Being overweight makes children less active

A new study from the University of Copenhagen's OPUS Research Centre reports that being overweight makes children less active.

The findings underscore that parents of overweight children have an obligation to keep their children active, as physical activity is vital for the general health of all children.

The study also shows that slender children do not become overweight due to a lack of activity.

Over time, children with a higher fat mass reduce their level of physical activity and increasingly pursue sedentary activities such as watching TV or computer gaming.

Conversely, low levels of physical activity or too much time in front of the TV or computer do not cause normal-weighted children to put on weight.

The findings stem from a large study that has just been published in the esteemed journal, the 'International Journey of Obesity'.

New knowledge about the linkage between physical activity and overweight children

The study presents an entirely new body of knowledge about the links between physical activity and being overweight because it investigates developments among test participants over time.

In contrast, most other studies have measured activity at a single point in time, making it impossible to establish whether activity levels affect being overweight, or whether being overweight influences the level of activity:

"The defining characteristic of our work is that we have left a period of six months in between our measurements of activity and weight."

Mads Fiil Hjorth

"Thus, we have been able to investigate how an overweight child's level of activity develops over a half-year," says Mads Fiil Hjorth, a researcher of physical activity, sleep and obesity at the University of Copenhagen's OPUS Research Centre.

Mads Fiil Hjorth emphasises that physical activity is of great value to children.

"Even though our study, in part, shows that a lack of physical activity and lots of TV and computer do not cause children to gain weight, physical activity is obviously very good for children's general health and welfare in a number of other ways.

We have not focused on these areas in this study. Instead, we have specifically focused on the link between physical activity and fat mass."

Danger not limited to those who are overweight

Anders Sjödin

Associate Professor Anders Sjödin, head of OPUS' research into children's activity patterns, points out that the problem also extends to a segment of normal-weight children:

"It wasn't only those children who are classically understood as being overweight who demonstrated poor development in activity levels."

"There were also normal-weight children with slightly larger fat masses," according to Sjödin.

"So, there is no doubt that if someone has a child with a bit too much to pinch around the midsection, parents need to stay attuned to the child's level of activity."

The Method
The study included 600 third and fourth grade children who were equipped with an activity tracker on two occasions, for seven days at a time.

The activity tracker was worn at the start of the project and again after six months. The tracker was able to register around the clock activity levels.

These measurements were compared with measurements of fat mass at both the beginning and end of the project.

Among other things, this demonstrated that children with the highest fat mass experienced the greatest reduction in the amount of activity over the half-year period.

The study's results can be read in the article, Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa: support from a longitudinal study in 8-11 year old children', published in the 'International Journey of Obesity'.

More information: "Fatness predicts decreased physical activity and increased sedentary time, but not vice versa: support from a longitudinal study in 8- to 11-year-old children." M F Hjorth, J-P Chaput, C Ritz, S-M Dalskov, R Andersen, A Astrup, I Tetens, K F Michaelsen and A Sjödin. International Journal of Obesity (5 December 2013) | DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2013.229

Dyslexia: The "Sea of Strengths Model"

The "Sea of Strengths Model" produced by Sally Shaywitz, of the Yale Centre for Dyslexia and Creativity, as part of Overcoming Dyslexia.

Rett sufferers: Australian researchers produce new recommendations ease challenges

"Since publication, we have developed leaflets for clinicians and a booklet for families based on the recommendations, which provide information in a readable and understandable format," Dr Helen Leonard says. 

Credit: Bradley Gordon

The Telethon Institute for Child Health Research together with international collaborators have created a comprehensive approach to tackle feeding and growth problems in Rett Syndrome sufferers.

A rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a mutation in the X-linked MECP2 gene, Rett Syndrome mainly affects girls and is associated with loss of hand and communication skills between the ages of one and two years.

The children, although apparently normal at birth and in the early months of life, become severely intellectually and physically impaired following this regression.

Impairments include feeding difficulties related to problems with chewing and swallowing, hypersalivation and hyperventilation, which leads to poor growth and weight gain.

Helen Leonard

Telethon Institute expert and lead author Dr Helen Leonard says the project included a literature review, parental input and contributions from a multidisciplinary international panel of 27 clinicians.

The result is a comprehensive set of management recommendations to do with clinical assessment of factors such as growth, feeding difficulties and management to increase energy intake.

