Psychology News and Research Briefs Category Archive:
Child Adolescent Mental Health
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Nurturing Moms Boost Brain Growth Study shows nurturing behaviors lead to a larger hippocampus in children. Continue reading Nurturing Moms Boost Brain Growth
Exercise Equals Good Grades Physical activity boosts academic performance. Continue reading Exercise Equals Good Grades
Mother's Mental State Crosses Placenta Fetal brains sense their mothers moods and develop according to the environment they will enter based on the mental state of their mothers, shows a study on mothers and babies from the University of California-Irvine. Continue reading Mother's Mental State Crosses Placenta
HIgh Rates of Violence and Gang Membership in Teens of Deployed Parents Teens with deployed parents are more likely to join gangs, get in physical fights, and carry weapons to school. Continue reading HIgh Rates of Violence and Gang Membership in Teens of Deployed Parents
Plastic Chemical BPA Linked to Behavior Problems in Girls Daughters exposed to high levels of a chemical found in common plastics have been found to have higher levels of behavior problems in early childhood. Continue reading Plastic Chemical BPA Linked to Behavior Problems in Girls
Does Facebook Put Teens at Risk for Depression? The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions parents about social media dangers. Continue reading Does Facebook Put Teens at Risk for Depression?
Success in Adulthood Linked to Childhood Impulsivity What if an individual's success and health could be traced back to a childhood single factor? According to new research, it can. Continue reading Success in Adulthood Linked to Childhood Impulsivity
Newborns Learn While Asleep Sleeping babies are doing more than giving their parents a much-needed rest--they are learning at an incredible rate. Continue reading Newborns Learn While Asleep
Gay Population More Likely to Experience Violence, PTSD Gay and lesbian adults face a greater risk of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of increased exposure to violence in early life. Continue reading Gay Population More Likely to Experience Violence, PTSD
Why Some Kids Don't Fit In Researchers pinpoint key factors that may make social interaction difficult for children. Continue reading Why Some Kids Don't Fit In
The Connection Between Bedtime & Teen Mental Health Teenagers' bedtimes have been found to be linked to rates of depression and thoughts of suicide. Find out what you can do to help your teen get an appropriate night's sleep. Continue reading The Connection Between Bedtime & Teen Mental Health
Kids, Not Teachers, Challenge Gender Roles Even trained teachers may have trouble implementing gender equality in the classroom, while children often challenge the boundaries of sex roles on their own. Continue reading Kids, Not Teachers, Challenge Gender Roles
Depression and Anxiety Affect Many Preschoolers Researchers say up to 15 percent of children under age five are affected by high levels of depression and anxiety. Continue reading Depression and Anxiety Affect Many Preschoolers
Can Summer Jobs Prevent Teen Suicide? Holding a summer job has surprising benefits for teens at risk of suicide. Continue reading Can Summer Jobs Prevent Teen Suicide?
