+ New Pfizer Unit to Take On Autism

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In an article in The Day, by Lee Howard, we learn that associate research fellow at Pfizer Diane Stephenson and her colleague Howie Mayer were able to bring to fruition their idea of forming a separate research unit focusing on autism.

Stephenson has two nephews and a niece with the neurological disorder; Mayer has two children with autism.

They were later joined by  another colleague, Larry Fitzgerald.  The group contacted key experts outside Pfizer who knew the latest breakthroughs in autism research.

According to Stephenson, science in the past years have started making significant headway in genetic research geared toward autism.  Two years ago might have been too soon.  But late last year, the colleagues felt they had enough science on their side to make their case. 

“Most everyone told us we were crazy,” says Stephenson.  The pharmaceutical industry — and Pfizer — has been in a downsizing mode lately.  But senior management embraced the idea and launched the autism unit in January with 15 scientists.

Fitzgerald became the first head of the unit, but departed a few weeks ago, and mayer has also moved on, now working for another business unit at Pfizer.  Stephenson is the remaining founder still working on-site.

The long range goal will be to prevent autism, but Pfizer plans to address short-term solutions at first. 

Researchers plan to begin by targeting symptoms that appear to cross the spectrum of autism disorders: anxiety, agitation, sleep disorders, social deficits, language disabilities and repetitive behaviors.  The focus is to be identification of medications which address symptoms.

A longer-range goal is to understand the neurobiology behind the disorder so that core symptoms can be treated.

One asset in the research process, according to scientists, is the fact that several markers of autism have recently been identified.  One of these telltale signs is eye-tracking.  While normal children focus on the eyes of a face, autistic children look away, toward the mouth.

This baseline awareness can help scientists see if a drug is having an effect.

Senior scientist Edward Guilmette, in the neuroscience unit labs, is starting to target certain genes that could have an effect on autism. In mice models, the effect of turning on or off various genes than is studied.

Fifteen researchers can seem like a big commitment, but Pfizer scientists say that number  is small compared to the vast research that remains to be done.  They have reached out to collaborators at MIT, the Yale Child Study Center, and NYU, to develop and expand their work.

The current work being done at the moment involves mostly biology and animal studies.  But as specific small-molecule drug targets are developed, more chemists will be enlisted to help.

The first Pfizer autism medicines will likely come from its established drug portfolio.  One possibility is the pain medication Lyrica, although Stephenson emphasizes that drug trials have yet to establish any clinical support for the hypothesis.

Finding uses for established drugs will be much less costly than the $1 billion price tag that would be involved in bringing new drugs to market.  Current drugs have already been proved to be safe.

Another factor reducing costs for developing autism drugs is that several of the spectrum disorders, including Fragile X, currenly have no approved treatment.  That means companies won’t have to prove to the FDA that their drugs are more effective than others on the market.

The long-term hope, according to Stevenson and her colleague Michael Tranfaglia of the FRAXA Research Foundation, is to actually reverse the course of autism — an idea that a few years ago would have seemed absurd, but is already being shown to be within the realm of possibility.

“The sooner you intervene, the better,” says Stephenson. 

Tranfaglia contends, “You can actually normalize development.  It’s entirely reasonable to think you could completely alter the course of the disease.”

my source was: www.courant.com; article on 10/25/09.   See the entire article by Lee Howard at The Day:   http://www.theday.com/article/20091012/BIZ02/310129965  

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021 or email aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Light at Night May Link to Depression

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Researchers at Ohio State University have produced a study that may link depression to light at night, according to an article in Science Daily.

Researchers found that when mice were housed in a lighted room 24 hours a day, they exhibited more depressive symptoms than did similar mice who had normal light-dark cycles.

However, some mice were housed in constant light but had an escape option: a dark opaque tube they could go into.  They showed less evidence of depressive symptoms than the constant-light mice.

Says Laura Folken, lead author of the study and a graduate student in psychology at OSU, “The ability to escape light seemed to quell the depressive effects.  But constant light, with no chance of escape, increased depressive symptoms.”

Results suggest that more attention needs to be focused on how artificial lighting affects emotional health in humans. 

Co-author Randy Nelson, professor of neuroscience and psychology at Ohio State says

The increasing rate of depressive disorders in humans corresponds with the increasing use of light at night in modern society.  Many people are now exposed to unnatural light cycles, and that may have real consequences for our health.

The researchers presented the work October 21 in Chicago at the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience; it will appear in the December 28, 2009 issue of the journal Behavioral Brain Research.

“This is important for people who work night shifts, and for children and others who watch TV late into the night, disrupting their usual light-dark cycle,” says Fonken.

