A new University of Central Florida study may explain why children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder move around a lot -- it helps them stay alert enough to complete challenging tasks.
In studies of 8- to 12-year-old boys, Psychology Professor Mark D. Rapport found that children with and without ADHD sat relatively still while watching Star Wars and painting on a computer program.
All of the children became more active when they were required to remember and manipulate computer-generated letters, numbers and shapes for a short time. Children with ADHD became significantly more active -- moving their hands and feet and swiveling in their chairs more -- than their typically developing peers during those tasks.
Rapport's research indicates that children with ADHD need to move more to maintain the required level of alertness while performing tasks that challenge their working memory. Performing math problems mentally and remembering multi-step directions are examples of tasks that require working memory, which involves remembering and manipulating information for a short time.
"We've known for years that children with ADHD are more active than their peers," said Rapport, whose findings are published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. "What we haven't known is why."
"They use movement to keep themselves alert," Rapport added. "They have a hard time sitting still unless they're in a highly stimulating environment where they don't need to use much working memory."
Rapport compared the children's movements during the tests to adults' tendency to fidget and move around in their chairs to stay alert during long meetings.
The findings have immediate implications for treating children with ADHD. Parents and educators can use a variety of available methods and strategies to minimize working memory failures. Providing written instructions, simplifying multi-step directions, and using poster checklists can help children with ADHD learn without overwhelming their working memories.
"When they are doing homework, let them fidget, stand up or chew gum," he said. "Unless their behavior is destructive, severely limiting their activity could be counterproductive."
Rapport's findings may also explain why stimulant medications improve the behavior of most children with ADHD. Those medications improve the physiological arousal of children with ADHD, increasing their alertness. Previous studies have shown that stimulant medications temporarily improve working memory abilities.
Rapport's research team studied 23 boys, including 12 who were diagnosed with ADHD. Each child took a variety of tests at the UCF Children's Learning Clinic on four consecutive Saturdays. Devices called actigraphs placed on both ankles and the non-dominant hand measured the frequency and intensity of each child's movement 16 times per second. The children were told they were wearing special watches that allowed them to play games.
In the first of the two published studies, the research team demonstrated that children with ADHD have significantly impaired visual and verbal working memory compared with their typically developing peers. In one test, the children were asked to reorder and recall the locations of dots on a computer screen. Compared with their typically developing peers, the children with ADHD performed much worse on that test -- and on a similar one requiring them to reorder and recall sequences of numbers and letters.
The second study focused on the frequency and intensity of movement by the children while they were taking those two tests.
Rapport arrived at UCF eight years ago and opened the Children's Learning Clinic. Early in his career, he worked as a school psychologist in Pinellas County. He was often frustrated that many of the techniques that he and schoolteachers tried would fail to help children with ADHD. As a researcher at three universities prior to coming to UCF, Rapport studied behavioral and pharmacological treatments for children with ADHD.
The Children's Learning Clinic offers free assessments for typically developing boys ages 8 to 12, as well as for children who are experiencing difficulties with attention, learning, memory or concentration and those suspected of having ADHD. The clinic's free evaluations include intelligence, academic achievement, activity level and memory assessments.
For more information, go to http://childrenslearningclinic.com .
Complete articles:
http://clclinic.cos.ucf.edu/Documents%20and%20Files/hyperactivitywm.pdf
and
http://clclinic.cos.ucf.edu/Documents%20and%20Files/workingmemory2008.pdf .
Doodling Can Help Memory Recall
Doodling while listening can help with remembering details, rather than implying that the mind is wandering as is the common perception. According to a study published today in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, subjects given a doodling task while listening to a dull phone message had a 29% improved recall compared to their non-doodling counterparts.
40 members of the research panel of the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge were asked to listen to a two and a half minute tape giving several names of people and places, and were told to write down only the names of people going to a party. 20 of the participants were asked to shade in shapes on a piece of paper at the same time, but paying no attention to neatness. Participants were not asked to doodle naturally so that they would not become self-conscious. None of the participants were told it was a memory test.
After the tape had finished, all participants in the study were asked to recall the eight names of the party-goers which they were asked to write down, as well as eight additional place names which were included as incidental information. The doodlers recalled on average 7.5 names of people and places compared to only 5.8 by the non-doodlers.
"If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream," said study researcher Professor Jackie Andrade, Ph.D., of the School of Psychology, University of Plymouth. "Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poorer performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task."