When Staying Together For The Kids Is A Bad Idea Growing up in a two-parent household carries many benefits for children--except when parents frequently argue. Continue reading When Staying Together For The Kids Is A Bad Idea
Witnessing Family Violence As A Child May Lead to Depression, Alcoholism in Adulthood Witness violence between parents before the age of 18 has been found to have great effects on adult mental health including increased risk of depression, alcoholism and spousal and child abuse. Continue reading Witnessing Family Violence As A Child May Lead to Depression, Alcoholism in Adulthood
ADHD Study Shows Behavior Modification As Effective As Pills Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may benefit as much from learning skills to cope with attention deficit as they do from taking ADHD drugs. Continue reading ADHD Study Shows Behavior Modification As Effective As Pills
Most Children On Antidepressants Not Receiving Therapy A large-scale study on children and teens on antidepressants shows that at least half do not receive therapy in conjunction with medication. The study used data from a database of 6.8 million youth with insurance claims for antidepressants. Data showed that only about 40 percent also received a referral for at least one therapy session. Continue reading Most Children On Antidepressants Not Receiving Therapy
How War Changes Children's Ideas About Right and Wrong For many of the world's children, youth is not merely a time of carefree play. The United Nations estimates that children in as many as 50 countries around the world are currently affected by war. Continue reading How War Changes Children's Ideas About Right and Wrong
Background Television May Impair Attention In Young Children A new study published in the journal Child Development shows homes with a T.V. always on may harm a young child's ability to focus--even if they're not actually watching it. Continue reading Background Television May Impair Attention In Young Children
Review Supports Importance Of Active Father Figures Regular contact with a father figure leads to fewer psychological problems in girls and fewer behavioral problems in boys. For low-income children, this contact also leads to a lower chance of criminal activity and improved language and reasoning skills. T... Continue reading Review Supports Importance Of Active Father Figures
Low-Quality Day Care Means High Stress Levels For Children Leaving home for daycare is often an upsetting experience for young children. However, the quality of child care can make a huge difference as to whether children stay upset or gain new social and linguistic skills while away from home. Continue reading Low-Quality Day Care Means High Stress Levels For Children
Bullying Both A Cause and Effect of ADHD Research appearing in February's Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology shows that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to be bullies--and to have been bullied. Continue reading Bullying Both A Cause and Effect of ADHD
Adult Personality Type May Be Determined By Preschool Young children who are shy tend to stay that way into adulthood, shows new research on personality that shows the same goes for aggressive children, although they tend to mellow out somewhat as time goes by. Continue reading Adult Personality Type May Be Determined By Preschool
Guidelines for Psychopharmacological Treatment of Young Children Released In light of a recent increase in the number of children aged 3 to 6 receiving psychiatric medication, medical professionals have released a set of treatment guidelines. Continue reading Guidelines for Psychopharmacological Treatment of Young Children Released
Infants Show Preference for Altruism Are we born samaritans? New research from Yale University suggests infants as young as six months old show a preference towards people whose actions make them "helpers" and not "hinderers." Continue reading Infants Show Preference for Altruism
Playground Prowess and Popularity Surveying 99 boys and 109 girls on loneliness, their peers' athletic ability and how much they liked their fellow students, researchers have found a direct correlation between perceived athletic ability and popularity. Continue reading Playground Prowess and Popularity
Toddlers Understand Whole Better Than Parts Children in the early stages of language acquisition are more likely to attribute new vocabulary to whole objects rather than parts, shows a new study. Continue reading Toddlers Understand Whole Better Than Parts
Oxytocin Linked to Mother-Child Bonding in Humans Maternal instinct is delivered in a hormonal package, shows new research establishing the connection between the levels of oxcytocin in a pregnant woman's body and her mothering skills. Continue reading Oxytocin Linked to Mother-Child Bonding in Humans
PsychBriefs: September 23-29, 2007 Could Alzheimer's Be "Type III" Diabetes? New research from Northwestern University researchers shows that Amyloid beta oglimers in the brain of Alzheimer's patients remove insulin receptors from nerve cells, rendering neurons insulin resistent, thereby dis... Continue reading PsychBriefs: September 23-29, 2007
PsychBriefs: September 9-15, 2007 Preschoolers Who Sleep Less Suffer Learning Problems Preschoolers who sleep less than ten hours per night are at risk for learning problems when they enter school, shows a six-year study of 1500 Canadian children. Children who regularly underslept before ... Continue reading PsychBriefs: September 9-15, 2007
Study Shows Autonomy Essential to Children of All Cultures University of Illinois researchers studying parenting styles in both the U.S. and China have shown that controlling parents are destructive to children's academic achievement no matter what the cultural context. The six-month study appearing in the Septemb... Continue reading Study Shows Autonomy Essential to Children of All Cultures