And there are many other practical implications, says Nelson.  Intensive care units are brightly lit all night long, which might add to the patients’ problems.

source: www.sciencedaily.com article on 10/21/09; journal reference is Laura K Fonken, M Sima Finy, James C Walton, Zachary M Weil, Joanna L Workman, Jessica Ross, Randy J Nelson, “Influence of light at night on murine anxiety- and depressive-like  responses.”  Behavioral Brain Research, 2009; 205 (2): 349 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2009.07.001

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Pen: Mightier Than The Keyboard?

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 According to a study at the University of Washington, second, fourth and sixth grade children with and without handwriting disabilities were able to write more and faster when using a pen than a keyboard to compose essays.         

The study, headed by Virginia Berninger, a University of Washington professor of educational psychology, looked at children’s ability to write the alphabet, sentences, and essays, using both a pen and a keyboard.

Says Berninger, who studies normal writing development and writing disabilities, “Children consistently did better writing with a pen when they wrote essays.  They wrote more and they wrote faster.”

Only for writing the alphabet was the keyboard better than the pen.  For sentences results were mixed.

But when using a pen, children in all three grade levels produced longer essays and composed them at a faster pace. 

In addition, fourth and sixth graders wrote more complete sentences when they used a pen.   The ability to write complete sentences was not affected by the children’s spelling skills.

Perhaps one key fact shown is that many children don’t have a reliable idea of what a sentence is until the third or fouth grade.

According to Berninger

Children first have to understand what a sentence or a complete thought is before they can write one. 

Talking is very different from writing.  We don’t talk in complete sentences.  In conversation we produce units smaller and larger than sentences.

This study was designed to compare methods of transcription, a basic cognitive process involved in writing.  It enables a writer to translate thoughts or ideas into written language.  Both handwriting and spelling are transcription processes.

Berninger’s group had done previous research showing that transcription predicts composition length and quality in developing writers. 

 Transcription by both pen and keyboard involves the hands, and researchers are trying to understand why units of language are affected differently when hands write by pen and when they write with a keyboard.

People think language is a single thing.  But it’s not.  It has multiple levels like a tall building with a different ploor plan for each story.  In written language there are letters, words, sentences and paragraphs, which are different levels of language.

It turns out they are related, but not in a simple way.  Spelling is at the word level, but sentences are at the syntax level.  Words and syntax (patterns for organizing the order of words) are semi-independent.  Organizing sentences to create text is yet another level. 

That’s why some children need spelling help while others need help in constructing sentences and others in composing text with many sentences.

Involved in the study were more than 200 normally developing children.  Children in the three grades were given three tasks. 

For one task, they were told to print all lower case letters in alphabetic order with a pen.  They were then asked to select each letter of the alphabet in order on a keyboard.  In both cases, they were told to work as quickly and accurately as possible.

In the second task, they were asked to write one sentence that began with the word “writing” while using a pen.  They were then asked to write one sentence that began with “reading” on the keyboard.

Finally, the children were asked to write essays on provided topics for 10 minutes, both with a pen and by keyboard.

Most children in the study developed transcription skills in an age-appropriate way, although a small number showed signs of a specific learning disability — transcription disability. 

 Both the normally developing and those with the disability wrote extended text better by pen than by keyboard.

Says Berninger

Federal accommodations for disabilities now mean that schools often allow children to use laptops to bypass handwriting or spelling problems. 

Just giving them a laptop may not be enough.  Children with this disability also need appropriate education in the form of explicit transcription and composition instruction.

We need to learn more about the process of writing with a computer, and even though schools have computers they haven’t integrated them in teaching at the early grades. 

We need to help children become “bilingual” writers so they can write by both the pen and the computer.  So don’t throw away your pen or your keyboard.  We need them both.

But we don’t want to lose sight of the fact that it is important for developing writers and children with transcription disability to be able to form letters by hand. 

A keyboard doesn’t allow a child to have the same opportunity to engage the hand while forming letters — on a keyboard a letter is selected by pressing a key and is not formed.

Brain imaging studies with adults have shown an advantage for forming letters over selecting or viewing letters.  A brain imaging study at the University of Washington with children showed that sequencing fingers may engage thinking. 

We need more research to figure out how forming letters by a pen and selecting them by pressing a key may engage our thinking brains differently. 

The study was published in the journal Learning Disability Quarterly, and co-authors were Robert Abbott, UW professor and chair of educational psychology, and research assistants Amy Augsburger and Noelia Garcia. 

 Funding was provided by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.  Berninger can be contacted by email at vwb@u.washington.edu.  