"In psychology, tests of memory or attention will often use a second task to selectively block a particular mental process. If that process is important for the main cognitive task then performance will be impaired. My research shows that beneficial effects of secondary tasks, such as doodling, on concentration may offset the effects of selective blockade," added Andrade. "This study suggests that in everyday life doodling may be something we do because it helps to keep us on track with a boring task, rather than being an unnecessary distraction that we should try to resist doing."’
Changing Schools: A Look at Student Mobility Trends in Chicago Public Schools Since 1995
Student mobility has been a long-standing concern to educators and researchers because of the negative impact that changing schools can have on students, teachers, and schools. High levels of student mobility can create a sense of upheaval and constant change at the school level, and schools typically have few established practices in place to assist mobile students in the transition into their new school.
Yet despite the potentially negative impact of changing schools, there is growing recognition that it may be beneficial to provide opportunities for students to leave schools with which they and their families are dissatisfied for ones that are better fits.
Authored by Marisa de la Torre and Julia Gwynne, this study builds on other research by looking at trends in student mobility in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) between 1995 and 2007. We also explore factors that contribute to student mobility. Our analysis focuses on two indicators of mobility—the stability rate and the in-mobility rate—and we examine trends for these indicators separately for the school year and the summer.__Key findings include:
∑ Student mobility in CPS has decreased since 1995. Student mobility is largely caused by transfers within-district, and the decrease in mobility is due to fewer students making these within-district moves.
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∑ African American students are the most mobile group of CPS students, and the gap between them and other students has grown wider since 2000–01.
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∑ Residential mobility is an important factor influencing the decisions of elementary students to change schools. Other factors, such as a desire to improve the quality of educational opportunities, also influence decisions to change schools, particularly during the summer.
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School district, city, and federal policy changes have had only a small effect on student mobility at the system level. However, some schools and their students experienced a much greater impact as a result of these policies.
Complete report:
http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/studentmobility-final.pdf
Study prompts new mandate for N.C. high schools
A new study at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reveals that many N.C. high schools are not adequately prepared to handle the immediate medical needs of a student or employee who suffers a sudden cardiac arrest on campus. The findings were used to support a new statewide program to place automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in high schools.
The study, scheduled to appear in the May/June 2009 issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal, evaluated how prepared N.C. high schools were for sudden cardiac arrests (SCA). It found that they lacked concise emergency action plans, needed to increase use of AEDs and coordinate more with local emergency medical services (EMS).
"Since screening for SCA remains mostly ineffective, focusing efforts towards emergency planning offers a concrete way to impact the health of student athletes," said Anna Monroe, M.D., an emergency medicine resident and lead investigator for the study. "With this study, I hope to bring to light the importance of increased preparedness in response to SCA in North Carolina."
During SCA, heart function stops abruptly and without warning. It is usually the result of electrical impulses in the heart becoming rapid or chaotic. These irregular heart rhythms are called arrhythmias, which prevent the heart from pumping blood to the brain and vital organs. In most cases, there are no warning signs or symptoms for SCA, even with the correct pre-participation screenings that athletes must go through.
It is estimated that about one out of every 200,000 high school athletes experiences SCA. However, there is no standardized or mandatory reporting system for SCA incidents in high school athletes. The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research mentions eight football fatalities from the 2006 season and two in 2007 that were attributed to cardiac causes. While statistics show that SCA is relatively rare in high school athletics, the death of a seemingly healthy young athlete can be devastating to an entire community.
More than 500,000 deaths result from SCA in the United States each year. SCA is fatal if immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) followed by defibrillation is not administered. Survival rates decrease between 7 and 10 percent for each minute the patient does not receive defibrillation. In instances when CPR is started immediately, however, that survival rate decrease drops to 3 to 4 percent per minute. Because of this fact, it is crucial that emergency action plans are in place and well practiced to ensure the quickest and most effective response to SCA, researchers say.
For the October 2007 study, researchers analyzed survey responses submitted by athletic directors from 138 North Carolina high schools, representing 37 percent of the 376 schools contacted to participate.
Survey questions were designed to assess vital and easily calculated aspects of emergency planning using the 2007 National Athletic Trainers Association guidelines as a standard. According to the guidelines, elements of emergency planning for SCA include ensuring an efficient system for communication both within a school and between the school and local EMS system, providing access to an AED and other necessary equipment to be used by trained responders, and perfecting and practicing a written action plan.
