#child-development — Public Fediverse posts

DATE: July 8, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Severe early deprivation leaves lasting mark on life skills 16 years later

URL: https://www.psypost.org/severe-early-deprivation-leaves-lasting-mark-on-life-skills-16-years-later/

An analysis of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project data found that children who were randomly assigned to foster care after severe early psychosocial deprivation showed better adaptive functioning 16 years later compared to those who were assigned to care as usual. Caregiving quality mediated the relationship between the assigned group and adaptive functioning. The paper was published in Developmental Psychology.

When parents die, abandon their children, lose custody, or are unable to provide safe and adequate care because of poverty, illness, disability, neglect, abuse, or family crisis, children may get assigned to institutional care. Institutional care places children in residential facilities, such as orphanages or group homes, where rotating staff care for many children instead of children being in one stable family.

Although these facilities usually provide food, shelter, supervision, and basic medical care, they may offer limited emotional warmth and individualized attention. Frequent staff changes and the fact that a small number of caregivers look after many children can prevent children from forming secure attachments and reduce opportunities for conversation, play, exploration, and responsive interaction. As a result, children may experience emotional, social, cognitive, and sensory deprivation that can interfere with their development.

Megan M. Hare, a researcher at Tulane University, and colleagues analyzed data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project aiming to examine the potential influence of early exposure to psychosocially depriving institutional care on adaptive functioning during the transition to adulthood and compare it to the consequences of high-quality foster care. They also wanted to know whether caregiving quality in adolescence mediated the association between the type of care children were assigned to and adaptive functioning at 18 years of age.

The Bucharest Early Intervention Project was a landmark study examining how institutional care and foster placement affect the development of abandoned children in Romania. It began in 2000 and 2001 and included 136 children living in six institutions in Bucharest, whose average age at enrollment was about 22 months.

After baseline assessments, eligible children were randomly assigned either to receive care as usual, which generally involved longer placements in institutional care, or to enter a specially created, high-quality foster-care program. A third comparison group consisted of children from the local community who had never lived in institutions. The researchers assessed cognitive ability, language, attachment, emotional and behavioral problems, physical growth, brain activity, and several other developmental outcomes.

The analysis in this study included 93 of the original 136 children. Of these, 46 were in the care-as-usual group and 47 were from the group assigned to foster care. There were also 41 children from the control group that were never institutionalized. At the time of this analysis, participants’ average age was nearly 19 years old. About 61% identified as Romanian and 20% identified as Roma, while the ethnic identity of 19% was not specified.

Participants completed an assessment of adaptive functioning, meaning the practical skills individuals need for independent living, such as self-care, communication, and interpersonal skills. The researchers also collected staff ratings of the caregiving quality the children received at age 12 and 16. Two members of the study staff familiar with the child’s family independently provided these ratings.

Results showed that, 16 years after being assigned to foster care or care as usual, participants who grew up in foster care achieved significantly higher adaptive functioning scores, particularly in the areas of communication and socialization skills. These findings held when adaptive functioning was represented in age equivalences. For example, those in the care-as-usual group functioned, on average, at an age-equivalent level of 12.5 years, compared to 15.2 years for the foster care group. However, both groups lagged significantly behind the never-institutionalized group.

Further analyses revealed that caregiving quality significantly mediated the link between the type of care the children were assigned to and their adaptive functioning. Comparison with the group of children who were never institutionalized similarly revealed that caregiving quality mediated the link between the caregiving setup and adaptive functioning.

“These findings underscore the positive impact of nurturing environments on children’s adaptive functioning and indicate that early investment in family care as an alternative to institutional care leads to better adaptive functioning during the transition to adulthood,” the study authors concluded.

The study sheds light on the importance of caregiving arrangements for children’s psychosocial development. However, it should be noted that both institutional care and foster care can be provided with different levels of quality and may substantially differ in the opportunities they provide children to form secure attachments to caregivers. Findings of studies that examine different institutional care systems and foster care arrangements in different conditions may not be identical.

The paper, “Adaptive Functioning at Age 18 Years Following Severe Early Deprivation: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial,” was authored by Megan M. Hare, Kathryn L. Humphreys, Ana Cosmoiu, Nathan A. Fox, Charles A. Nelson, and Charles H. Zeanah.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/severe-early-deprivation-leaves-lasting-mark-on-life-skills-16-years-later/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EarlyDeprivation #FosterCareImpact #AdaptiveFunctioning #ChildDevelopment #InstitutionalCare #CaregivingQuality #RomaniaStudy #BucharestEarlyIntervention #AttachmentTheory #AdolescenceOutcomes

DATE: July 8, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Severe early deprivation leaves lasting mark on life skills 16 years later

URL: https://www.psypost.org/severe-early-deprivation-leaves-lasting-mark-on-life-skills-16-years-later/

An analysis of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project data found that children who were randomly assigned to foster care after severe early psychosocial deprivation showed better adaptive functioning 16 years later compared to those who were assigned to care as usual. Caregiving quality mediated the relationship between the assigned group and adaptive functioning. The paper was published in Developmental Psychology.