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards  614-579-6021  or email aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Symptom List to Help Gauge Head Injuries

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Jane Brody in the N Y Times provides us with The National Athletic Trainers Association Graded Symptom Checklist to help guide doctors, coaches, trainers and every parent whose child plays a contact or collision sport.

The checklist can help determine immediately whether a concussion has occurred, its severity and whether a player is fit to return to the game.

But the checklist is also important to use later, on the recommended schedule below: symptoms of a concussion are sometimes delayed.

A player who sustained a direct or indirect blow to the brain may feel all right initially, then develop symptoms hours or days later.

Athletic trainers, doctors or other medical personnel who suspect that an athlete has suffered a concussion can use the checklist to evaluate a player both at rest and during physical exertion. 

Coaches and parents can be trained to use it as well.

Professional evaluators, parents and players must understand that a return of symptoms, when a brain-injured athlete is physically or cognitively stressed is a clear sign that the brain has not healed.

THE   GRADED   SYMPTOM   CHECKLIST

Score each symptom on a scale of 0 to 6: 0 is not present, 3 is moderate, and 6 is most severe.  Grade each of these symptoms at

• 0 hours after injury
• 2-3 hours after injury
• 24 hours after injury
• 48 hours after injury
• 72 hours after injury

Blurred vison ___  Dizziness___ Drowsiness___ Excess sleep___ Easily distracted___ Fatigue___ Feeling “in a fog”___ Feeling “slowed down”___ Headache___ Inappropriate emotions___ Irritability___ Loss of consciousness___ Loss of orientation___ Memory problems___ Nausea___  Nervousness___ Personality change___ Poor distance or coordination___ Poor concentration___ Ringing in ears___ Sadness___ Seeing stars___ Sensitivity to light___ Sensitivity to noise___ Sleep disturbance___ Vacant stare or glassy eyes___ Vomiting___

Repeat the evaluation until all symptoms have cleared both at rest and when physically stressed.

Says Dr Robert Cantu, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University,

Any one of these symptoms occurring in the aftermath of a head trauma would disqualify an athlete from participating in the sport.  No athlete should be engaged in physical exertion if any symptom is present.

sole source: Jane Brody’s article in the NY Times on 8/25/09.  www.nytimes.com  Dr Robert C Cantu answers reader’s questions on concussions at www.nytimes.com/consults  

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021  or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Guilt and Atonement in Children’s Development

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John Tierney writes in the NY Times about recent research into the mechanisms that help children become considerate, conscientious adults.

A long-term study at the University of Iowa aimed at isolating the effects of two distinct mechanisms.  One is called “effortful self-control:” how well you can think ahead and deliberately suppress impulsive behavior that hurts yourself and others.

The other mechanism is less rational; it is especially valuable for children and adults with poor self-control.  It’s the feeling measured in a “broken toy” experiment with toddlers: guilt, or what children frequently diagnose as a “sinking feeling in my tummy.”

Guilt comes in many varieties and is joked about: Puritan, Catholic, Jewish etc.  But psychologists keep finding evidence of its usefulness. 

There is clearly a downside to too little guilt; there are sociopaths who feel no remorse, but also kindergartners who smack and snatch.

Says Grazyna Kochanska, who has been tracking children’s development for two decades at the University of Iowa, children typically start to feel guilt in their second year of life.

Some children have temperaments that make them prone to guilt, and some become more guilt-prone thanks to parents and other early influences.  Says Dr Kochanska:

Some children respond with acute and intense tension and negative emotions when they are tempted to misbehave, or even anticipate violating norms and rules.  They remember, often subconsciously, how awful they have felt in the past.

 Dr Kochanska’s latest studies are published in the August issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  She and colleagues found that 2-year-olds who showed more chagrin during the “broken-toy” experiment went on to have fewer behavioral problems over the next five years.

That was true even for the ones who scored low on tests measuring their ability to focus on tasks and supress strong desires to act impulsively.

According to Dr Kochanska

If you have high guilt, it’s such a rapid response system, and the sensation is so incredibly unpleasant, that effortful control doesn’t much matter.

 But self-control was critical to children in the studies who were low in guilt.  They still behaved well if they had high self-control.

Even if you don’t have that sinking feeling in the tummy, you can still suppress impulses.  You can stop and remember what your parents told you.  You can stop and reflect on the consequences for others and yourself.

What Can a Parent Do?

If your child lacks both self-control and guilt, what can you do?  Should you feel guilty?  Should you feel you’ve done a bad job of parenting?

Researchers have not been able to link any particular pattern of parenting to children’s levels of guilt, says June Tangney, a psychologist at George Mason University who has studied guilt intensively in both children and adults, including prison inmates.