While most of the responding schools – 72.5 percent – reported having an AED, fewer than 56 percent reported having an emergency action plan to follow in the event that they would need to use the device. The survey also revealed that division 1 schools were least likely to report owning an AED and, together with division 2 schools, were less likely to report having action plans than larger division 3 and division 4 schools.
Researchers noted in their report that "the majority of responding schools did not know if EMS could arrive and defibrillate within five minutes, and that the most commonly reported barrier to obtaining an AED was cost."
At the time of the survey, N.C. schools were not yet required by the N.C. High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) to have an emergency action plan.
"This study contributed to the NCHSAA's decision to mandate that all of its schools have an appropriate EAP in place, which went into effect January 2009," said Daryl A. Rosenbaum, M.D., an assistant professor of family and community medicine and co-author of the study. Rosenbaum also serves on a task force convened by the NCHSAA that is aimed at making high school sports safer. "The NCHSAA AED program has so far paid for the placement of AEDs in 98 schools that needed them and required those schools to develop an EAP and train three staff members in AED use." There are at least nine more schools currently working on the project, according to the NCHSAA.
Teenage boys who eat fish at least once a week achieve higher intelligence scores
Fifteen-year-old males who ate fish at least once a week displayed higher cognitive skills at the age of 18 than those who it ate it less frequently, according to a study of nearly 4,000 teenagers published in the March issue of Acta Paediatrica.
Eating fish once a week was enough to increase combined, verbal and visuospatial intelligence scores by an average of six per cent, while eating fish more than once a week increased them by just under 11 per cent.
Swedish researchers compared the responses of 3,972 males who took part in the survey with the cognitive scores recorded in their Swedish Military Conscription records three years later.
"We found a clear link between frequent fish consumption and higher scores when the teenagers ate fish at least once a week" says Professor Kjell Torén from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, one of the senior scientists involved in the study. "When they ate fish more than once a week the improvement almost doubled.
"These findings are significant because the study was carried out between the ages of 15 and 18 when educational achievements can help to shape the rest of a young man's life."
The research team found that:
∑ 58 per cent of the boys who took part in the study ate fish at least once a week and a further 20 per cent ate fish more than once a week.
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∑ When male teenagers ate fish more than once a week their combined intelligence scores were on average 12 per cent higher than those who ate fish less than once a week. Teenagers who ate fish once a week scored seven per cent higher.
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∑ The verbal intelligence scores for teenagers who ate fish more than once a week were on average nine per cent higher than those who ate fish less than once a week. Those who ate fish once a week scored four per cent higher.
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∑ The same pattern was seen in the visuospatial intelligence scores, with teenagers who ate fish more than once a week scoring on average 11 per cent higher than those who ate fish less than once a week. Those who ate fish once a week scored seven per cent higher.
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"A number of studies have already shown that fish can help neurodevelopment in infants, reduce the risk of impaired cognitive function from middle age onwards and benefit babies born to women who ate fish during pregnancy" says Professor Torén.
"However we believe that this is the first large-scale study to explore the effect on adolescents."
The exact mechanism that links fish consumption to improved cognitive performance is still not clear.
"The most widely held theory is that it is the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fish that have positive effects on cognitive performance" explains Professor Torén.
"Fish contains both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids which are known to accumulate in the brain when the foetus is developing. Other theories have been put forward that highlight their vascular and anti-inflammatory properties and their role in suppressing cytokines, chemicals that can affect the immune system."
In order to isolate the effect of fish consumption on the study subjects, the research team looked at a wide range of variables, including ethnicity, where they lived, their parents' educational level, the teenagers' well-being, how frequently they exercised and their weight.
"Having looked very carefully at the wide range of variables explored by this study it was very clear that there was a significant association between regular fish consumption at 15 and improved cognitive performance at 18" concludes lead author Dr Maria Aberg from the Centre for Brain Repair and Rehabilitation at the University of Gothenburg.
"We also found the same association between fish and intelligence in the teenagers regardless of their parents' level of education."
The researchers are now keen to carry out further research to see if the kind of fish consumed - for example lean fish in fish fingers or fatty fish such as salmon - makes any difference to the results.
"But for the time being it appears that including fish in a diet can make a valuable contribution to cognitive performance in male teenagers" says Dr Aberg.
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