When parents die, abandon their children, lose custody, or are unable to provide safe and adequate care because of poverty, illness, disability, neglect, abuse, or family crisis, children may get assigned to institutional care. Institutional care places children in residential facilities, such as orphanages or group homes, where rotating staff care for many children instead of children being in one stable family.

Although these facilities usually provide food, shelter, supervision, and basic medical care, they may offer limited emotional warmth and individualized attention. Frequent staff changes and the fact that a small number of caregivers look after many children can prevent children from forming secure attachments and reduce opportunities for conversation, play, exploration, and responsive interaction. As a result, children may experience emotional, social, cognitive, and sensory deprivation that can interfere with their development.

Megan M. Hare, a researcher at Tulane University, and colleagues analyzed data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project aiming to examine the potential influence of early exposure to psychosocially depriving institutional care on adaptive functioning during the transition to adulthood and compare it to the consequences of high-quality foster care. They also wanted to know whether caregiving quality in adolescence mediated the association between the type of care children were assigned to and adaptive functioning at 18 years of age.

The Bucharest Early Intervention Project was a landmark study examining how institutional care and foster placement affect the development of abandoned children in Romania. It began in 2000 and 2001 and included 136 children living in six institutions in Bucharest, whose average age at enrollment was about 22 months.

After baseline assessments, eligible children were randomly assigned either to receive care as usual, which generally involved longer placements in institutional care, or to enter a specially created, high-quality foster-care program. A third comparison group consisted of children from the local community who had never lived in institutions. The researchers assessed cognitive ability, language, attachment, emotional and behavioral problems, physical growth, brain activity, and several other developmental outcomes.

The analysis in this study included 93 of the original 136 children. Of these, 46 were in the care-as-usual group and 47 were from the group assigned to foster care. There were also 41 children from the control group that were never institutionalized. At the time of this analysis, participants’ average age was nearly 19 years old. About 61% identified as Romanian and 20% identified as Roma, while the ethnic identity of 19% was not specified.

Participants completed an assessment of adaptive functioning, meaning the practical skills individuals need for independent living, such as self-care, communication, and interpersonal skills. The researchers also collected staff ratings of the caregiving quality the children received at age 12 and 16. Two members of the study staff familiar with the child’s family independently provided these ratings.

Results showed that, 16 years after being assigned to foster care or care as usual, participants who grew up in foster care achieved significantly higher adaptive functioning scores, particularly in the areas of communication and socialization skills. These findings held when adaptive functioning was represented in age equivalences. For example, those in the care-as-usual group functioned, on average, at an age-equivalent level of 12.5 years, compared to 15.2 years for the foster care group. However, both groups lagged significantly behind the never-institutionalized group.

Further analyses revealed that caregiving quality significantly mediated the link between the type of care the children were assigned to and their adaptive functioning. Comparison with the group of children who were never institutionalized similarly revealed that caregiving quality mediated the link between the caregiving setup and adaptive functioning.

“These findings underscore the positive impact of nurturing environments on children’s adaptive functioning and indicate that early investment in family care as an alternative to institutional care leads to better adaptive functioning during the transition to adulthood,” the study authors concluded.

The study sheds light on the importance of caregiving arrangements for children’s psychosocial development. However, it should be noted that both institutional care and foster care can be provided with different levels of quality and may substantially differ in the opportunities they provide children to form secure attachments to caregivers. Findings of studies that examine different institutional care systems and foster care arrangements in different conditions may not be identical.

The paper, “Adaptive Functioning at Age 18 Years Following Severe Early Deprivation: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial,” was authored by Megan M. Hare, Kathryn L. Humphreys, Ana Cosmoiu, Nathan A. Fox, Charles A. Nelson, and Charles H. Zeanah.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/severe-early-deprivation-leaves-lasting-mark-on-life-skills-16-years-later/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EarlyDeprivation #FosterCareImpact #AdaptiveFunctioning #ChildDevelopment #InstitutionalCare #CaregivingQuality #RomaniaStudy #BucharestEarlyIntervention #AttachmentTheory #AdolescenceOutcomes

3Rising Stress in School Children – Causes, Symptoms, and How Parents Can Help

School stress is increasing among children. Learn to identify the warning signs and support your child effectively. https://indiatutor.in/blogs/rising-stress-in-school-children-causes-symptoms-and-how-parents-can-help/

#MentalHealth #SchoolStress #ParentingTips #StudentWellbeing #IndiaTutor #ChildDevelopment

3Rising Stress in School Children – Causes, Symptoms, and How Parents Can Help

School stress is increasing among children. Learn to identify the warning signs and support your child effectively. https://indiatutor.in/blogs/rising-stress-in-school-children-causes-symptoms-and-how-parents-can-help/

#MentalHealth #SchoolStress #ParentingTips #StudentWellbeing #IndiaTutor #ChildDevelopment

It's amazing what turns up when you study something. And (FWIW) poor impulse control has a host of negative effects, not just obesity. And guess which communities are most likely to have high #PM2.5 as well as other pollutants in the air?