"The project pulled together data from 77 articles and three sets of guidelines, which we used to create 34 open–ended questions to inform areas in which the literature was lacking," Dr Leonard says.

"We then received feedback from a range of specialists, including gastroenterologists, paediatricians, child neurologists, clinical geneticists, dieticians, speech pathologists and nurses.

"Using a two–stage Delphi process, agreement was achieved on 101 of 112 statements, which inform recommendations we hope will have a major impact on managing the gastrointestinal and growth problems in Rett Syndrome.

"Since publication, we have developed leaflets for clinicians and a booklet for families based on the recommendations, which provide information in a readable and understandable format."

Dr Leonard says drawing together experts was difficult at times and involved contacting practitioners directly by phone and sending encouraging emails at regular intervals to elicit responses.

Dr Leonard established the first Australia–wide register in 1993 to determine the prevalence of Rett Syndrome, and has managed an international register since 2003.

"I first met girls with this condition over 20 years ago as a doctor working at Disability Services Commission in WA, when the cause of the condition was unknown," she says.

"Since 1993, I have published over 70 journal articles and am continuing my research, including developing guidelines for bone health and evaluating the benefits of gastrostomy feeding."

More information: Leaflets and the booklet for families can be accessed here: rett.childhealthresearch.org.au

Toddlers' Aggression Strongly Associated With Genetic Factors

The development of physical aggression in toddlers is strongly associated with genetic factors and to a lesser degree with the environment, according to a new study. 

Credit: © nadezhda1906 / Fotolia

The development of physical aggression in toddlers is strongly associated with genetic factors and to a lesser degree with the environment, according to a new study led by Eric Lacourse of the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital.

Lacourse's worked with the parents of identical and non-identical twins to evaluate and compare their behaviour, environment and genetics.

Eric Lacourse

"The gene-environment analyses revealed that early genetic factors were pervasive in accounting for developmental trends, explaining most of the stability and change in physical aggression, " Lacourse said.

"However, it should be emphasized that these genetic associations do not imply that the early trajectories of physical aggression are set and unchangeable."

"Genetic factors can always interact with other factors from the environment in the causal chain explaining any behaviour."

Over the past 25 years, research on early development of physical aggression has been highly influenced by social learning theories that suggest the onset and development of physical aggression is mainly determined by accumulated exposure to aggressive role models in the social environment and the media.

However, the results of studies on early childhood physical aggression indicate that physical aggression starts during infancy and peaks between the ages of 2 and 4.

Although for most children the use of physical aggression initiated by the University of Montreal team peaks during early childhood, these studies also show that there are substantial differences in both frequency at onset and rate of change of physical aggression due to the interplay of genetic and environmental factors over time.

Genetically informed studies of disruptive behaviour and different forms of aggression across the lifespan generally conclude that genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the variance in the population.

Lacourse and his colleagues posited and tested three general patterns regarding the developmental roles of genetic and environmental factors in physical aggression.

• First, the most consensual and general point of view is that both sources of influence are ubiquitous and involved in the stability of physical aggression.
• Second, a "genetic set point" model suggests a single set of genetic factors could account for the level of physical aggression across time. 
• A third pattern labeled 'genetic maturation' postulates new sources of genetic and environmental influences with age.

"According to the genetic maturation hypothesis, new environmental contributions to physical aggression could be of short duration in contrast to genetic factors," Lacourse explained.

About the twins cohort
This twin study was initiated by Michel Boivin of Laval University and Richard Tremblay, who is also affiliated with the University of Montreal and University College Dublin.

All parents of twins born between April 1995 and December 1998 in the Greater Montreal area (Canada) were invited to participate, which resulted in the participation of 667 monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs.

Monozygotic means the twins originated from the same embryo -- they are genetically identical. Dizogytic means they developed in separate embryos, meaning they are not identical.

Mothers were ask to rate their twins physical aggression, by reporting behavior such as hitting, biting, kicking and fighting, at the ages of 20, 32 and 50 months.

"The results of the gene-environment analyses provided some support for the genetic set-point hypotheses, but mostly for the genetic maturation hypotheses," Lacourse said.

"Genetic factors always explained a substantial part of individual differences in physical aggression."

"More generally, the limited role of shared environmental factors in physical aggression clashes with the results of studies of singletons in which many family or parent level factors were found to predict developmental trajectories of physical aggression during preschool."

