Some of the children of whose deaths he is aware had underlying incurable conditions such as Aids, so it is hard to establish whether the drugs played any part.

David Healy, professor of psychological medicine at Cardiff University, says the drugs may cause heart, circulation and breathing problems. “There is a real question over whether the drugs can kill for a number of reasons. One is that all anti-psychotics act on [the brain chemical] dopamine.” He said dopamine was known to have a role in cardiovascular regulation. A number of children in the US, given stimulants - which also act on the dopamine system - after being diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), have suddenly died, said Healy. He was asked by lawyers in the US to give an opinion on a child who was diagnosed when she was a baby first with ADHD, then depression and finally bipolar disorder (manic depression). “Having spent 75% of her life on one of these drugs, she dropped dead at the age of two,” he said.

The drugs have potentially serious and harmful side-effects which need to be balanced against any benefit for the child or its parents. These include substantial weight gain and tardive dyskinesia (uncontrollable tongue and facial movements).

The drug watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority, is concerned about the use of such drugs without evidence to prove they are safe in children, but unless the manufacturers conduct trials, its hands are tied.

Source: Guardian, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/07/mentalhealth.drugs