Air pollution may cause childhood obesity by disrupting impulse control, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/06/air-pollution-childhood-obesity-study?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

#ChildDevelopment #AirQuality #Pollution #Poverty

It's amazing what turns up when you study something. And (FWIW) poor impulse control has a host of negative effects, not just obesity. And guess which communities are most likely to have high #PM2.5 as well as other pollutants in the air?

Air pollution may cause childhood obesity by disrupting impulse control, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/06/air-pollution-childhood-obesity-study?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

#ChildDevelopment #AirQuality #Pollution #Poverty

The Conversation: Digital poverty is holding university students back. “When a student can’t submit their essay because the household’s only device is being used by three siblings for school, or because their mobile data ran out mid-lecture, they are experiencing digital poverty. Digital poverty describes a cluster of overlapping disadvantages: lack of access to devices, unreliable or […]

The Conversation: Digital poverty is holding university students back. “When a student can’t submit their essay because the household’s only device is being used by three siblings for school, or because their mobile data ran out mid-lecture, they are experiencing digital poverty. Digital poverty describes a cluster of overlapping disadvantages: lack of access to devices, unreliable or […]

DATE: June 30, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Artificial intelligence estimates of childhood brain age predict teenage coping skills

URL: https://www.psypost.org/machine-learning-reveals-how-brain-maturation-predicts-emotional-suppression-in/

The physical maturation of a child’s brain can predict their subsequent emotional coping strategies, revealing fresh ways early development shapes mental health. Researchers found that having a structurally older brain in late childhood is tied to a habit of hiding emotions in early adolescence, while generalized hyperactivity symptoms do not predict this specific behavior. The findings were recently published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Human emotion regulation develops over many years and relies on a combination of lived experiences and physical brain growth. Adaptive coping strategies are consistently linked to resilience and better overall mental health outcomes. In contrast, maladaptive strategies, such as constantly suppressing outward emotional expressions, are often tied to mood disorders and social difficulties.

The ability to regulate feelings is governed by specific neural networks. Areas related to emotional control, such as the prefrontal cortex, undergo slow maturation throughout early childhood and adolescence. As these higher-level regions develop, they exert increasing control over deeper brain areas that generate immediate emotional reactions, like the amygdala.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is highly heterogeneous, meaning it looks different from person to person. However, many individuals with the condition experience emotional difficulties alongside the core symptoms of inattention and impulsivity. Some imaging studies have suggested that the disorder is characterized by a delay in overall brain maturation.

It has been difficult to establish exactly how physical brain differences map onto specific emotional habits over time. Lead author Kristóf Ágrez, a researcher at the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences in Hungary, and his colleagues wanted to investigate this relationship. They set out to determine if the gap between a child’s actual chronological age and the apparent physical age of their brain could predict future emotional control.

To test this, the research team utilized a metric known as the brain-predicted age difference. They applied an artificial intelligence program to structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. This specific machine learning program was trained on over fifty thousand brain scans to recognize typical age-related patterns in brain structure.

The algorithm reviews a new scan and estimates the person’s age based purely on physical brain characteristics. Researchers then subtract the participant’s actual chronological age from the algorithm’s age estimate. A positive number indicates that the brain appears structurally older than the person’s biological age.

The team analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a nationwide project in the United States. Their final sample included 2,711 children who underwent brain scans and behavioral assessments. At the start of the data collection, the children were nine or ten years old.

Three years after the initial scans, the children completed self-report questionnaires assessing their emotional regulation habits. The researchers focused on two distinct coping strategies. One strategy was cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing how one thinks about a stressful situation to lessen its emotional impact. The other was expressive suppression, which involves intentionally hiding the outward signs of an emotion once it has already flared up.

The results showed that the brain-predicted age difference correctly predicted later expressive suppression. Specifically, children whose brains looked older than their chronological age at baseline reported higher levels of emotion suppression three years later in early adolescence. The physical appearance of the brain did not, however, predict the use of cognitive reappraisal.

In adult populations, an older looking brain is almost always a sign of atypical degeneration, often linked to cognitive decline or memory diseases. In children and teenagers, the interpretation of brain age is slightly different, as it is heavily influenced by the onset of puberty. Still, an atypically accelerated developmental trajectory can confer risk for later mental health challenges. This explains why a physically mature looking brain might correspond with maladaptive coping habits rather than healthy ones.

This split finding aligns with the physical mechanics of the brain. Expressive suppression relies on relatively simple neural processes to block outward reactions. Cognitive reappraisal demands much more cognitive effort and heavily engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to actively reframe a narrative.

The researchers also looked at whether parent-reported symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder predicted these emotional habits. They wanted to know if a behavioral diagnosis offered predictive power beyond the physical brain scan. They found that baseline hyperactivity and attention problems did not predict expressive suppression.

