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Integrated approach to child survival achieving important results

An integrated approach to child survival designed to deliver a package of lifesaving health services for children in hard to reach communities has shown remarkable results, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman announced at the World Health Assembly.

18 May 2005

Language cues can provide the "glue" that helps fasten certain visual patterns into small children's memories

Doctoral candidate Banchiamlack Dessalegn and her mentor, Barbara Landau, the Dick and Lydia Todd Professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins, tackled that question via a query of their own: Would children who are given verbal cues while viewing mirror image visual patterns remember them more accurately, and longer, than would children who were not given those cues?

18 May 2005

Gluten exposure at 4 to 6 months of age lowers risk of celiac disease

Children with gluten exposure from cereal grains at 4 to 6 months of age have a lower risk of celiac disease than children with exposure before or after this time period, according to a study in the May 18 issue of JAMA.

17 May 2005

Mathematical way to identify babies at risk for epilepsy

Confusion and speech problems are frequent signs of seizures, but babies offer few such clues as to what ails them.

17 May 2005

Peer group pressure influences ethnic/racial prejudice in children

Children's tendency to show ethnic/racial prejudice is greater when their friends exclude individuals on the basis of race and when their peer groups felt threatened by outsiders, finds a new study published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development.

17 May 2005

Being a popular child has a downside

Although being popular is a primary goal for many teenagers--and their parents--a new study published in the May/June 2005 issue of the journal Child Development finds that popularity itself has a downside.

17 May 2005

Children understand the emotional benefits of following the rules

Want to get your child to wear a bike helmet, quit playing in the street, and stop teasing her little brother? Try showing her how much pleasure you get from following the rules.

17 May 2005

Multi-tasking skills develops late in adolescence

Parents of teenagers frustrated by their children's inability to focus on more than one thing at a time can take hope: a new study from researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis finds behavioral evidence that the part of the brain responsible for the ability to multi-task continues to develop until late adolescence.

17 May 2005

Children of imprisoned mothers generally have insecure relationships with their mothers and caregivers

Children of imprisoned mothers generally have insecure relationships with their mothers and caregivers, according to a new study published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development. However, the children were more likely to have secure relationships with their caregivers if they were living in a stable environment.

17 May 2005

Genetic factors appear to influence individual differences in language development among children

The study, which also found that environmental influences on children's language development were unique to the individual, not the shared environment, was published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development.

17 May 2005

Children's goals change significantly if they face obstacles to resolving a conflict on a first or second try

Although they may only look like they're arguing over a video game, when children conflict with their peers they are often trying to achieve a wide variety of goals.

17 May 2005

Emerging evidence supports early detection, monitoring, and in some cases treatment for children suffering from high blood pressure

One year after recommending that children should be checked for high blood pressure starting at age 3, medical experts reviewed additional supporting evidence for the pediatric blood pressure guidelines at the American Society of Hypertension's Twentieth Annual Meeting (ASH 2005).

16 May 2005

Next steps taken in the UK Government's transformation of school meals

The next steps were taken today in the Government's transformation of school meals as a new School Meals Review Panel started work to develop tough minimum nutrition standards for primary and secondary schools.

16 May 2005

Black children are more than twice as likely to die from a traumatic injury as are white children

“Trauma has a far greater impact on minority children than it does on white children,” said Jonathan Groner, the study's lead author and a clinical associate professor of surgery at Ohio State University . “As a group, black children tend to have more serious injuries.”

15 May 2005

Role of soft drinks in childhood obesity

Obesity is one of the biggest threats to child health. Genetics, decreases in physical activity, increases in television watching, and consumption of fast food are factors that have led to an increase of childhood obesity in the United States. Excessive consumption of sugar sweetened drinks may also be a key factor.

11 May 2005

Adolescents who don't get enough sleep might be jeopardizing their athletic performance,

"Young people live in nearly a constant state of chronic insufficient sleep," says Carskadon, "and adolescents who don't get enough sleep on a regular basis are extremely impaired in the morning."

10 May 2005

Children with high blood lead levels often do not receive follow-up tests

Only about half of children who had an abnormal blood lead level screening had follow-up blood testing, according to an article in the May 11 issue of JAMA.

10 May 2005

Some children in the United States are still at risk for lead poisoning

Despite efforts to remove lead from many products, such as gasoline and paint, some children in the United States are still at risk for lead poisoning. A new study shows that children at the greatest risk for lead poisoning, and also those identified with elevated blood lead levels through screening, were the least likely to get follow-up testing needed for prevention.

10 May 2005

Nutritional advice improves health of children in developing countries

Improving the quality and coverage of nutritional advice given to families in developing countries could reduce the incidence of stunted growth in infants, suggests a study published online today by The Lancet.

10 May 2005

BMA calls for mass child vaccinations for hepatitis B virus (HBV)

The British Medical Association (BMA) has today called for all children in the UK to be immunised against a potentially fatal liver disease caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV).

9 May 2005