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The health tips/information and educational flyers listed above and throughout this Web site are for informational purposes only. They are not intended to be a substitute for the advice of a doctor or healthcare professional, or a recommendation for any particular treatment plan.
Like any other data, the information may become out of date over time. It is important that you rely on the advice of a doctor or a healthcare professional for your specific condition. Experts Design 'Toolkit' to Help Spot Teens With Mental Health Issues
Because many adolescents with mental health problems are never diagnosed and treated, an expert team has come up with a "toolkit" aimed at identifying those kids and getting them the right help.
"One in 10 youths have a mental health condition that is severe enough to impair functioning, either at home, school or in the community," said Gary Blau, chief of the child, adolescent and family branch of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Blau spoke at a Friday news conference to unveil the toolkit, which appeared online simultaneously in Pediatrics. Although the journal is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that organization has not endorsed the toolkit. SAMHSA provided partial funding for the project.
"This toolkit will allow pediatricians, teachers and others that could help get the word out to families we can close the gap so the three out of four children with mental health disorders who aren't identified do get identified," said Dr. Peter Jensen, who was the lead investigator on the project.
About half of mental health disorders manifest themselves by the time a child has turned 14, and 75 percent manifest by age 24, Blau said.
Yet treatment is often years away for that child, added Lisa Hunter Romanelli, an assistant professor of clinical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City. Read more... |
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Preschool Peers May Boost Language Skills in Kids
Preschool students with poor language skills show much greater improvement if they're placed in a classroom with higher-achieving children, compared to being in a class with other low-achievers, researchers say.
The findings are important because many preschool programs in the United States are targeted to poor children, whose development of language skills may be lagging, according to lead author Laura Justice, a professor at Ohio State University's School of Teaching and Learning.
"The way preschool works in the United States, we tend to cluster kids who have relatively low language skills in the same classrooms, and that is not good for their language development," she said in a university news release. "We need to pay more attention to the composition of preschool classrooms."
She and her colleagues looked at 338 children in 49 preschool classrooms and found that, among children with low initial language skills, those who were placed in the lowest-ability classes tended to lose ground during the school year, while those placed in average-ability classes tended to improve their language skills.
The researchers also found that high-ability students improved their language scores when placed in either low- or average-ability classes.
"Children with high language abilities don't seem to be affected by the other kids in their class," Justice said.
The findings, published in the Oct. 25 online edition of the journal Child Development, don't explain how preschoolers' language skills are affected by peers. Either direct interactions between children or teacher expectations for their students may play a role, the authors suggested.
But Justice said one thing is certain from this study -- dividing preschoolers into low- and high-achievement classrooms may be shortchanging those who most need help.
"If we really want to help lift kids out of poverty, and use preschool as a way to make that happen, we need to reconsider how we provide that education," Justice said. "Classrooms that blend students from different backgrounds are the best way to provide the boost that poor students need."
SOURCE: Ohio State University, news release, Oct. 26, 2011 |
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Health Tip: Child Bites Can Lead to Infection
Human bites, such as when an angry child bites another person, carry a risk of infection.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says warning signs of infection from a human bite include:
- Heat surrounding the bite wound.
- Swelling around the injury site.
- Pain on or near the bite wound.
- A bite wound that discharges pus.
Not Just the Lungs
Smoking can lead to other diseases than lung cancer, and bladder cancer is among them. Researcher Neal Freedman of the National Institutes of Health looked at that risk in more than 186,000 women over about 10 years:
"Current-smoking women have four times the risk of bladder cancer as never-smoking women. We also found that 50 percent of bladder cancer could be attributed to cigarette smoking."
Freedman says women who quit dropped their risk to about two times that of never-smokers, but that it’s even better not to start.
Smoking was associated with a higher risk of bladder cancer than in previous studies. Freedman says this may be due to changes in the composition of cigarettes.
The study was in the Journal of the American Medical Association. |