Research Identifies Natural Treatments for ADHD, Compulsive Gambling Findings to be published in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience report that an extract from French maritime pine trees called Pycnogenol may help ease the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study examined 57 Slovakian children... Continue reading Research Identifies Natural Treatments for ADHD, Compulsive Gambling
PsychBriefs: September 2-8, 2007 Suicide Rates Rise in U.S. Girls A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on 2004 suicide rates shows an eight percent increase in suicides among Americans age 10 to 24 following a 13-year decline. This increase was most dramatic among gir... Continue reading PsychBriefs: September 2-8, 2007
Teen Suicides Increase After Antidepressant Warnings In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European regulators issued warnings against the use of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in children and adolescents. Shortly thereafter, the FDA issued a mandate sta... Continue reading Teen Suicides Increase After Antidepressant Warnings
PsychBriefs: August 19 - 25, 2007 Our weekly wrap-up of news, interesting research, and noteworthy happenings in the worlds of psychiatry, psychology, and social work. Boys with Reading Problems Fare Better with Female Teachers A study of 175 third- and fourth-grade boys in a ten-week read... Continue reading PsychBriefs: August 19 - 25, 2007
Child Maltreatment Rates Soar During Military Deployment War deployments place stress on both soldier parents and civilian spouses left behind. However, it is the children who may suffer the most as they both miss and worry about the deployed parent and are affected by the additional stress put on the family, oft... Continue reading Child Maltreatment Rates Soar During Military Deployment
Infants Have Theory of Mind By 13 Months New research shows that babies can read minds...sort of. Theory of Mind, the ability to recognize that others have their own thoughts and emotions, has long been a hot topic in the field of infant cognition. Famous developmental psychologist Jean Piaget ar... Continue reading Infants Have Theory of Mind By 13 Months
Big Girls Don't...Go To College? Obese girls are half as likely to attend college as their thinner peers, shows a new study appearing in Sociology of Education. They are also more likely to consider killing themselves and to try drugs or alcohol. Analyzing data on almost 11,000 adolescent... Continue reading Big Girls Don't...Go To College?
Girl Talk Leads To Anxiety And Depression It seems the normally calming effect of expressing your troubles may not kick in if you're a teenage girl who spends a lot of time discussing them. University of Missouri associate professor of psychological sciences Amanda Rose reports that 'co-rumination... Continue reading Girl Talk Leads To Anxiety And Depression
PG-13 Films Teach Kids Violence A report on top-earning movies marketed to adolescents published in Pediatrics shows that 87 percent of PG-13 films contain scenes of violence. Studying a sample of 77 films released between 1999 and 2000, researchers found 2251 acts of violence, with a me... Continue reading PG-13 Films Teach Kids Violence
Infants Begin Learning Rules Of Speech At Seven Months From birth, babies show a preference for the sound of human speech over other sounds. Now, research published in Psychological Science shows that at just seven months, infants are already scanning what is said to them for patterns. The study presented infa... Continue reading Infants Begin Learning Rules Of Speech At Seven Months
Quality Child Care Buffers Effects Of Poverty Poverty in early childhood has been repeatedly linked to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety later in life. However, University of North Carolina researchers now show that high quality childcare during these years may help protect them fro... Continue reading Quality Child Care Buffers Effects Of Poverty
PsychBriefs: April 28-May 4, 2007 Our weekly wrap-up of news, interesting research, and noteworthy happenings in the worlds of psychiatry, psychology, and social work. This week: April 28-May 4, 2007. Mentally Ill Die 25 Years Earlier People treated for serious mental illness in public sys... Continue reading PsychBriefs: April 28-May 4, 2007
Reading Troubles Lead To Depression, Anxiety In Disadvantaged Children Difficulties in reading may precede depression and anxiety, especially for children from low-income families, report researchers from the University of Delaware and West Chester University of Pennsylvania. A study of 105 children age four to 12 published ... Continue reading Reading Troubles Lead To Depression, Anxiety In Disadvantaged Children
Day Care Linked to Behavior Problems The good news for working parents? Children who spend ten or more hours per week at a day care center have stronger vocabulary skills by fifth grade, particularly if they receive high quality care. The bad news? The more time they spend in child care, the m... Continue reading Day Care Linked to Behavior Problems
Proposed DSM Addition to Cover Symptoms of Childhood Trauma An article published in the latest issue of the American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology reports on a new diagnosis being proposed for inclusion into the 2011 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-V.... Continue reading Proposed DSM Addition to Cover Symptoms of Childhood Trauma
Article: Is America Overmedicating Its Foster Children? It seems the ever-increasing use of psychiatric drugs to treat children may be hitting hardest the troubled youngsters placed foster homes and residential facilities after their parents lose or forfeit custody: Parents and child advocacy groups are accusing... Continue reading Article: Is America Overmedicating Its Foster Children?