She does have some advice for parents. 

The key element is the difference between shame and guilt.  Shame is the feeling that you’re a bad person because of bad behavior; it has repeatedly been found to to be unhealthy.

Guilty feelings focused on the behavior itself, however, can be productive. 

It’s not enough, says Dr Tangney, for parents just to follow the old admonition to criticize the sin but not the sinner.

Most young children really don’t hear the distinction between “Johnny, you did a bad thing,” versus “Johnny, you’re a bad boy.”  They hear “bad kid.”  I think a more active directive approach is needed.

She recommends focusing not just on the bad deed, but more important, on how to make amends.

Both children and adults can be surprisingly clueless about whether and how to make things right.  Little kids are overwhelmed by the spilled mess of milk on the floor.  Parents can teach and support them to say “I’m sorry,” and to clean it up, maybe leaving the kitchen a little cleaner than it was before.

That was the atonement strategy followed by the experimenters in Iowa who tricked the children with the broken toy.

After 60 seconds of angst, during which the child’s reactions could be observed by researchers, the children were asked what had happened.  They were then told that the toy could be easily repaired. 

The researcher would then leave the room with the broken toy and return in half a minute with an intact replica of it.  The experimenter took the blame for having caused the damage, reassuring the children that it wasn’t their fault.  The toy was now as good as new.

And the researchers had modeled how to say “I’m sorry.”

sole source: John Tierney’s article in the NY Times Science section on 8/25/09.   www.nytimes.com    Join the discussion at Tierney Lab          http://tinyurl.com/mmb9ro  – how can parents best instill these good mechanisms in their kids?

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021  or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Chronic Stress-Loops in Brain Change Behavior

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In an article in the NY Times, Natalie Angier writes that chronic stress changes the brain, but relaxation can change it back.

In the journal Science this summer, Nuno Sousa of the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute in Portugal says he and his colleagues found that rats, if chronically stressed, lost their elastic rat cunning – they instead fell back on familiar routines and rote responses.  They would, for example, compulsively press a bar for food pellets they had no intention of eating.

Brain Changes

In addition, the rats’ behavioral oddnesses were reflected by a pair of complementary changes in their underlying neural circuitry.

On the one hand, regions of the brain associated with executive decision making and goal-directed behaviors had shriveled.  Conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed.

In other words, rats were now cognitively disposed to keep doing the same things over and over, to “run laps in the same dead-end rat race rather than seek a pipeline to greener sewers,” writes Angier.  And Dr Sousa says,

“Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach.”

A neurobiologist who studies stress at Stanford, Robert Sapolsky, says

“This is a great model for understanding why we end up in a rut, and then dig ourselves deeper and deeper into that rut.”

In fact, continues Sapolsky, humans are lousy at recognizing when their normal coping mechanisms aren’t working.  We usually try it five more times, when it would have been better to try something new.

While perseverance is an admirable trait — is indeed essential for success in life — if it’s taken too far it becomes “perseveration.”  Perseveration is  uncontrollable repetition.  Taken to extremes, it simply seems perverse.

Dr Sapolsky is the author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.” 

“If  I were to try to break into the world of modern dance, after the first few rejections the logical response might be, practice even more.  But after the 12,000th rejection, maybe I should realize this isn’t a viable career option.”

But It Can Be Reversed

Luckily, it appears that stress-induced changes in behavior and brain can be reversed.  

After four weeks’ vacation in a supportive setting free of bullies, Tasers and dunking in water, the formerly stressed rats looked just like the controls.  They were able to innovate, discriminate and refrain from obsessive behavior.

Atrophied synaptic connections in the decisive regions of the prefrontal cortex resprouted, while the overgrown dendritic vines of the habit-prone sensorimotor striatum retreated.

Says Bruce McEwen, head of the neuroendocrinology lab at Rockefeller University, the new findings offer a particularly elegant demonstration of a principle that researchers have just begun to grasp.

“The brain is a very resilient and plastic organ.  Dendrites and synapses retract and reform, and reversible remondeling can occur throughout life.”

We associate stress with the split-second pace of our wired society.  But the body’s stress response is one of our oldest attributes.  Its basic architecture, with its linked network of neural and endocrine organs that spit out stimulatory and inhibitory hormones and other factors as needed, looks pretty much the same in a human as it does in a goldfish or a red-spotted newt.

Our stress response is itself dynamic.  It was essential for maneuvering through a dynamic world.  We had to dodge predators and chase down prey; we swung through trees; we fought off disease. 

