children and youth

Teens and alcohol: What can parents do?

May 3, 2011 By sh648 3 Comments

I will never forget the moment, even though it was years ago. My wife and I were chatting with the parents of one of our daughter’s friends, and the topic of a recent sleep-over came up. They told us that the kids – all young teens – had camped out behind their house, which surprised us. But our jaws progressively dropped as this couple went on to say how they had provided beer to the kids. When we expressed dismay, they responded along the lines of “Well, they’re going to do it anyway.” This seemed to us wrong to the core, but it indicates the dilemmas parents face in trying to control teen drinking behavior.

There is a mountain of scientific data about the dangers of teen alcohol use. Perhaps most frightening is that teenage drinking predicts alcohol abuse as an adult. Adolescent alcohol use is also related to driving accidents and fatalities, poor school performance, and engaging in other types of risky behaviors. In fact, there’s so much data on the negatives of teen alcohol consumption that EBL won’t even waste your time with a review.

But what’s a parent to do? That’s where information from a recent systematic review breaks new ground (for information about systematic reviews and why they’re so good, see here).

In their article, Siobhan Ryan, Anthony Jorn, and Dan Lubman conducted a state-of-the-art systematic review about what parenting strategies are associated with adolescent alcohol consumption. Two positive outcomes were examined: delayed onset of teen drinking (the later the better) and levels of alcohol consumption in adolescence. The review only looked at longitudinal studies, where data on parenting practices were collected early in adolescence and data on drinking at a later time point. These are very strong designs. Further, they carried out sophisticated statistical analyses to combine the results of studies.

Let’s come back to our question: What’s a parent to do? It turns out that there are a number of parenting strategies that work to reduce teen drinking. Four of the most important of these are:

Parental modeling – and specifically children learning about alcohol by observing the parents’ responsible drinking behavior
Parental monitoring – the degree to which parents know where there children are and who they are with
Parent – child relationship quality – the level of warmth and affection in the relationship
Limiting availability of alcohol – not providing alcoholic beverages to the child

I was particularly glad to see that last one, because every once in a while I wonder if I was wrong to criticize those parents who created a beer party for young teens. It turns out I was right. An editorial accompanying the review article puts this issue succinctly:

Many parents consider that this is the best way to prevent negative alcohol outcomes in their children, i.e. by allowing drinking at home and directly supplying them with small amounts of alcohol when they go out to parties. In fact some parents go out of their way to inoculate their children with alcohol, sometimes before puberty, in order to break down any sense of alcohol being a taboo. This normalization of drinking alcohol is aimed at lessening the “big deal” of adolescent initiation rites involving alcohol. However, the evidence points in the opposite direction, that normalization of alcohol increases the risk of harm.

By being a good role model, monitoring one’s children carefully, and maintaining warm relationships, parents can make inroads into this very thorny problem, and perhaps keep their kids sober longer.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, evidence-based practice, Health and Wellness, research translation

Clear evidence: Breastfeeding is good for babies

March 22, 2011 By sh648 4 Comments

With my second child due any day now, I admit I’ve got babies on the brain at the moment. If there’s one thing the evidence clearly shows, it’s that breastfeeding is good for both moms and babies.

Review after review shows that breastfeeding protects against asthma, childhood obesity, ear infections, respiratory illness and more. It helps mothers avoid breast and ovarian cancer, and leads to quicker weight-loss after having a baby. (You can find a good review of that evidence and more from the U.S. Surgeon General’s office.)

In addition, there are economic benefits to families. Formula is expensive!

But across the U.S., less than half of women continue breastfeeding after six months. And among some populations, such as African-American women, those rates are much lower.

Luckily, there is also good evidence that educational programs are effective in promoting breastfeeding among new mothers. The best method seems to be in-person training –whether with a nurse at the hospital, at pediatrician’s offices or in a support group for new mothers all proved effective in increasing the number of infants who are breastfed at three months of age.