In the context of the broader statistical model, the behavioral symptoms simply did not track with the eventual use of emotional suppression. Any relationship between the behavioral disorder symptoms and later emotion suppression was not statistically significant. This suggests that the precocious physical maturation of the brain was a better indicator of this specific coping mechanism.

To ensure the accuracy of their results, the team accounted for a wide range of alternative explanations. They adjusted their mathematical models for variables like intelligence, behavioral inhibition, pubertal maturation, race, and sex assigned at birth. They also factored in whether the children were taking psychiatric medications, as many common prescriptions directly alter emotion regulation circuitry.

Even after these adjustments, the physical age of the brain remained a consistent predictor of emotional suppression. Chronological age and the use of psychiatric medications also consistently predicted emotional suppression across the different statistical models. The researchers note that chronological age essentially acts as a proxy for social experience, which heavily shapes emotional development.

The study has a few limitations regarding its sample and tools. Acquiring high-quality magnetic resonance imaging scans requires participants to lie very still. Children who tend to move around a lot during scanning were excluded because motion blurs the final images.

This exclusion of kids with high physical movement means the final group might be slightly less representative of children with severe hyperactivity. Additionally, the machine learning tool used to calculate brain age was primarily trained on scans from adults and older individuals. Future artificial intelligence models tuned specifically for pediatric populations might yield even more tailored results.

Despite these limitations, the research highlights a tangible link between childhood brain development and teenage coping skills. Because emotional suppression is associated with disorders like anxiety and depression, understanding its physical origins could aid in early risk detection. The project ultimately validates the concept of calculated brain age as a practical tool for developmental neuroscience.

The study, “Assessing the association between ADHD and brain maturation in late childhood and emotion regulation in early adolescence,” was authored by Kristóf Ágrez, Pál Vakli, Béla Weiss, Zoltán Vidnyánszky, and Nóra Bunford.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/machine-learning-reveals-how-brain-maturation-predicts-emotional-suppression-in/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainAgePrediction #ChildDevelopment #EmotionRegulation #ExpressiveSuppression #AdolescenceCoping #Hyperactivity #ADHDResearch #Neuroscience #FunctionalBrainDevelopment #MentalHealthPrevention

DATE: June 30, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Artificial intelligence estimates of childhood brain age predict teenage coping skills

URL: https://www.psypost.org/machine-learning-reveals-how-brain-maturation-predicts-emotional-suppression-in/

The physical maturation of a child’s brain can predict their subsequent emotional coping strategies, revealing fresh ways early development shapes mental health. Researchers found that having a structurally older brain in late childhood is tied to a habit of hiding emotions in early adolescence, while generalized hyperactivity symptoms do not predict this specific behavior. The findings were recently published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Human emotion regulation develops over many years and relies on a combination of lived experiences and physical brain growth. Adaptive coping strategies are consistently linked to resilience and better overall mental health outcomes. In contrast, maladaptive strategies, such as constantly suppressing outward emotional expressions, are often tied to mood disorders and social difficulties.

The ability to regulate feelings is governed by specific neural networks. Areas related to emotional control, such as the prefrontal cortex, undergo slow maturation throughout early childhood and adolescence. As these higher-level regions develop, they exert increasing control over deeper brain areas that generate immediate emotional reactions, like the amygdala.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is highly heterogeneous, meaning it looks different from person to person. However, many individuals with the condition experience emotional difficulties alongside the core symptoms of inattention and impulsivity. Some imaging studies have suggested that the disorder is characterized by a delay in overall brain maturation.

It has been difficult to establish exactly how physical brain differences map onto specific emotional habits over time. Lead author Kristóf Ágrez, a researcher at the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences in Hungary, and his colleagues wanted to investigate this relationship. They set out to determine if the gap between a child’s actual chronological age and the apparent physical age of their brain could predict future emotional control.

To test this, the research team utilized a metric known as the brain-predicted age difference. They applied an artificial intelligence program to structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. This specific machine learning program was trained on over fifty thousand brain scans to recognize typical age-related patterns in brain structure.

The algorithm reviews a new scan and estimates the person’s age based purely on physical brain characteristics. Researchers then subtract the participant’s actual chronological age from the algorithm’s age estimate. A positive number indicates that the brain appears structurally older than the person’s biological age.

The team analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a nationwide project in the United States. Their final sample included 2,711 children who underwent brain scans and behavioral assessments. At the start of the data collection, the children were nine or ten years old.

Three years after the initial scans, the children completed self-report questionnaires assessing their emotional regulation habits. The researchers focused on two distinct coping strategies. One strategy was cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing how one thinks about a stressful situation to lessen its emotional impact. The other was expressive suppression, which involves intentionally hiding the outward signs of an emotion once it has already flared up.

The results showed that the brain-predicted age difference correctly predicted later expressive suppression. Specifically, children whose brains looked older than their chronological age at baseline reported higher levels of emotion suppression three years later in early adolescence. The physical appearance of the brain did not, however, predict the use of cognitive reappraisal.