As we go about our days, says McEwen, the biochemical mediators of the stress response rise and fall, flutter and flare.  “Cortisol and adrenaline go up and down.  Our inflammatory cytokines go up and down.”

The target organs of stress hormones likewise “dance to the beat ,” writes Angier.  The heart races and slows, the intestines constrict and relax.  This system of so-called allostasis, of maintaining control through constant change, stands in contrast to the mechanisms of homeostasis that keep the pH level and oxygen concentration in the blood within a narrow and invariant range.

But the dynamism of a person’s stress response makes it vulnerable to disruption, especially when the system is treated too roughly and not according to instructions.

In most animals, a serious threat provokes activation of the stimulatory, sympathetic, “fight or flight” side of the stress response.  But when the danger has passed, the calming parasympathetic circuitry tamps everything back down to baseline flickering.

Humans, however, have a brain that can think too much, that can extract phantom threats on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.  Over time such constant hyperactivation of the stress response can unbalance the entire feedback loop.

Reactions which would be desirable in limited, targeted quantities become hazardous in “promiscuous excess,”  writes Angier.  You need a spike in blood pressure if you’re going to run, to speedily deliver oxygen to your muscles.  But chronically elevated blood pressure is a source of mutiple medical miseries.

We might ask, why should the stressed brain be prone to habit formation? 

Perhaps — to help shunt as many behaviors as possible over to automatic pilot, so we can focus on the crisis at hand.

sole source: NY Times article by Natalie Angier on 8/18/09.  www.nytimes.com   

tutoring in columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwards tutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Teaching “Emotional Intelligence”

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 ”What has Mr. Snail taught us?” asks a teacher, holding up a puppet with a bright red-felt shell. 

“How to come out of my shell when I’m feeling shy,” says a boy seated in front.

“And what about Mr Grasshopper?” she asks.  A little boy shouts “How to pay attention when your body wants to…”  And he demonstrates  a case of the fidgets. 

Around the walls of this school in the Bronx are colorful construction paper displays that highlight essays like “The Things I Love” and “What Makes Me Scream.”

An article on Scholastic.com, whose source was Instructor Magazine, describes how a program called  “Turnaround for Children” works.

PS 32  in the Bronx decided five years ago that its 800 students needed  more than skills and drills.  Nearly all the children come from very poor, stressed and sometimes chaotic families.

Principal Esther Schwartz says, “Before they can begin to learn, our children often need help with basic social skills — sharing or taking a turn.  Many need help regulating their attention, their emotions, or controlling their impulses.”

In the five years since this Bronx school first implemented Turnaround for Children, the percentage of kids deemed proficient in reading has risen from 30 to 70 percent.

Turnaround for Children helps administrators identify troubled kids, and then works with teachers to build academically rigorous and emotionally healthy learning communities.  It does this by making social and emotional skill-building part of the comprehensive curriculum.

“We’ve discovered that social and emotional skill-building goes hand in hand with learning,” says Schwartz.

FIVE SKILLS TO TEACH 

Researchers have begun to identify the soft skills that kids need to succeed at school and in life.  Below are the five most important, with some tips on what you can do in the classroom to help foster the growth of these skills.

1.     Naming Your Feelings 

Most parents, caregivers and teachers provide this instruction almost reflexively.  If a toddler is crying, Mom may ask, “Are you upset because you want that toy?”  This soothes, but it also  provides a lexicon for the highly charged moment. 

With kids from somewhat deprived backgrounds or with older kids, the job of helping a child sort and articulate shades of emotion becomes part of a teacher’s job.

Child psychologist Pam Cantor is chief of Turnaround for Children.  She says the simple, puppet-based program featuring Mr Snail and Mr Grasshopper, developed by her staff and taught once  a week, can help kids name what they’re feeling.  Then they can begin to fend off tantrums and meltdowns. 

If Turnaround for Children isn’t being implemented at your school, you can opt for a less formal approach involving classroom discussion.

For example, if a child refuses to speak during circle time out of shyness, you might say, “That’s okay Andre.  Sometimes I don’t feel like talking either.  But if you want to share later, we’d love to hear from you.”

Then talk to the child individually about ways to calm his anxiety, such as taking deep breaths.    Finally, try hosting a whole-class discussion about how to overcome shyness.

2.     Building Trusting Relationships

Anthony Bryk of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching wrote in his now-classic study that trust is the emollient that keeps schools running smoothly.  Nowhere is that more important than in the classroom, in the teacher-student relationship.

When teachers take the time to establish trusting relationships with students, they can see a world of difference.  “It makes learning more powerful,” says Mary Utne O’Brien, psychology professor at the University of Illinois.