There are other interventions that help as well. In fact, the U.S. government has deemed this is such an important issue that the Centers for Disease Control has published a list of evidence-based guidelines to breastfeeding interventions. Among the recommendations are providing support in the workplace for breastfeeding women and creating media campaigns to improve attitudes toward breastfeeding.

I feel extremely lucky that the hospital where I plan to deliver and our pediatrician’s office have lactation consultants – people trained to teach women how to breast feed and address problems that come up in the process. I used their help when my son was born two years ago, and I certainly plan to take advantage of them again this time.

Update: Hannah May was born on Saturday afternoon and is currently enjoying the benefits of breastfeeding.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, Health and Wellness, nutrition

New York continues PROSPER Partnership to prevent substance abuse

March 8, 2011 By sh648 1 Comment

We heard some exciting news at EBL this week! New York families will soon have more access to evidence-based programs that prevent substance abuse among middle school students and their families.

You might remember that we wrote about PROSPER Partnerships – which stands for PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience – as an ideal model for implementing substance abuse prevention programming based on real evidence. The program links Cooperative Extension, public schools, and local communities to choose proven programs that serve the needs of individual communities.

Last month, New York was chosen as one of five states in that will continue the process of forming a PROSPER Partnership, with Cornell serving as the university partner.

The goal is for New York to become a full PROSPER State Partnership by August of this year.

Kim Kopko, Extension Associate in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and New York State Liaison for PROSPER, is excited to continue with the program.

“This is indeed a very positive development and an exciting opportunity to utilize the Cornell Cooperative Extension System to bring evidence-based programming to families and communities in New York,” she said.
As you might expect, PROSPER uses plenty of evidence to determine if a state is ready to enter a full partnership. PROSPER staff collected and analyzed data from a state survey, in-depth interviews with Cooperative Extension staff and partnering agencies, and information garnered from various activities in New York.

PROSPER has also plenty of evidence to prove that their system yields results. PROSPER Programs typically recruit 17 percent of eligible families in their communities, compared to less than six percent for other community programs.

Students who participate in the program are better at problem solving, more likely to refuse offers of alcohol and other drugs, less likely to believe that substance use has positive effects and more likely to delay initiation of substance use. And each $1 invested in the program yield about $9.60 of savings.

All of that is great news for New York families, who will soon have even greater access to evidence-based programming.

Filed Under: Cornell Cooperative Extension, Evidence-Based Living, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, Community, Cooperative Extension programs, evidence-based programs, research translation

New evidence on how the flu spreads

February 14, 2011 By sh648 Leave a Comment

We’re deep into flu season in the U.S. The federal Centers for Disease Control, which tracks the flu virus nationally, found a significant increase in flu-related hospitalizations and deaths in January.

I should admit to you that I was one of those patients. I came down with a cough mid-January that quickly turned into body aches and fever. Being pregnant, I went into the doctor for a check-up. They immediately sent me to the hospital where I tested positive for the flu. I was treated with IV fluids, fever-reducers and an antiviral medicine that has been shown to reduce the duration of the flu. Thankfully, I was much better within a week. While I was sick, I did find myself wondering more than once, “Where did I pick this virus up?” (My husband and son never got sick.)

So when I came across a new study in the Proceedings of the National Institutes of Science about how the flu spread, I was personally intrigued.

Researchers studied an outbreak of H1N1 flu virus at an elementary school in Pennsylvania in the spring 2009. They collected data in real time while the epidemic was going on, a unique method for studying the flu. In total, they collected information on 370 students from 295 households. Nearly 35 percent of the students and 15 percent of their family members came down with flu.

The interesting aspect of the study is that researchers collected data on exactly who got sick and when, plus information from seating charts, activities and social networks at the school. They then used statistical methods to trace the spread of the disease from one child to the next.