In adult populations, an older looking brain is almost always a sign of atypical degeneration, often linked to cognitive decline or memory diseases. In children and teenagers, the interpretation of brain age is slightly different, as it is heavily influenced by the onset of puberty. Still, an atypically accelerated developmental trajectory can confer risk for later mental health challenges. This explains why a physically mature looking brain might correspond with maladaptive coping habits rather than healthy ones.

This split finding aligns with the physical mechanics of the brain. Expressive suppression relies on relatively simple neural processes to block outward reactions. Cognitive reappraisal demands much more cognitive effort and heavily engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to actively reframe a narrative.

The researchers also looked at whether parent-reported symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder predicted these emotional habits. They wanted to know if a behavioral diagnosis offered predictive power beyond the physical brain scan. They found that baseline hyperactivity and attention problems did not predict expressive suppression.

In the context of the broader statistical model, the behavioral symptoms simply did not track with the eventual use of emotional suppression. Any relationship between the behavioral disorder symptoms and later emotion suppression was not statistically significant. This suggests that the precocious physical maturation of the brain was a better indicator of this specific coping mechanism.

To ensure the accuracy of their results, the team accounted for a wide range of alternative explanations. They adjusted their mathematical models for variables like intelligence, behavioral inhibition, pubertal maturation, race, and sex assigned at birth. They also factored in whether the children were taking psychiatric medications, as many common prescriptions directly alter emotion regulation circuitry.

Even after these adjustments, the physical age of the brain remained a consistent predictor of emotional suppression. Chronological age and the use of psychiatric medications also consistently predicted emotional suppression across the different statistical models. The researchers note that chronological age essentially acts as a proxy for social experience, which heavily shapes emotional development.

The study has a few limitations regarding its sample and tools. Acquiring high-quality magnetic resonance imaging scans requires participants to lie very still. Children who tend to move around a lot during scanning were excluded because motion blurs the final images.

This exclusion of kids with high physical movement means the final group might be slightly less representative of children with severe hyperactivity. Additionally, the machine learning tool used to calculate brain age was primarily trained on scans from adults and older individuals. Future artificial intelligence models tuned specifically for pediatric populations might yield even more tailored results.

Despite these limitations, the research highlights a tangible link between childhood brain development and teenage coping skills. Because emotional suppression is associated with disorders like anxiety and depression, understanding its physical origins could aid in early risk detection. The project ultimately validates the concept of calculated brain age as a practical tool for developmental neuroscience.

The study, “Assessing the association between ADHD and brain maturation in late childhood and emotion regulation in early adolescence,” was authored by Kristóf Ágrez, Pál Vakli, Béla Weiss, Zoltán Vidnyánszky, and Nóra Bunford.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/machine-learning-reveals-how-brain-maturation-predicts-emotional-suppression-in/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainAgePrediction #ChildDevelopment #EmotionRegulation #ExpressiveSuppression #AdolescenceCoping #Hyperactivity #ADHDResearch #Neuroscience #FunctionalBrainDevelopment #MentalHealthPrevention

DATE: June 27, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Prenatal exposure to air pollution is linked to increased attention issues in children

URL: https://www.psypost.org/prenatal-exposure-to-air-pollution-is-linked-to-increased-attention-issues-in-children/

An analysis of epidemiological data from the region of Tarragona, Spain, found that higher prenatal exposure to air pollution was associated with higher teacher-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in school-age children. This pollution included various sizes of particulate matter as well as nitrogen gases. The researchers found no association between exposure to air pollution and the likelihood of receiving an official diagnosis for the disorder. The paper was published in Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

Air pollution is the presence of harmful particles, gases, and other substances in the air at concentrations that may damage human health or the environment. These particles can take several different forms. For example, some particulate matter has a diameter of ten micrometers or smaller, allowing it to be easily inhaled into the respiratory system. Coarse particles usually originate from road dust, construction, agriculture, tire and brake wear, and natural sources like soil and pollen.

Unlike particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide is a gas rather than a particle. It is commonly produced by combustion processes, particularly emissions from motor vehicles, power plants, and heating systems. Nitrogen oxides are a broad group of reactive gases that mainly include nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide. Exposure to these particles and gases may irritate the airways and is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular health problems.

Study author Sharanpreet Kaur and her colleagues explored the association between prenatal exposure to air pollutants and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the school population from Tarragona, Spain. Tarragona is a Mediterranean region with high petrochemical activity. It is one of southern Europe’s largest chemical and petrochemical clusters, accounting for roughly one quarter of the country’s chemical production.

The study authors hypothesized that higher prenatal exposure to multiple air pollutants increases the risk of attention-related symptoms in children. They expected that exposure to air pollutants would show a stronger association with general symptoms than with a formal clinical diagnosis. The researchers also anticipated that these associations would be stronger in boys than in girls.

The team analyzed data from a large epidemiological project tracking neurodevelopmental disorders in Tarragona. In the first phase of this study, families of 3,727 children consented to participate in a screening for attention issues. The children fell into two age groups, with some of preschool age and others in later elementary school.