“Many teachers bemoan the fact that they don’t feel like they have time to develop those relationships.  I would argue that building trust is the first lesson before any others.” 

O’Brien says small gestures mean a lot.

She suggests that you be predictable, be consistent, and do what you say you will do.  Articulate that you want the children to learn.  Then show them that you’re willing to go the extra mile to ensure that they do.  These acts will help children learn to trust you  — as well as the larger community.

“Children have to trust that their teacher cares about their education.”  Having the capacity to trust allows a child to focus on what’s important — learning.

3.     Staying in Control

Several studies show that the ability to inhibit impulsive mental, verbal and physical responses — and to remain engaged in goal-directed thinking without calling out, fidgeting or responding to provocation  — is key for school success.

In one study, researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that children who had the strongest regulatory abilities tended to do as well –  sometimes better than — less regulated children who had higher IQs.  The same is true of older children.

The study found that the least impulsive and most self-disciplined of the group had better grades and study habits.  They got into more selective high schools than their peers with higher IQs but less controlled behavior.

“By the time children start school, they are expected to sufficiently regulate impusivity in order to engage in learning experiences with teachers and classmates,’  says Clancy Blair, lead researcher.

Depending on the age of your students, introduce simple lessons in controlling impusivity.  This will go a long way toward helping kids learn to focus. 

Learning to self-talk is an excellent way to build self-control.  One common approach is to encourage kids to “think aloud” as they complete a project or problem.  Teach them to say or whisper each step as they perform it.  This process can help boost the kind of silent self-talk that comes naturally to more disciplined kids.

4.     Having Curiosity

Curiosity may be the key to success on a lot of levels, academic and otherwise.  It may be even more important overall than happiness.

Curiosity leads to mindfulness, says Todd Kashdan, professor at George Mason University.  

Mindfulness is the engaged, satisfied state of being one feels when absorbed in a meaningful task, whether it’s achieving an A in a class or organizing a blood drive.  Kashdan is the author of “Curiosity: Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life.“

According to Kashdan, teachers are in a unique position to foster curiosity in the classroom and put their kids on the road to mindfulness and mental health.

How to do it? 

Rote memorization of facts is the enemy of the curious mind, he says.  Whenever possible, banish rote learning.  Help students understand events in the Civil War from different perspectives.  Discuss whether the Civil War might have been a bad or a good thing for a Southern mill owner, a Northern shipping tycoon, a slave, or the President.  Such discussions promote the kind of thinking that will pay off later.

“Children who are taught there is a difference in perspectives maintain the mental and emotional receptiveness they need to remain curious,” says Kashdan.  “High levels of curiosity translates into a child’s ability to think critically, problem-solve more creatively, and even to recognize different strengths in different kinds of kids.”

If you’re still not wanting to change your Civil War curriculum, think about this, says Kashdan.   As curious kids grow up, they are better able than their less curious classmates to find things to be passionate about.   

5.     Expressing Gratitude

Even for star pupils, school can sometimes be difficult.  Help children balance some of the challenges of learning by giving them the opportunity to express gratitude. 

Expressing gratitude  leads to warmer feelings toward the teacher, as well as higher levels of school engagement.  Even with children who struggle, this translates to better GPAs. 

And a fringe benefit is that grateful kids also experience less envy and are less materialistic.

How does this work? 

Jeffrey Froh, professor of psychology at Hofstra University, says when teachers encourage kids over age 7 to regularly name and describe what they are grateful for in their lives, they begin to see how interconnected they are to other people.  “They see who is helping them.”

Not everyone benefits equally.  “Some kids have more baseline gratitude than  others,” says Froh.  Certain children take to gratitude easily, but  for some it continues to be an effort.  “But when you make the discussion of gratitude in the classroom more fluid and regular, everyone benefits a little,” says Froh.

Start by sharing your own thank yous:  “Thanks for walking to lunch so quietly.”  “Thank you for picking up your candy wrapper!” 

By modeling gratitude — articulating how people are helping you and your feelings of warmth toward them for their help — you can support children in becoming more grateful themselves.

source:  from Scholastic.com, article whose source was Instructor Magazine.  No author noted.   http://www.2.scholastic.com

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com  

+ Impact on Jupiter: What Happened Last Sunday?

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According to Dennis Overbye’s article in the NY Times, astronomers are scrambling to get big telescopes turned to Jupiter. 

They want to observe the remains of what looks like the biggest smashup in the solar system since fragments of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the planet in July 1994.

It was probably a small comet.   But astronomers admit they might never know.