Their findings were surprising:

Sitting next to a classmate with the flu did not significantly increase the risk of infection, but the social networks and the structure of classes certainly did.
Transmission was 25 times as intensive among classmates as between children in different grades. Boys were more likely to catch the flu from other boys, and girls from other girls. From May 7 to 9, the illness spread mostly among boys. From May 10 to 13, it spread mostly among girls.
Administrators closed the school from May 14 to 18, but there was no indication that this slowed transmission.
Only 1 in 5 adults caught the illness from their own children.

The researchers did point out some limitations of the study. Survey data was reported by the main caregiver in each household and focused on symptoms only. And the study did not take into account how the flu spread outside of the school environment, at gatherings like play dates or sports practice.

But the study does provide a unique snapshot at how a virus can spread, revealing definite patterns of what the researchers call “back-and-forth waves of transmission” between the school, the community, and the households. It is one, detailed piece in the complex puzzle of understanding how disease spreads.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness Tagged With: children and youth, Health and Wellness, research methods

Video feature: Psyche 101 with Professor Stephen Ceci

January 26, 2011 By sh648 Leave a Comment

To follow-up our post on Professor Stephen Ceci’s work on child testimony, we thought it would be useful to share a recent lecture Ceci gave to a Psychology 101 class at Cornell.

In the lecture, he discusses five factors that can damage or change a child memory:

Suggestive questioning.
Giving false expectations or stereotypes.
Confirmatory bias, or tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions.
Visually-guided imagery.
High levels of stress

“How can children come to believe something that’s wrong?” Ceci asked.

“When young children, ages 3 and 4, are questioned by neutral interviewers, they do very well. They recall events with 90 percent accuracy,” he explains. “However, when children are repeatedly interviewed over the course of weeks and months with misleading suggestions which sometimes occurs in forensic cases many come to remember the false events as true and provide detailed and coherent narratives about these false events. So compelling did the children’s narratives appear that we suspected that some of the children had come to truly believe they had experienced the fictitious events. Neither parents nor researchers were able to convince 27 percent of the children that the events never happened.”

You can view the entire lecture by clicking here.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, policy, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, policy, research translation

Video Feature: How the physical environment affects children

January 12, 2011 By sh648 Leave a Comment

Here at Evidence-Based Living, we’ve written before about the research of Gary Evans, a Cornell professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis who has spent much of his career researching how the physical environment impacts child well-being – especially for children in poverty.

Evans, an environmental psychologist, has completed a large body of research that examines the relationship of crowding, noise, housing and neighborhood quality on the lives of children. His research reveals that these factors can have a lot of impact on a child’s academic achievement, as well as cognitive and social development.

Last year, Human Ecology undergraduate student Kyler Wilkins earned a first place finish in the College of Human Ecology’s 2010 Elsie Van Buren Rice Awards public speaking competition for his presentation of Evans research entitled “The Hard Knock Life: The Environment of Poverty and Children’s Development.” In it, Wilkins describes how Evans research is being used by policy-makers to improve children’s access to healthy foods in schools and conduct cognitive interventions in to improve the memories of children in poverty. You can see it here:

To learn more about Evans’s work, you can also view a one-hour lecture he delivered to extension professionals by clicking here.

Filed Under: Cornell Cooperative Extension, Evidence-Based Living, Health and Wellness, policy, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, evidence-based practice, Health and Wellness, policy, research translation

Video games: Helpful or harmful to the brain?

January 6, 2011 By sh648 5 Comments

It’s January, the month when children across the country spend hours in front of the television playing with the millions of video game counsels sold over the holidays. In fact, you probably personally know a “gamer” yourself. According to the Entertainment Software Association, more than 68 percent of American households play computer or video games.

We hear often about studies demonstrating that too much screen-time – whether television, video games or computers – is associated with attention problems in children. But it turns out there are some benefits to playing video games, too.

A cadre of researchers in cognitive sciences, psychology and neuroscience are building a body of evidence that shows video gaming (in moderation, of course) helps improve attention, vision, multitasking and other cognitive skills.