Our results suggest that the effect of those factors may not be as direct as was previously thought.

Long-term studies of physical aggression clearly show that most children, adolescent and adults eventually learn to use alternatives to physical aggression.

"Because early childhood propensities may evoke negative responses from parents and peers, and consequently create contexts where the use of physical aggression is maintained and reinforced, early physical aggression needs to be dealt with care," Lacourse said.

"These cycles of aggression between children and siblings or parents, as well as between children and their peers, could support the development of chronic physical aggression."

"We are presently exploring the impact of these gene and social environment interactions."

Journal Reference: 
Eric Lacourse, PhD, Michel Boivin, PhD, Mara Brendgen, PhD, Amélie Petitclerc, PhD, Alain Girard, MSc, Frank Vitaro, PhD, Stéphane Paquin, PhD candidate, Isabelle Ouellet-Morin, PhD, Ginette Dionne, PhD and Richard E. Tremblay, PhD. A longitudinal twin study of physical aggression during early childhood: Evidence for a developmentally dynamic genome. Psychological Medicine, January 2014

Childhood Autism: Evidence-based Interventions helps parents make better choices

More children than ever are being diagnosed with autism, which means more parents than ever face a dizzying array of often expensive treatment options. 

Giving parents and professionals authoritative information is the purpose of a new review spearheaded by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Without a thorough review of autism interventions, Allison Smith of Pawtucket, R.I., might never have asked to try video-modeling to help her twin sons, age 4, develop the key motor skill of blowing a feather, a steppingstone to speech.

Allison Smith

"Knowledge is power," said Smith, who found video-modeling on a list of proven interventions from the US National Professional Development Center (NPDC) on Autism Spectrum Disorders, a multi-university center to promote the use of evidence-based practices.

UNC is one of three NPDC operating sites.

"Knowing what works has given us the upper hand in acquiring appropriate therapy and tools."

Autism incurs an average lifetime price tag of $3.2 million per person, according to a 2007 research study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine but the Autism Society estimates that early diagnosis and effective interventions can reduce that lifetime cost by two-thirds.

Samuel L. Odom

"Parents often pay for interventions that have no evidence behind them," said FPG director Samuel L. Odom, who co-headed the new review.

"This report will allow them to make the best choices."

In this five-year update for the NPDC, UNC scientists screened 29,000 articles about autism spectrum disorders to find the ones proven to work best.

Compared to the 24 proven interventions in the 2008 report, the new report lists 27.

Applying even more stringent criteria this time, the FPG team dropped "structured work systems" and added five practices: "exercise," "structured play groups," "scripting," "modeling" and "cognitive behaviour intervention."

After considering more studies, scientists also renamed and broadened one category, "technology-aided instruction."

Kristine Ganley

"Expanding the list offers more tools to educators and service providers. This improves outcomes for children with ASD," said Kristine Ganley, a training and technical assistance provider at George Mason University.

NPDC's report on evidence-based practices provides important guidance for professionals and families.

Before NPDC's list, parents and professionals often searched for practices online, with unreliable results.

Connie Wong

"Some interventions may seem cutting-edge, but we don't yet know if they have any drawbacks or trade-offs," said FPG investigator Connie Wong, the new report's lead author and co-head of the review of research.

"Our report only includes what's tried and true."

More information: Report: autismpdc.fpg.unc.edu (PDF)

Dyslexia, less brain tissue not to blame for reading difficulties

It has previously been suggested that people with dyslexia have less gray matter in the brain and this has been  reportedly linked to reading disabilities.

Thankfully this ridiculous notion has been debunked.

New evidence suggests that the amount of brain material in people with dyslexia may be a result and consequence of their poorer reading experiences and not the root cause of the disorder.

It has been assumed that the difference in the amount of gray matter might, in part, explain why dyslexic children have difficulties correctly and fluently mapping the sounds in words to their written counterparts during reading but this assumption of causality has now been rightly turned on its head.

Guinevere Eden

The findings from anatomical brain studies conducted at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) in the Center for the Study of Learning led by neuroscientist Guinevere Eden, DPhil, were published online today in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The study compared a group of dyslexic children with two different control groups: an age-matched group included in most previous studies, and a group of younger children who were matched at the same reading level as the children with dyslexia.

"This kind of approach allows us to control for both age as well as reading experience," explains Eden, a professor of pediatrics at GUMC.