A subset of 781 children participated in a secondary clinical screening phase. Researchers excluded children with an autism diagnosis to ensure the data focused solely on attention disorders. In this final group, 174 children were formally diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, while 549 children were confirmed to not have the condition.

The authors assessed maternal exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy by asking parents about their residential history. They paired this information with data estimating exposure to traffic-related air pollutants at those specific home addresses. This allowed the researchers to estimate each mother’s exposure to different air pollutants during each distinct trimester of pregnancy.

The results showed that higher prenatal exposures to particulate matter and nitrogen gases were associated with increased teacher-reported attention symptoms in the group of school-age children. However, the data revealed no association between prenatal exposure to air pollutants and the likelihood of being formally diagnosed with any presentation of the disorder.

Looking at specific stages of pregnancy, the results indicated that exposure to air pollutants during early gestation was associated with higher inattentive symptoms. Exposure to particulate matter and nitrogen gases during the first two trimesters was linked to increased inattention as the children grew. This association was noticeably stronger in boys than in girls.

“Our findings suggest that even modest increases in ADHD symptoms may reflect subtle neurodevelopmental effects of prenatal air pollution exposure,” the study authors concluded. “These results highlight early gestation as a vulnerable period and the need for further research on long-term impacts.”

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of environmental risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders. However, it should be noted that the associations between air pollution exposure and symptom severity were modest in magnitude. Additionally, the observational design of the study does not allow any direct cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn from the results.

The paper, “Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution and Risk for Attention-Deficit/hyperactivity Disorder in Children,” was authored by Sharanpreet Kaur, Josefa Canals-Sans, Paula Morales-Hidalgo, Mònica Guxens, Sami Petricola, and Victoria Arija.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/prenatal-exposure-to-air-pollution-is-linked-to-increased-attention-issues-in-children/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PrenatalAirPollution #ADHDSymptoms #AttentionIssues #AirPollutionHealth #Neurodevelopment #ParticulateMatter #NitrogenDioxide #EnviroHealth #ChildDevelopment #TarragonaStudy

DATE: June 27, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Prenatal exposure to air pollution is linked to increased attention issues in children

URL: https://www.psypost.org/prenatal-exposure-to-air-pollution-is-linked-to-increased-attention-issues-in-children/

An analysis of epidemiological data from the region of Tarragona, Spain, found that higher prenatal exposure to air pollution was associated with higher teacher-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in school-age children. This pollution included various sizes of particulate matter as well as nitrogen gases. The researchers found no association between exposure to air pollution and the likelihood of receiving an official diagnosis for the disorder. The paper was published in Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

Air pollution is the presence of harmful particles, gases, and other substances in the air at concentrations that may damage human health or the environment. These particles can take several different forms. For example, some particulate matter has a diameter of ten micrometers or smaller, allowing it to be easily inhaled into the respiratory system. Coarse particles usually originate from road dust, construction, agriculture, tire and brake wear, and natural sources like soil and pollen.

Unlike particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide is a gas rather than a particle. It is commonly produced by combustion processes, particularly emissions from motor vehicles, power plants, and heating systems. Nitrogen oxides are a broad group of reactive gases that mainly include nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide. Exposure to these particles and gases may irritate the airways and is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular health problems.

Study author Sharanpreet Kaur and her colleagues explored the association between prenatal exposure to air pollutants and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the school population from Tarragona, Spain. Tarragona is a Mediterranean region with high petrochemical activity. It is one of southern Europe’s largest chemical and petrochemical clusters, accounting for roughly one quarter of the country’s chemical production.

The study authors hypothesized that higher prenatal exposure to multiple air pollutants increases the risk of attention-related symptoms in children. They expected that exposure to air pollutants would show a stronger association with general symptoms than with a formal clinical diagnosis. The researchers also anticipated that these associations would be stronger in boys than in girls.

The team analyzed data from a large epidemiological project tracking neurodevelopmental disorders in Tarragona. In the first phase of this study, families of 3,727 children consented to participate in a screening for attention issues. The children fell into two age groups, with some of preschool age and others in later elementary school.

A subset of 781 children participated in a secondary clinical screening phase. Researchers excluded children with an autism diagnosis to ensure the data focused solely on attention disorders. In this final group, 174 children were formally diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, while 549 children were confirmed to not have the condition.

The authors assessed maternal exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy by asking parents about their residential history. They paired this information with data estimating exposure to traffic-related air pollutants at those specific home addresses. This allowed the researchers to estimate each mother’s exposure to different air pollutants during each distinct trimester of pregnancy.

The results showed that higher prenatal exposures to particulate matter and nitrogen gases were associated with increased teacher-reported attention symptoms in the group of school-age children. However, the data revealed no association between prenatal exposure to air pollutants and the likelihood of being formally diagnosed with any presentation of the disorder.