One in Three Young Teenage Boys Are Heavy Users of Pornography Young teenage boys are very heavy users of sexually explicit media content on digital or satellite television, video, and DVD and the Internet. When surveyed anonymously, 90 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls aged 13 and 14 reported accessing sexually... Continue reading One in Three Young Teenage Boys Are Heavy Users of Pornography
Helping Girls Resist Media Sexualization Imagine a 5-year-old girl walking through a mall wearing a short T-shirt that says "Flirt." Consider the instructions given in magazines to preadolescent girls on how to look sexy and get a boyfriend by losing 10 pounds and straightening their hair. Envis... Continue reading Helping Girls Resist Media Sexualization
How Teens Use Social Networking Sites A nationwide survey of 12- to 17-year-olds shows that most teens are using social networking sites like MySpace responsibly and in ways that mimic normal social behavior. More than half of teens surveyed reported having a profile, but two-thirds of these a... Continue reading How Teens Use Social Networking Sites
Length of Inpatient Youth Mental Health Treatment Declines Dramatically The median inpatient hospital stay for youth receiving mental health treatment declined from 12.2 days to 4.5 days between 1990 and 2000. This decrease occurred in spite of increases in the diagnosis of serious psychiatric disorders and cases of self-injury... Continue reading Length of Inpatient Youth Mental Health Treatment Declines Dramatically
FDA Warning: Antidepressants May Increase Suicide Risks in Young Adults The Food and Drug Administration has proposed that antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft must now feature an FDA label warning of increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in patients under 24. This action follows a meta-analysis of 372 s... Continue reading FDA Warning: Antidepressants May Increase Suicide Risks in Young Adults
Report: Children's Shows Contain Twice the Violence of Primetime TV An analysis of children's programming released by the Parents' Television Council (PTC) reports that shows aimed at five- to ten-year-olds involve even higher levels of violence and other mature content than many prime-time programs. Examining almost 450 ... Continue reading Report: Children's Shows Contain Twice the Violence of Primetime TV
Article: Increasing Number of Youth on Multiple Psychiatric Medications Many children and adolescents these days aren't simply on psychiatric medication, but on "cocktails" of two or more medicines a day designed to combat everything from poor concentration to insomnia. Without substantial proof that the benefits of such combin... Continue reading Article: Increasing Number of Youth on Multiple Psychiatric Medications
How Kids Seperate Truth from Fiction Parents who urge children not to believe everything they hear need not worry: Children as young as four are able to distinguish fantasy from reality using context clues according to Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel enti... Continue reading How Kids Seperate Truth from Fiction
Depressed Youth Try Alcohol Sooner Ten- to 13-year-olds who show signs of depression are more than twice as likely to try alcohol than their peers, a Columbia University study has shown. Interviewing more than 1000 children in this age group who had never tried alcohol, researchers found th... Continue reading Depressed Youth Try Alcohol Sooner
Youth in Developing Countries Happiest People between the ages of 16 and 34 in developing countries such as China are twice as likely to report leading happy lives as their peers in developed nations like Britain and Japan, a survey by MTV Networks International (MTVNI) shows. Overall, 43 perce... Continue reading Youth in Developing Countries Happiest
Adolescents, Decision-Making and Rationality Adolescents have never been known for their great decision-making skills, but a new study has shown them to be no more optimistic about the risks associated with actions such as smoking than are adults. Rather, they are more likely to overestimate their ris... Continue reading Adolescents, Decision-Making and Rationality