“It’s like throwing a stone on the pond,” explains Leigh Fletcher  of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  “You see the splash, but lose the stone.  It’s the splash we can study.”

Just after midnight Australian time on Sunday July 19th, Jupiter came into view in the eyepiece of Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Murrumbateman.  Wesley had thought about quitting for the night to watch sports on TV, according to his Web site.  But he went back for another look and found this spot.

He emailed other astronomers, who had scheduled observing time at NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility on top of Hawaii’sMauna Kea.

Jupiter’s “scar” showed up as a bright spot in infrared light.

According to Franck Marchis, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and UC Berkeley, who has blogged about the event, the images suggest that whatever hit Jupiter might have been pulled apart by tidal forces from the planet’s huge gravity before it hit.

In an email message to Overbye, he said humans should be thankful for Jupiter.

The solar system would have been a very dangerous place if we did not have Jupiter.  We should thank our giant planet for suffering for us.  Its strong gravitational field is acting like a shield protecting us from comets coming from the outer part of the solar system.”

sole source: Dennis Overbye’s article in the NY Times on 7/22/09.  www.nytimes.com.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Helping Children Hospitalized for Rages

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Temper outbursts, sometimes called rages, have been associated with mania, Tourette disorder, intermittent explosive and conduct disorders,  and Autism/Aspergers, as well as other disorders.

The term “rage” implies that outbursts consist solely of high-intensity anger, but in fact, experts know little about their content or structure.

Researchers at Stony Brook University School of Medicine studied 130 children aged 7 to 11, one fifth female. 

Researchers were Gabrielle Carlson, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Stony Brook School of Medicine; Michael Potegal, PhD, University of Minnesota associate professor of pediatrics and neurology; and Paul Grover, RN, who is a parent educator in the department of nursing at Stony Brook University Hospital.

 Diagnostic and behavioral data was collected over 18 months.  A rage observed in the hospital setting was defined as having started when the child became loudly verbally defiant and out of control when asked to do or stop doing something by the staff.

The outburst was observed at 5, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 and 120 minutes after onset by the nursing staff.  Behaviors coded during each rage included

• verbal acts — whining, verbal threats, cursing, yelling, screaming
• discrete physical acts — stamping, posturing, pulling, throwing things, biting, scratching, punching the wall, hitting, kicking
• expressive psychomotor behaviors — tearful/sad, anxious/fearful, withdrawn/unresponsive

Researchers note that of observations in the hospital, manic behaviors were not seen.

During the study  the most common behaviors observed were angry behaviors (93 percent).   Tears and anxiety occurred in fewer than half.  An episode of rage generally lasted 45 minutes, although it could vary from longer than 60 minutes (19 percent) to less than 30 minutes (19 percent).

The number of rages correlated positively with length of stay in the hospital; rage episodes added at least 2 weeks to the duration of hospitalization.  Most children improved with a combination of behavior modification, family treatment, appropriate academic intervention, and medication.

The inpatient behavior modification approach focuses on teaching children self-control, as well as helping parents learn suitable responses to their child’s behavior.

Hospitalized children who behave appropriately earn points toward fun activities and increased time for home visits.

Time Out

It’s especially important, researchers feel, for children with a history of rages to learn to take a Time Out.

By sitting  quietly in a chair for 10 minutes and then talking with a therapist or staff member, the child learns to identify the triggers that lead to a rage outburst and alternative behaviors for mitigating an episode of rage.

Many children, they say, respond favorably to the unit structure and the Time Outs from the time of admission.  Staff members who observe children starting to lose control will also teach them to “chill out” before a full-blown raging episode occurs.  This technique places self control in the child’s hands.

Children who are unable to take a Time Out are escorted to the quiet room where the door remains open (as long as they stay in the room and don’t try to hurt themselves).  A nurse unobtrusively observes until the child has remained quiet for 10 minutes and can subsequently talk about alternatives.  This option has cut the use of closed seclusion and physical restraint dramatically.

It is true that some children simply can’t calm themselves and require medication; a few children become so unreachable when they are angry or distressed that no corrective intervention has been successful.  Researchers say alternative strategies such as collaborative problem solving may be an option, but these have not been studied sufficiently.  These children require the longest duration of hospitalization.

Parental Involvement

To maintain gains made by the children, the staff begins to work with parents immediately on admission.  To ensure cooperation and reduce defensiveness, the therapist helps parents understand that while they didn’t create the child’s problems, these problems nevertheless require a particular approach.

Parents who feel sorry for the child may think any form of consequence is unfair, so the social learning paradigm (behavior modification) is reframed to state that behavior that causes failure has a negative consequence.  Behavior that ensures success earns a positive consequence.  Most parents want their children to succeed.