"If the differences in brain anatomy in dyslexia were seen in comparison with both control groups, it would have suggested that reduced gray matter reflects an underlying cause of the reading deficit. But that's not what we observed."

The dyslexic groups showed less gray matter compared with a control group matched by age, consistent with previous findings.

However, the result was not replicated when a control group matched by reading level was used as the comparison group with the dyslexics.

Anthony Krafnick

"This suggests that the anatomical differences reported in left hemisphere language processing regions appear to be a consequence of reading experience as opposed to a cause of dyslexia," says Anthony Krafnick, PhD, lead author of the publication.

"These results have an impact on how we interpret the previous anatomical literature on dyslexia and it suggests the use of anatomical MRI would not be a suitable way to identify children with dyslexia," he says.

The work also helps to determine the fine line between experience-induced changes in the brain and differences that are the cause of cognitive impairment.

For example, it is known from studies in illiterate people who attain reading skills as adults that this type of learning induces growth of brain matter.

Similar learning-induced changes in typical readers may result in discrepancies between them and their dyslexic peers, who have not enjoyed the same reading experiences and thus have not undergone similar changes in brain structure.

Children with Autism: Senses of sight and sound separated

Like watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears, according to a Vanderbilt study published today in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Mark Wallace

The study, led by Mark Wallace, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, is the first to illustrate the link and strongly suggests that deficits in the sensory building blocks for language and communication can ultimately hamper social and communication skills in children with autism.

"There is a huge amount of effort and energy going into the treatment of children with autism, virtually none of it is based on a strong empirical foundation tied to sensory function," Wallace said.

"If we can fix this deficit in early sensory function then maybe we can see benefits in language and communication and social interactions."

And the findings could have much broader applications because sensory functioning is also changed in developmental disabilities such as dyslexia and schizophrenia, Wallace said.

In the study, Vanderbilt researchers compared 32 typically developing children ages 6-18 years old with 32 high-functioning children with autism, matching the groups in virtually every possible way including IQ.

Study participants worked through a battery of different tasks, largely all computer generated.

Researchers used different types of audiovisual stimuli such as simple flashes and beeps, more complex environmental stimuli like a hammer hitting a nail, and speech stimuli, and asked the participants to tell them whether the visual and auditory events happened at the same time.

The study found that children with autism have an enlargement in something known as the temporal binding window (TBW), meaning the brain has trouble associating visual and auditory events that happen within a certain period of time.

Stephen Camarata

"Children with autism have difficulty processing simultaneous input from audio and visual channels. That is, they have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears," said co-author Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., professor of Hearing and Speech Sciences. 

"It is like they are watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, the auditory and visual signals do not match in their brains."

A second part of the study found that children with autism also showed weaknesses in how strongly they "bound" or associated audiovisual speech stimuli.

"One of the classic pictures of children with autism is they have their hands over their ears," Wallace said.

"We believe that one reason for this may be that they are trying to compensate for their changes in sensory function by simply looking at one sense at a time. This may be a strategy to minimize the confusion between the senses."

Wallace noted that the recently-released Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, (DSM-5), which serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnosis, now acknowledges sensory processing as a core deficit in autism.

Childhood Autism: Desperate Parents turn to bogus therapies for vain hope

In a study of the range of treatments being employed for young children with autism and other developmental delays, UC Davis MIND Institute researchers have found that families often use bogus and ineffective procedures masked as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments.

The most frequent users of both conventional and bogus complementary approaches are those with higher levels of parental education and income.

There is no Food and Drug Administration-approved medical treatment for the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, a lifelong neuro-developmental condition whose hallmarks are deficits in social relatedness, repetitive thoughts and behaviours and, often, intellectual disability.

In the vain search for treatments to help their children, families may turn to bogus and snake-oil approaches such as mind-body medicine (e.g. meditation or prayer), homeopathic remedies, probiotics, alternative diets or more invasive therapies such as vitamin B-12 injections, intravenous immunoglobulin or chelation therapy; many of which carry significant risks.

Robin Hansen

The research is published online today in the Journal of Behavioural and Developmental Pediatrics. It was led by Robin Hansen, director of the Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at the MIND Institute and chief of the Division of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics in the UC Davis School of Medicine.

