Monthly Archives: November 2016

Facebook support

Facebook Support Can Foster Feelings of Well-Being

In a new study, Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook researchers determined passive readings or posts or one-click feedback such as “likes” did not influence well-being. However, frequent and substantive comments from friends did improve emotional perceptions.

Investigators determined 60 comments from close friends in a month were associated with increases in users’ psychological well-being as large as those associated with major life events. Read more ›

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Tech-Based Interventions Can Help Students with Dyslexia Read Without Frustration

Leslie Patterson said she knew nothing about dyslexia when she first became an elementary school teacher. Now, the certified academic language therapist and licensed dyslexia teacher at Griffis Elementary School in Caddo Mills, Texas, is leading the way in using technology to help some of her dyslexic students develop a love for reading.

Using Bookshare, which, with 480,000 books is the world’s largest digital library, Patterson is helping her students access books they can read, using their eyes and ears, by listening to and seeing highlighted text. Read more ›

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Suicide Survivors Urge Open Conversations, Awareness Around Mental Health

Five women whose lives have been intimately, irreversibly touched by youth suicide — two by their own attempts and three by deaths of family members — spoke candidly about their experiences on a panel in Palo Alto Wednesday night, urging others to speak with the same candor about the oft-silenced topics of suicide and mental illness.

“Talking about suicide is what we all need to start doing, and talking about mental health conditions,” said Mary Ojakian, a Palo Alto resident whose son died by suicide as a college student in 2004. “That is where we need to go: understanding and awareness, which is pretty easy to get, for everyone.”

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How Exercise Might Keep Depression at Bay

Exercise may be an effective treatment for depression and might even help prevent us from becoming depressed in the first place, according to three timely new studies. The studies pool outcomes from past research involving more than a million men and women and, taken together, strongly suggest that regular exercise alters our bodies and brains in ways that make us resistant to despair.

Scientists have long questioned whether and how physical activity affects mental health. While we know that exercise alters the body, how physical activity affects moods and emotions is less well understood.

Past studies have sometimes muddied rather than clarified the body and mind connections. Some randomized controlled trials have found that exercise programs, often involving walking, ease symptoms in people with major depression. But many of these studies have been relatively small in scale or had other scientific deficiencies.

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Are Autistic Children Over-Diagnosed With ADHD?

A new study conducted by the Center for Autism Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has found that children with autism may be over-diagnosed with ADHD.

Screening results are often used to recommend school services as well as potential medications. In 18 questions, the screener known as the ADHD Rating Scale Fourth Edition (ADHD-RS-IV) asks parents and teachers to numerically rate a child’s behaviors. Half of the questions are focused on inattention, the other half on hyperactivity.

Teachers and parents who use the screening tool may mistake autism-related social impairments for attention problems, according to the study. Read more ›

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Pediatricians Set New Guidelines on Electronic Media Use by Young Children

In a marked shift from recommendations first adopted in 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics has lifted its recommendation discouraging all electronic media use in children under the age of 2.

The new recommendations for children’s media use acknowledge that some media exposure can have educational value for children as young as 18 months, but it should be high-quality programming—the AAP specifically referenced “Sesame Street” and children’s programming provided by PBS.

The academy also has recommendations for e-book use. Many of those books come with interactive elements that distract a child and make the book harder for a child to comprehend. Therefore, parents should read e-books along with their children, just as they would with a regular book.  Read more ›

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