Looking at specific stages of pregnancy, the results indicated that exposure to air pollutants during early gestation was associated with higher inattentive symptoms. Exposure to particulate matter and nitrogen gases during the first two trimesters was linked to increased inattention as the children grew. This association was noticeably stronger in boys than in girls.

“Our findings suggest that even modest increases in ADHD symptoms may reflect subtle neurodevelopmental effects of prenatal air pollution exposure,” the study authors concluded. “These results highlight early gestation as a vulnerable period and the need for further research on long-term impacts.”

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of environmental risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders. However, it should be noted that the associations between air pollution exposure and symptom severity were modest in magnitude. Additionally, the observational design of the study does not allow any direct cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn from the results.

The paper, “Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution and Risk for Attention-Deficit/hyperactivity Disorder in Children,” was authored by Sharanpreet Kaur, Josefa Canals-Sans, Paula Morales-Hidalgo, Mònica Guxens, Sami Petricola, and Victoria Arija.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/prenatal-exposure-to-air-pollution-is-linked-to-increased-attention-issues-in-children/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PrenatalAirPollution #ADHDSymptoms #AttentionIssues #AirPollutionHealth #Neurodevelopment #ParticulateMatter #NitrogenDioxide #EnviroHealth #ChildDevelopment #TarragonaStudy

Pediatrician explains fascinating reason why babies look like skydivers when you lift them

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/pediatrician-explains-fascinating-reason-why-babies-look-like-skydivers-when-you-lift-them/

Pediatrician explains fascinating reason why babies look like skydivers when you lift them

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/pediatrician-explains-fascinating-reason-why-babies-look-like-skydivers-when-you-lift-them/

State of New York: New York State Office of Children and Family Services Launches New Family Guide to Child Care and Early Childhood Resources. “The New York State Office of Children and Family Services today announced the launch of a new online Family Guide to Child Care and Early Childhood Resources, including an enhanced, user-friendly child care search tool, to help families more easily […]

State of New York: New York State Office of Children and Family Services Launches New Family Guide to Child Care and Early Childhood Resources. “The New York State Office of Children and Family Services today announced the launch of a new online Family Guide to Child Care and Early Childhood Resources, including an enhanced, user-friendly child care search tool, to help families more easily […]

New York Times: Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era. This link goes to a gift article. “Humanizers rewrite A.I.-produced text to make it sound less robotic, formulaic and trite. Autotypers slowly drip words and sentences into documents, making it appear as if papers were typed at a human pace when in fact, they were produced by A.I. They even fabricate typos, […]

New York Times: Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era. This link goes to a gift article. “Humanizers rewrite A.I.-produced text to make it sound less robotic, formulaic and trite. Autotypers slowly drip words and sentences into documents, making it appear as if papers were typed at a human pace when in fact, they were produced by A.I. They even fabricate typos, […]

Gizmodo: Norway Says AI Ain’t for Education. “There will be no tokenmaxxing happening in Norwegian classrooms. According to a report from Reuters, the nation’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere announced Friday that the government will impose restrictions on the use of AI tools in schools in an effort to combat what it sees as a negative impact on learning.”

Gizmodo: Norway Says AI Ain’t for Education. “There will be no tokenmaxxing happening in Norwegian classrooms. According to a report from Reuters, the nation’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere announced Friday that the government will impose restrictions on the use of AI tools in schools in an effort to combat what it sees as a negative impact on learning.”

Big Island Now: State releases first comprehensive children, youth fiscal map. “The fiscal map examines state, federal and federal relief funding dedicated to children and youth ages 0 to 24 years old during fiscal years 2019 through 2023. The analysis provides a detailed look at how public investments support specific outcomes, services, age groups and populations throughout Hawaiʻi.”

Big Island Now: State releases first comprehensive children, youth fiscal map. “The fiscal map examines state, federal and federal relief funding dedicated to children and youth ages 0 to 24 years old during fiscal years 2019 through 2023. The analysis provides a detailed look at how public investments support specific outcomes, services, age groups and populations throughout Hawaiʻi.”

DATE: June 20, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Childhood hyperactivity symptoms show long-term associations with lower life quality

URL: https://www.psypost.org/tracking-the-13-year-well-being-toll-of-childhood-hyperactivity/

Children and adolescents who exhibit symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder experience persistent reductions in their overall well-being throughout their developmental years. A new longitudinal analysis shows that these life quality disparities span physical, emotional, and social functioning from ages 4 to 17. The findings were published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is a very common childhood neurodevelopmental condition. It involves persistent patterns of inattention, excess movement, and impulsive actions. While many evaluations of the condition focus on school performance or behavioral disruptions, overall health extends beyond just educational outcomes or symptom management.

The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” To quantify this broad concept, medical professionals use a metric called health-related quality of life. This subjective measurement evaluates how health conditions and medical treatments change a person’s daily functioning and personal appraisal of their own life.

