The study, published Friday in the Journal of Family Psychology, focused on siblings and academic achievement. Jensen and co-author Susan McHale from Penn State looked at 388 teenage first- and second-born siblings and their parents from 17 school districts in a northeastern state. The researchers asked the parents which sibling was better in school. The majority of parents thought that the firstborn was better, although on average; siblings' achievement was pretty similar. Parents' beliefs about sibling differences weren't influenced by past grades, but future grades by the teenagers were influenced by the parents' beliefs. The child parents believed was smarter tended to do better in the future. The child parents believed was less capable tended to do relatively poorer the next year. Specifically, that belief translated to a 0.21 difference in GPA among study participants. 'That may not sound like much,' Jensen said. 'But over time those small effects have the potential to turn into siblings who are quite different from one another.'
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Eye training or other vision therapies will not treat dyslexia in children, say researchers who found normal vision among most children with the learning disability. The findings confirm what eye doctors have known for a long time, said Dr. Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "Dyslexia is a brain dysfunction, not an eye disorder," said Fromer, who was not involved in the study. "There are no studies that clearly identify that visual training can be helpful for the dyslexic patient." Depending on the definition used, as many as one in five school-aged children in the United States may have dyslexia, the researchers said. If severe reading difficulties associated with dyslexia aren't addressed, they can affect adult employment and even health, they added. The new findings, published online May 25, will appear in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. The researchers tested over 5,800 children, aged 7 to 9, for a variety of vision problems, including lazy eye, nearsightedness, farsightedness, seeing double and focusing difficulties. The 3 percent (n=174 children) of children with dyslexia who had severe difficulty reading showed little differences in their vision than children without dyslexia. And 80 percent of children with dyslexia had fully normal vision and eye function in all the tests, the findings showed. A slightly higher proportion of those with dyslexia had problems with depth perception or seeing double, but there was no evidence that this was related to their reading disability. After making adjustments for other contributing factors, this finding seemed due to chance. With a traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurring every 18.5 seconds in this country - concussions the most common - chances are you have been touched in some way by this experience. TBIs occur due to accidents and sports, and are also common in returning soldiers.
The personal stories in this book, by TBI survivors and those who love and support them, will help and encourage you and your family on your road to recovery. Whether you are recovering from a traumatic brain injury or supporting someone with a TBI, this collection of 101 inspiring and encouraging stories by others like you will uplift and encourage you on your healing journey. http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Soup-Soul-Recovering-Traumatic/dp/1611599385 For the study, Dr. Munro Cullum, a neuropsychologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and his colleagues collected data on 28 former NFL players, aged 63 and older. Eight suffered from memory and attention problems and had a history of concussion. Seventeen had a history of concussion with loss of consciousness. Researchers found that former players with a history of concussion but who showed no problems with memory and learning had normal but lower scores on a test of verbal memory compared with a control group of people who had no history of concussion or football. Former players with memory problems and a history of concussion did worse on the memory tests than people without a history of concussion or athletes without memory problems, the researchers found. However, retired football players who had at least one concussion with loss of consciousness had a smaller hippocampus compared with retired players who never had a concussion or people who never suffered a concussion or played football. Dr. Cullum noted that a concussion with loss of consciousness may increase the risk for memory problems beyond the normal risk associated with an aging brain. Dr. Robert Glatter, director of sports medicine and traumatic brain injury at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said, "We are now beginning to understand that repetitive hits to the brain over time -- without concussion or loss of consciousness -- can be an important marker for mental impairment and memory loss and potentially other neurodegenerative disease such as dementia or Alzheimer's," he said. Dr. Robert Duarte, a neurologist and concussion expert at North Shore-LIJ's Cushing Neuroscience Institute in Manhasset, N.Y., agreed that losing consciousness isn't necessary to cause brain damage that can lead to memory problems. "We see that people who have several mild concussions over time also have a decrease in hippocampal volume," he said. SOURCES: C. Munro Cullum, Ph.D., neuropsychologist, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; Robert Glatter, M.D., director, sports medicine and traumatic brain injury, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Robert Duarte, M.D., neurologist and concussion expert, North Shore-LIJ's Cushing Neuroscience Institute, Manhasset, N.Y.; May 18, 2015, JAMA Neurology. The mental health of today’s college students continues to be a top-level concern for institutions of higher education, whether it is viewed from the perspective of staffing mental health services on campus, responding to after-hours crises in residence halls, providing accessible treatment with limited budgets, managing behavioral threats, or maintaining student safety during personal crises.
With the backing of more than 280 counseling centers, multiple national organizations, and the addition a full-time project manager in 2014, the Center for College Mental Health CCMH is striving to infuse the national dialogue about college student mental health with high quality data that is capable of informing policy. The National Autism Indicators Report is a publication series produced by the AJ Drexel Autism Institute's Life Course Outcomes Research Program. The inaugural volume of this report focuses on the transition into young adulthood. We present evidence about a wide range of experiences and outcomes of young adults on the autism spectrum between high school and their early 20s. This report describes the prevalence of a wide variety of indicators related to transition planning, services access, unmet needs, employment, postsecondary education, living arrangements, social participation, and safety and risk.
Of the 74.5 million children in the United States, an estimated 17.1 million have or have had a psychiatric disorder — more than the number of children with cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. Half of all psychiatric illness occurs before the age of 14, and 75 percent by the age of 24.
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