A systematic review by researchers at the University of Rochester’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences found that playing action video games significantly reduces reaction times without sacrificing accuracy across a variety of real-world tasks, including looking for a letter in a field of other letters and indicating the direction of an arrow while ignoring arrows pointing in the other direction.

Another study found that video games help improve contrast sensitivity, or the ability to see subtle shades of gray.

“And this is a skill that comes in very handy if you’re driving in fog,” explained Daphene Bavelier, a cognitive researcher at the University of Rochester, who spoke to reporters from National Public Radio for a recent story. “Seeing the car ahead of you is determined by your contrast sensitivity. We looked at the effect of playing action games on this visual skill of contrast sensitivity, and we’ve seen effects that last up to two years.”

Lauren Sergio from York University in Toronto used functional brain scans to find that skilled gamers mainly an area of the brain specialized for planning, attention and multitasking, meaning that they don’t activate as much of their brain to do complex tasks with their hands. Non-gamers, in contrast, predominately use an area called the parietal cortex, the part of the brain specializing in visual spatial functions.

“The non-gamers had to think a lot more and use a lot more of the workhorse parts of their brains for eye-hand coordination,” she says. “Whereas the gamers really didn’t have to use that much brain at all, and they just used these higher cognitive centers to do it.”

In fact, employers including hospitals, the U.S. armed services and many police departments are using video games to help doctors, soldiers and police officers work on skills they use in their jobs everyday.

The bottom line: video games, played in moderation, actually help kids develop some important life skills. Just make sure to set a timer, or find another way to limit screen-time.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, In The Media, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, research translation, science in the media, social trends

Does reading aloud to young children make a difference?

December 23, 2010 By sh648 2 Comments

One of my earliest memories as a child was sitting on a wooden porch swing reading books with my mom. My mom tells me that she started reading to me from day one, and even read to her belly while she was pregnant. Needless to say, books have always held an important place in our home.

When my son Aaron was born, my husband and I started reading to him right away too. In the beginning we had some children’s books, but we would also read aloud whatever each of us happened to be reading at the time. Aaron heard a little Harry Potter and some Bicycling magazine, and even a few academic studies that I had to read for work. Now that he’s two years old, we read at least three or four children’s books together each day. Currently, his favorite stall tactic is, “Mama, how about we read a book?”

A few weeks ago, when a friend passed along a book to me about the benefits of reading to children, I was eager to learn about the tangible benefits. The book, called Reading Magic, makes the case that reading aloud to children helps them develop an interest in books, encourages those first words, inspires them to learn to read themselves, and creates a special bond between child and parent.

While I found the book interesting, it doesn’t offer any systematic, concrete evidence about reading aloud to children. So, of course, I had to do some digging. It turns out my mom knew what she was doing all those years ago!

Three separate systematic reviews of what educators call dialogic reading – essentially engaging in a conversation with young children as you read to them – found positive effects for language skills, improved literacy and school readiness.

The study that piqued by interest the most was a review of 10 studies published by the Puckett Institute’s Research and Training Center on Early Childhood Development, an organization dedicated to identifying and implementing evidence-based practices that improve the development of at-risk infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

The study identified several specific benefits for children who regularly participated in dialogic reading, including: positive gains in expressive language development, increases in the length of spoken phrases, and greater expressive vocabulary scores.

All of this raises the question, what the heck makes dialogic reading so special? Essentially, the adult helps the child become the teller of the story by asking questions and prompting the child to participate. The Reading Rockets project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, provides some practical tips on how to engage in dialogic reading with kids.

If there are any small children in your life, sit down with them for a regular story time. The evidence shows it’s great for kids.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, evidence-based practice, research translation

Science in the courtroom: A Cornell professor uncovers the facts behind child testimony

December 2, 2010 By sh648 1 Comment

I received a postcard in the mail last week notifying me I was called for jury duty. The prospect seemed an inconvenience. (Where would I find care for my two-year-old son while serving?). But it was also exciting!

