Mormon Parenting: In the living room the battle is fought | Deseret News

Mormon Parenting: In the living room the battle is fought | Deseret News: In our column a week ago, we suggested that the real, final battle in these last days would be between those who prioritize faith, family and commitment and those who are caught up in the pursuit of individual “freedom” and preserving their personal options.

We also drew the conclusion that those who orient themselves to the sacrifice required by family devotion end up being much more religious and spiritual than those who don’t.

How to grow a baby's brain - Child In Mind - Boston.com

How to grow a baby's brain - Child In Mind - Boston.com: The Grow America Stronger Campaign was created to organize support for funding for investment in early childhood. This month the theme is early brain development. In support of these efforts I am publishing a short segment from my book Keeping Your Child in Mind that elaborates on how relationships grow the brain. It is a companion piece to my previous post that speaks to the need to support and value parents. Today's Rally 4 Babies, with featured guests Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and actress Jennifer Garner, will address the need for social policy supporting early learning.

Toddlers' irregular bedtimes 'hit results at school': Children without a set time aged three achieve lower scores in maths and reading tests at seven | Mail Online

Toddlers' irregular bedtimes 'hit results at school': Children without a set time aged three achieve lower scores in maths and reading tests at seven | Mail Online: Children who go to bed at irregular times when very young do worse in school later on, research has found.

Those without a set bedtime as three-year-olds achieved lower scores in maths, reading and IQ tests when they were seven.


The disruption, in which girls were shown to be more strongly affected, may restrict children’s academic achievement for the rest of their lives.

Second-hand porn: the spreading circle of damage | Deseret News

Second-hand porn: the spreading circle of damage | Deseret News: “People aren’t aware of how extremely harmful (pornography) can be,” says Wendy Maltz, psychotherapist and co-author of "The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography." “We’ve allowed this product that shows sex in a particular way and trains sexual arousal patterns in ways that can limit positive sexual expression. People are developing a sexual relationship with it that is superseding human relationships.”

Toxic stress of abuse hurts child's development | The Tennessean | tennessean.com

Toxic stress of abuse hurts child's development | The Tennessean | tennessean.com: Stress is inevitable in life, but chronic stressful conditions such as neglect or abuse are called “toxic stress” and can disrupt developing brain architecture. Children exposed to toxic stress early, including exposure to violence (child abuse and domestic violence), as well as hunger, poverty, severe maternal depression, incarceration or death of a parent, develop an exaggerated stress response that, over time, weakens their defense system against diseases, including heart disease, schizophrenia, amnesia and fibromyalgia.

Why grammar really is child’s play - Telegraph

Why grammar really is child’s play - Telegraph: For the uninitiated, the word ‘grammarian’ conjures up a picture of an elitist scholar or geeky pedant who is overly involved with the minutiae of language. However, research published last week by Newcastle University, which shows that babies ‘babble’ grammatically, underlines what good teachers already know: young children can be excellent grammarians.
The research by Dr Christina Dye, a lecturer in child development, showed that very young children copy speech patterns and grammatical nuances which they then incorporate in their baby babble.

Baby Brain Growth and Development - Stimulate Baby Brain Development Video

Baby Brain Growth and Development - Stimulate Baby Brain Development Video: Encouraging your baby's brain growth can be fun for both parents and children. See how to become an active teacher and begin stimulating your baby and promoting brain development

Researchers: Video games hurt brain development - CNET News

Researchers: Video games hurt brain development - CNET News: Scientists at Japan's Tohoku University said they've found that computer games stimulate only those parts of the brain devoted to vision and movement and do not aid the development of other important areas of the brain.
The researchers are particularly concerned that by spending many hours playing games some children will not develop their frontal lobes, which play a crucial role in controlling behavior and in developing memory, emotion and learning.

In contrast, tasks such as arithmetic stimulate brain activity in the frontal lobe, which is thought to continue developing until adulthood.

Video Games Desensitize to Real Violence | Psych Central News

Video Games Desensitize to Real Violence | Psych Central News: New research has found exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence. According to the investigators, this is first documented finding that video-games can alter physiological responses typically aroused by real violence.

Video Games Desensitize to Real Violence | Psych Central News

Video Games Desensitize to Real Violence | Psych Central News: New research has found exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence. According to the investigators, this is first documented finding that video-games can alter physiological responses typically aroused by real violence

Study: Violent games can desensitize players - GameSpot.com

Study: Violent games can desensitize players - GameSpot.com: Frequent exposure to violent games can desensitize players to brutality, according to the results of new research.