13 Percent of Teens with Problem Acne Attempt Suicide Acne may have devastating effects on the mental health of teenagers, a new study shows. In a New Zealand study of nearly 9570 students age 12 to 18, nearly 35 percent of the students with problem acne also reported suicidal thoughts and ten percent reported... Continue reading 13 Percent of Teens with Problem Acne Attempt Suicide
Percentage of Infants Thought to be 'Depressed' Some doctors now claim that infants too may suffer from depression, exhibiting tell-tale signs such as a lack of emotional expression and trouble eating and sleeping. Either a damaging home environment or genetic predisposition may account for the baby blue... Continue reading Percentage of Infants Thought to be 'Depressed'
Children Benefit from Accurate Perceptions of Likability Children with realistic perceptions of how well they are liked by peers are less likely to become depressed--even if they are not well liked, research at Florida State University shows. At the beginning and six months into the schoolyear, students in grade... Continue reading Children Benefit from Accurate Perceptions of Likability
Child Abuse Alters Brain Chemistry A long-term study on monkeys shows that being raised by an abusive parent may alter brain chemistry in such a way that children are more prone to abusing their own offspring as adults. Emory University researchers studied infant monkeys raised by both abus... Continue reading Child Abuse Alters Brain Chemistry
Effects of Tsunami Trauma on Adults and Children Researchers studying the mental health of Thai people affected by the 2004 tsunami have found interesting differences between the mental health of children and adults affected by the tragedy. Children were found to be at a key risk for Post-Traumatic Stres... Continue reading Effects of Tsunami Trauma on Adults and Children
Mothers with PTSD Drawn to Violent Entertainment; Children May Suffer A study of 76 mothers with a history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has found that these mothers watch more violent programming than other mothers, said researchers at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in ... Continue reading Mothers with PTSD Drawn to Violent Entertainment; Children May Suffer
Study Okays Ritalin for Preschoolers, Debate Ensues A long-term study of preschoolers with Attention Deficit Disorder which will appear in the November Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, suggests that the benefits of giving small doses Ritalin, a drug normally prescribed only... Continue reading Study Okays Ritalin for Preschoolers, Debate Ensues
Survey Shows 'Cyberbullying' Up With the ever-increasing use of blogs, instant messaging and social networking sites among teens and children has come a rise in bullying via the Internet, or "cyberbullying," a study published in the most recent issue of Pediatrics says. In a survey of te... Continue reading Survey Shows 'Cyberbullying' Up
Ethnic Pride Leads to Happier Adolescents A Wake Forest University study published in the September/October issue of Child Development shows that teens with positive feelings toward their ethnic group are happier than those with negative feelings about their ethnicity. More than 400 ninth graders ... Continue reading Ethnic Pride Leads to Happier Adolescents
Playtime Prescribed to Overscheduled Kids As many parents enroll children in an ever-increasing number of sports, enrichment and academic-related activities, health officials say the one thing missing from many kids' schedules these days is some good old-fashioned play. A report presented at the a... Continue reading Playtime Prescribed to Overscheduled Kids
Children Who Witness Violence at Home More Likely To Bully A study by researchers at the University of Washington and Indiana University published in Pediatrics shows that children who have witnessed violence in the home are more likely to be bullies. Continue reading Children Who Witness Violence at Home More Likely To Bully
Children with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Are Prime Targets for Bullies In Peer Victimization in Children With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Relations With Symptoms of Psychopathology, published in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, vol. 35, No. 3, researchers find that children with OCD are almost three... Continue reading Children with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Are Prime Targets for Bullies |
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