I’ve always been interested in the law, and the idea of serving on a jury conjured up a feeling of civic responsibility that felt good. It was a job I wanted to take seriously, and I immediately began wondering if there was any research I should consider before embarking on this important task.

Unfortunately, there were no trials in my town this week, so I didn’t even have to report to the court. But the notice did bring to mind the work of Cornell Professor Stephen Ceci, an expert in developmental psychology who has conducted ground-breaking research on the testimony of children.

Ceci’s work bridges the gap between research and real-life in a very tangible way: findings from his studies have influenced the way thousands of law enforcement officers, social workers, lawyers, and judges deal with the testimony of children. This is research that makes a tangible difference in the lives of people who often find themselves in difficult situations.

(An interesting side note: Ceci refuses to be an expert witness for either prosecutors or defenders – a decision that has lent him credibility among judges throughout North America, who often cite his work in their decisions.)

A main topic of Ceci’s work is how children respond when they are questions about sexual abuse. The conventional wisdom says that children delay reporting abuse for years and will initially deny any abuse occurred when asked directly. But after repeated questioning, they gradually begin to tell little bits and pieces about how they were abused. Next, they recant altogether. Only later, when they are in what is perceived to be a psychologically safe situation, do they give a full and elaborate disclosure.

In analyses of dozens of published studies, Ceci and his colleagues separated out the methodologically-sound studies on children’s disclosure from poorly conducted ones. They found in high-quality studies, children did report abuse in full detail when explicitly asked. They also found that when a child is questioned repeatedly, he is likely to relent and say what he thinks the interviewer wants to hear to get out of an uncomfortable situation.

“It’s important for judges to know what science shows, because this set of invalid beliefs animates the whole investigatory process,” Ceci explained. “It motivates investigators and interviewers to pursue reluctant children, who may be reluctant because nothing actually happened.”

In the case U.S. v. Desmond Rouse, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (the court directly beneath the U.S. Supreme Court) established new law on vetting child testimony based almost exclusively on the work of Ceci and his colleagues.

For anyone who works with children involved in the court system, Ceci’s work provides a whole new way to think about their testimony.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, In The Media, policy, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evaluation, evidence-based practice, policy, science and public opinion

How children remember their worlds…and why

November 10, 2010 By sh648 Leave a Comment

We all have early childhood memories – of a favorite relative, a special toy or an event that made a big impression. They are fixtures we will carry throughout our lives. But how those early experiences become sealed into our minds?

Research by Human Ecology faculty member Qi Wang helps explain this phenomenon. Wang, an associate professor of human development, runs the Social Cognition Development Laboratory, where she studies how people develop autobiographical memory and their sense of self.

We know from prior research that the process of sharing memories begins early in life. As soon as children become capable of using language, they begin to discuss past events with caregivers. But initially, they make very few spontaneous references to past events. Instead, their recollections are directed by caregivers’ questions about the past. It is not until children are 3 to 5 years old that they can engage in more detailed conversations about the past. Even then, they rely on adults to direct the conversation.

Wang’s research has delved into how parents’ conversations shape children’s memories. She has found children from different cultural backgrounds recall events differently based on their parents’ conversational style.

For example, American mothers tend to elaborate more on children’s own narratives, asking questions that focus on the child and providing additional details about past events. This values children’s participation and emphasizes the importance of individual experience. Hence, American preschool and grade school children provide more elaborate and detailed memory accounts that refer to their own roles and preferences.

By comparison, Chinese and Korean mothers are less likely to elaborate when talking about past events with their children. Instead, they are more likely to ask factual questions and refer to other people. This approach emphasizes interpersonal relations, moral rules and behavioral expectations. As a result, Asian children talk more about other people than themselves when remembering something, and they are more likely to remember daily routines.

These early memories are important because they shape children’s sense of self and the way they recollect events over their entire lives. (Wang has found these cultural differences appear to extend to adulthood.)