"In our Northern California study population, it does not appear that families use bogus and ineffective complementary and alternative treatments due to the lack of a definitive answer and therfore, a lack of appropriate conventional services, as has been suggested by other research," Hansen said.

"Rather, desperate parents with excess money use bogus treatments in addition to and in parallel to conventional approaches. Thus causing great confusion as to the benefits of either."

The cause or causes of most neuro-developmental disorders are not known, and the conditions have no cure. 

Many children suffer from a wide array of associated symptoms that may not be directly associated with their condition and that make their daily lives and those of their families very stressful.

Such symptoms include irritability, hyperactivity, gastrointestinal problems and sleep disorders.

The study included nearly 600 diverse children between 2 and 5 years with autism and developmental delay who were enrolled in the Childhood Autism Risk from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) study.

Of the participants, 453 were diagnosed with autism and 125 were diagnosed with developmental delay.

"Our study suggests that pediatricians and other providers need to ask about CAM use in the context of providing care for children with autism and other developmental disorders, and take a more active role in helping families make decisions about treatment options based on available information related to potential benefits and risks," said Roger Scott Akins, lead author and a former postdoctoral fellow at the MIND Institute, who now is chairman of the Division of Neurodevelopmental Pediatrics at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Va.

Irva Hertz-Picciotto

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor of public health sciences and principal investigator for the CHARGE study, said the research supports the emergent need for identifying validated treatments for neurodevelopmental conditions.

"These findings emphasize the enormous and urgent need for effective treatments and for rigorous research that can identify them and verify their effectiveness and safety," Hertz-Picciotto said.

"Of course it is reasonable for parents to keep searching for ways to help their children, when there are few effective treatments and none that can help every child."

The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: Barbara Arrowsmith-Young - TED Video

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young is the Creator and Director of Arrowsmith School and Arrowsmith Program, and the author of the international best-selling book The Woman Who Changed Her Brain.

She holds a B.A.Sc. in Child Studies from the University of Guelph, and a Master's degree in School Psychology from the University of Toronto (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education).

Arrowsmith-Young is recognized as the creator of one of the first practical applications of the principles of neuroplasticity to the treatment of learning disorders. Her program is implemented in 54 schools internationally.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience

Dyslexia: Sudden onset of 'Word Blindness'

In the journal Neurology, researchers report a novel technique that enables a patient with "word blindness" to read again.

Word blindness is a rare neurological condition. (The medical term is "alexia without agraphia.") Although a patient can write and understand the spoken word, the patient is unable to read.

Here's how the technique works: When shown a word, the patient looks at the first letter. Although she clearly sees it, she cannot recognize it.

So, beginning with the letter A, she traces each letter of the alphabet over the unknown letter until she gets a match.

For example, when shown the word Mother, she will trace the letters of the alphabet, one at a time, until she comes to M and finds a match. Three letters later, she guesses correctly that the word is Mother.

"To see this curious adaption in practice is to witness the very unique and focal nature" of the deficit, the authors write.

The authors describe how word blindness came on suddenly to a 40-year-old kindergarten teacher and reading specialist.

She couldn't make sense of her lesson plan, and her attendance sheet was as incomprehensible as hieroglyphs. She also couldn't tell time.

The condition was due to a stroke that probably was caused by an unusual type of blood vessel inflammation within the brain called primary central nervous system angiitis.

Once a passionate reader, she was determined to learn how to read again. But none of the techniques that she had taught her students – phonics, sight words, flash cards, writing exercises, etc. – worked.

So she taught herself a remarkable new technique that employed tactile skills that she still possessed.

The woman can have an emotional reaction to a word, even if she can't read it. Shown the word "dessert," she says "Oooh, I like that." But when shown "asparagus," she says, "Something's upsetting me about this word."

Shown two personal letters that came in the mail, she correctly determined which was sent by a friend of her mother's and which was sent by one of her own friends.

"When asked who these friends were, she could not say, but their names nevertheless provoked an emotional response that served as a powerful contextual clue," the authors write.

What she most misses is reading books to children. She teared up as she told the authors: "One day my mom was with the kids in the family, and they were all curled up next to each other, and they were reading. And I started to cry, because that was something I couldn't do."

More Information: 'Right Brain: A reading specialist with alexia without agraphia' A Teacher interrupted Jason Cuomo, MA, Murray Flaster, MD, PhD and José Biller, MD: doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000438218.39061.93