Video Games and Aggression: Context Matters

Video Games and Aggression: Context Matters: Playing a violent cop in a video game makes one more likely to identify with and feel sympathetic toward violent cops. That finding from a newly published study is less than shocking, but it may help explain why the debate about video games and aggressive behavior has yet to be definitively settled.

The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior

PsycNET - Display Record: The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior. Moderator analyses revealed significant research design effects, weak evidence of cultural differences in susceptibility and type of measurement effects, and no evidence of sex differences in susceptibility. Results of various sensitivity analyses revealed these effects to be robust, with little evidence of selection (publication) bias

PsycNET - Display Record

PsycNET - Display Record: The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior. Moderator analyses revealed significant research design effects, weak evidence of cultural differences in susceptibility and type of measurement effects, and no evidence of sex differences in susceptibility. Results of various sensitivity analyses revealed these effects to be robust, with little evidence of selection (publication) bias

This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure

This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure: These data provide the first experimental evidence linking violence desensitization with increased aggression, and show that a neural marker of this process can at least partially account for the causal link between violent game exposure and aggression.

Good fats consumed during pregnancy may decrease risk of autism

According to an article published today by Fox News, a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that women who consume high amounts of linoleic acid may have a decreased risk of having a child with autism. Linoleic acid is a type of omega-6 fatty acid found in vegetable oils, nuts, avocados, and seeds.

Click below for the rest of the article.
Good fats consumed during pregnancy may decrease risk of autism

Happy marriages give couples lifelong health benefit, long-term BYU study finds | Deseret News

Happy marriages give couples lifelong health benefit, long-term BYU study finds | Deseret News: Couples who are happy over the long haul stay healthier as the years pass, too, according to a new BYU study in the Journal of Marriage and Family. It's not just that conflict is bad for health. Happy marriages have a preventive component.

This is your brain on alcohol - IOL Lifestyle | IOL.co.za

This is your brain on alcohol - IOL Lifestyle | IOL.co.za: The human brain does not stop developing until a person’s mid-twenties – meaning heavy use of alcohol under the age of 21 can damage necessary growth processes.

Study shows a solitary mutation can destroy critical 'window' of early brain development

Study shows a solitary mutation can destroy critical 'window' of early brain development: The study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, sheds new light on the early development of neural circuits in the cortex, the part of the brain responsible for functions such as sensory perception, planning and decision-making.

The research also pinpoints the mechanism responsible for the disruption of what are known as "windows of plasticity" that contribute to the refinement of the neural connections that broadly shape brain development and the maturing of perception, language, and cognitive abilities

Salk scientists discover previously unknown requirement for brain development | e! Science News

Salk scientists discover previously unknown requirement for brain development | e! Science News: Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have demonstrated that sensory regions in the brain develop in a fundamentally different way than previously thought, a finding that may yield new insights into visual and neural disorders. In a paper published June 7, in Science, Salk researcher Dennis O'Leary and his colleagues have shown that genes alone do not determine how the cerebral cortex grows into separate functional areas. Instead, they show that input from the thalamus, the main switching station in the brain for sensory information, is crucially required.

9 Smart Ways to Help Build Your Child’s Vocabulary

9 Smart Ways to Help Build Your Child’s Vocabulary: “There’s a lot of emphasis on vocabulary these days, which is interesting, because little kids are essentially word-learning machines,” says Christine Dollaghan, Ph.D., professor in the school of behavioral and brain sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. “It’s hard for them to avoid learning new words, and the best thing that parents can do is really just talk to their children all the time. Experts call this ‘bathing’ your child in language, and the more your talk and the more words you use, the larger your child’s vocabulary will be.”

Brain Scans Reveal Breastfed Babies Develop Motor And Language Skills Faster Than Formula-Fed Infants : Healthy Living : Medical Daily

Brain Scans Reveal Breastfed Babies Develop Motor And Language Skills Faster Than Formula-Fed Infants : Healthy Living : Medical Daily: Now a new study bolsters the mounting evidence with a series of brain scans that illustrate faster brain development, particularly areas involving language, motor, and cognition, in infants that were exclusively breastfed.

Penn Study Finds Stressed Dads Can Affect Offspring Brain Development

Penn News | Penn Study Finds Stressed Dads Can Affect Offspring Brain Development: Stress felt by dad—whether as a preadolescent or adult—leaves a lasting impression on his sperm that gives sons and daughters a blunted reaction to stress, a response linked to several mental disorders. The findings, published in a new preclinical study in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, point to a never-before-seen epigenetic link to stress-related diseases such as anxiety and depression passed from father to child.