A few take-home messages for parents are caregivers are:

Consider your goals before starting a discussion with your child. What aspects of the event do you think is important for your child to remember?
Consider the type of events you wish to discuss with your child and their implications. Selecting social events would allow you to reflect on your child in relation with others, social norms, and behavioral expectations. Choosing a personal event would allow you to focus on your child’s experiences, thoughts, and feelings relating to the event.
Ask a lot of “wh” questions (e.g., who, what, where, when, why). Provide answers when the child does not remember. Avoid repeating questions, or “looking” for a right answer. Try not to create a test-like atmosphere.

You can find Wang’s work summarized in a paper created by Human Ecology’s Department of Human Development.

Filed Under: Evidence-Based Living, The Learning Center, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, evidence-based practice, research translation

PROSPER helps prevent substance abuse

October 4, 2010 By sh648 2 Comments

Growing numbers of youth are experimenting with alcohol and drugs at younger ages. Nearly a quarter of teens report having had five or more alcoholic drinks in one day, according to data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control. More than one-third have used marijuana.

There are hundreds of programs available across the country to help dissuade teens from going down the path of substance abuse. But what works?

PROSPER Partnerships – which stands for PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience – is a model that links Cooperative Extension, public schools, local communities and university researchers to introduce evidence-based programs that prevent substance abuse among middle school students and their families.

There are already PROSPER networks in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Alabama. New York is lucky enough to be one of seven additional states in the process of forming a PROSPER Partnership with Cornell serving as the university partner.

That’s an exciting prospect for communities in New York. It means that families will have access to a menu of programs proven to work.

“There are many family and youth programs that are research-based, but that is not the same as having strong evidence behind them that the programs actually work,” explained Kim Kopko, an extension associate at Cornell’s Department of Policy Analysis, who is leading the PROSPER team at Cornell. “The programs on the PROSPER menu are evidence-based. They are carefully implemented and tested on the ground level. They’re time intensive, and expensive, but they work.”

There are five elements that make the program successful:

A state-level partnership based in the land grant university system that is connected to the National PROSPER Network.
Strategic community teams lead by a local extension educator, a key school district employee (typically a guidance counselor), and a variety of representatives from the community.
Every community team oversees the implementation of one family and one school program that they choose.
Community teams must move through a multi-phased developmental process focusing on long-term sustainability.
State partners provide on-going evaluation to ensure the program remains successful.

PROSPER has plenty of evidence to prove that their system yields results. PROSPER Programs typically recruit 17 percent of eligible families in their communities, compared to less than six percent for other community programs.

That’s good evidence-based practice at work, and a model that even more states should try to adopt.

Filed Under: Cornell Cooperative Extension, Evidence-Based Living, Youth Development Tagged With: children and youth, Cooperative Extension programs, evidence-based programs, research translation, social trends

Survey says…parent education in NY is working!

September 21, 2010 By sh648 Leave a Comment

Cooperative Extension in New York offers parents and caregiver a variety of programs designed to promote positive parenting and healthy child development. But are these programs making a difference?

A new analysis by Cornell faculty members suggests they are. Researchers surveyed more than 400 people who participated in parent education classes in nine New York counties. The classes each included at least six hours of instruction.

Before and after the courses, participants were asked ten questions about parenting attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge designed to capture some of what was taught in the class.

Participants showed significant improvements on eight of the ten questions, including:

making rules that take their child’s needs into consideration.
decreases in how often they yell at their child.
decreases in the number of hours their children spend watching television.
increased patience with their children.
increased time spent reading with their child.
increased use of explanations for rules they make.
increased feelings of support.
increased confidence in having the skills necessary to be a good caregiver.

The results suggest that these parent education courses are having a positive impact on their participants. You can learn more about the programs at http://www.parenting.cit.cornell.edu.

Filed Under: Cornell Cooperative Extension, Evidence-Based Living, Youth Development Tagged With: behavior change, children and youth, Cooperative Extension programs, evaluation, evidence-based programs