Parents are taught to use the Time Out procedure when the child is not following directions, or when he or she exhibits verbal or physical aggression.

In optimum circumstances, parents learn the procedure and are able to get their child to take a successful Time Out before the child has a pass for a home visit, and certainly before discharge.  Like the children themselves, parents have different learning curves in understanding and responding consistently and appropriately to their children.

Time  on therapeutic passes provides plenty of opportunity for parents to practice skills with the option of bringing the child back from home pass if the child is unable to take successful Time Outs.  This step is vital to support the parents’ effort to gain the child’s cooperation.  A confident, reasonable, and well-trained parent helps the child after discharge.  Some children need a readmission before they understand that coercing caregivers into capitulating is not an option.

Discharge planning included smaller, special education class placements.  Ninety percent of children with rages received an ADHD medication and/or an atypical antipsychotic/mood stabilizer.   They were 4 times more likely to receive both than children without rages.

Multidisciplinary treatment was partially successful for most children, but children continued to  need many services and polypharmacy.  Successful parenting was necessary but rarely sufficient in and of itself to manage children with rage behaviors.

Researchers feel that much additional research is needed in order to develop a more consistently successful series of options.  Rage behaviors are a condition that is not only common but disabling – this is a situation that needs solutions.

source: for  the complete article, visit www.psychiatrictimes.com.  Article was in the Psychiatric Times, Vol 26, No7.  Authors are Gabrielle A Carlson MD, Michael Potegal, PhD, and Paul J Grover, RN.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com

+ Study: Bilingual Children Pick Up Words More Quickly

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The assumption that bilingual toddlers have more trouble learning language skills than children who know just one language has been contested by European researchers, according to Peter West, HealthDay Reporter.

Study author Agnes Melinda Kovacs, research fellow at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, says

While the remarkable performance of children acquiring one language is impressive, many children acquire more than one language simultaneously. 

As bilingual children presumably have to learn roughly twice as much as their monolingual peers [because they learn two languages instead of one], one would expect their language acquisition to be somewhat delayed.  However, bilinguals pass the language development milestones at the same ages as their monolingual peers.

 Appearing online in Science, the finding came from a test of the responses to verbal and visual cues from 64 babies who were 12 months old.  They came from monolingual and bilingual families, although the study did not specify which languages the families spoke.

The Method

The toddlers were exposed to two sets of words that had different structural characteristics.  After each word, the children viewed a special toy on either the left or right side of a screen, depending on the word’s stucture.  They then were presented with words they had never heard before, but which conformed to one of the two verbal structures.  No toy followed.

Researchers determined whether the infants had learned the word structures by measuring the direction of their gaze after hearing each new word.

Judging by their eye movements, the bilingual kids did better in recognizing words than their monolingual peers.

Says Kovacs

We showed that pre-verbal, 12-month-old, bilingual infants have become more flexible at learning speech structures than monolinguals.  When given the opportunity to simultaneously learn two different regularities, bilingual infants learned both, while monolinguals learned only one of them.

This means, she says, that bilinguals may acquire two languages in the time in which monolinguals acquire one — because they quickly become more flexible learners.

How It Works

According to the study, the cognitive pathways developed during the learning of two languages might make bilingual children more efficient in acquiring new information.

Researchers had already often confirmed the benefits of learning more than one language.  In a 2004 Canadian study, for example, it was found that bilingual speakers were more proficient at dealing with distractions than those who spoke only one language; and that ability was even more pronounced for older people (suggesting that multilingualism might help elderly speakers avoid age-related cognitive problems).

A significant percentage of humanity speaks more than one language.  In the United States more than 18 percent of the population aged 5 and older speaks a language other than English at home, according to the 2000 census.

A child psychologist who read the Italian study says the results are intriguing, and said she would like to see further research on how children learn different languages, especially languages with different tonal structures such as Chinese and English.

Says Marta Flaum, who practices in Chappaqua NY,

We now know, thanks to fMRI studies that allow us to observe the working brain, that learning does result in discrete changes in ‘wiring.’  It would make sense that learning a second language affects brain changes as well.

Flaum, who specializes in diagnosing and helping children with dyslexia and other language handicaps, says

We do know that the young brain is more plastic than the older brain, making it easier to learn at an earlier age.

More Information

The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics has more on the emerging field of psycholinguistics.  http://www.mpi.nl/

sole source: http://www.yahoo.com, HealthDay Report by Peter West on 7/9/09.

tutoring in Columbus OH:   Adrienne Edwards   614-579-6021   or email  aedwardstutor@columbus.rr.com