Past research has examined how attention conditions affect this wellness metric, but most investigations only offer a snapshot at a single point in time. Short-term observational studies can miss how disparities might evolve, stabilize, or worsen as a child grows. Understanding the long-term developmental trajectory helps healthcare providers identify ideal moments to intervene and offer targeted support.

Ha Nguyet Dao Le, a health economics researcher at Deakin University in Australia, led a team to investigate this gap in the scientific literature. They sought to map out the long-term relationship between clinical symptoms and overall life quality, spanning early childhood through late adolescence.

The research team utilized data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. This nationwide project relies on large-scale cluster sampling to track the physical and psychological development of thousands of young people over many years. Le and her colleagues analyzed a subgroup of 4,194 children, following their progress from age 4 to age 17.

Parents completed comprehensive questionnaires every two years. To gauge the children’s well-being, the researchers used a standardized pediatric inventory covering physical, emotional, social, and school-related functioning. Young children often lack the necessary vocabulary or communication skills to rate their own psychological or emotional states accurately.

This communication challenge is magnified in children dealing with severe inattention, who might struggle to focus on taking a self-administered test. To solve this communication barrier, researchers often rely on parents to act as proxies. Caregivers answer the questionnaire items based on their direct observations of the child’s daily habits, behaviors, and moods.

Because a formal medical diagnosis can sometimes be delayed over several years, the research team looked specifically at the presence of clinical symptoms rather than waiting for an official medical record. A formal diagnosis delay often occurs due to inequities in healthcare access and education systems. Tracking symptoms directly catches children who are struggling but have not yet successfully navigated the regional medical system.

The team defined clinical symptoms based on parent ratings of hyperactivity and inattention on a standard behavioral screening tool. They matched these symptom severity profiles with the corresponding quality of life scores at each age benchmark. They applied mathematical models to account for a variety of background traits, such as family income, gender, parent mental wellness, and other co-occurring medical conditions.

Children with high levels of hyperactivity and inattention experienced consistently lower life quality scores than their peers without such symptoms. This gap remained evident at every single measurement point between ages 4 and 17. The reduction in well-being was observable across all assessed domains, meaning the affected children struggled more with physical activities, social interactions, emotional regulation, and classroom functioning.

The largest disparities appeared in the social and emotional categories. Children exhibiting the most attention symptoms had a harder time making friends, dealing with peer rejection, and managing feelings of worry or sadness. Communication and social skills can be strained in children with hyperactivity, which impacts their relationships at home, in the classroom, and in the broader community.

In health research, statistical calculations might uncover tiny numerical differences that do not actually affect a person’s life in a meaningful way. To ensure their findings reflected real-world impacts, the researchers compared the score gaps against established clinical thresholds. The defined deficits seen in the emotional and social categories were more than double the numerical threshold required to be considered practically noticeable in a patient’s daily life.

Physical well-being scores were also lower in the affected group. While children with hyperactivity engage in excessive movement, they are sometimes less likely to participate in organized physical activities or recreational sports. This lower participation rate might stem from cognitive and emotional difficulties rather than physical limitations.

The researchers also examined external variables that might alter a child’s wellness trajectory. Living in a family with two or more siblings was associated with better overall life quality. On the other hand, factors like the presence of autism, having a caregiver with mental illness, or having other persistent medical conditions were linked to lower wellness scores.

The link between maternal or paternal psychological distress and lower child well-being aligns with previous psychological research. Stressed caregivers sometimes exhibit less responsiveness and empathy, which can reduce the amount of daily emotional and practical care a child receives. This dynamic creates specific challenges for children with attention issues, who often require increased emotional and learning support from their family members.

Many children with attention-deficit conditions also experience internalizing problems like anxiety and depression or externalizing problems like conduct-related behavioral issues. The researchers factored these co-occurring challenges into their calculations. While internalizing and externalizing behaviors did lower the children’s life quality, they did not fully explain the primary association.

The core symptoms of hyperactivity independently contributed to the children’s reduced everyday well-being. This separate mathematical contribution suggests that the attention deficit itself creates distinct hurdles for the child, above and beyond the combined effects of general anxiety or behavioral noncompliance.

One observation from the data was that children taking medication for the underlying attention condition had fundamentally lower wellness scores. The authors advise caution when interpreting this specific data point, noting that observational studies cannot evaluate how a specific treatment improves or worsens an outcome compared to an unmedicated baseline over time.

The sample of medicated children was quite small, especially in the younger age brackets. Those receiving pharmaceutical interventions likely exhibited much more severe baseline symptoms than the unmedicated group. More severe symptoms naturally correspond with steeper functional challenges, meaning the lower scores likely reflect the underlying severity of the condition rather than a negative effect of the medicine itself.

The study design carries a few computational limitations. Evaluating behavior and wellness solely through parent proxy reports can introduce shared measurement variance. Because the same parent is reporting on both the child’s hyperactivity symptoms and their daily quality of life, their own mood or reporting biases might influence both scores simultaneously.

Additionally, the behavioral screening tool used in the study identifies symptoms but does not replace a comprehensive clinical psychiatric assessment. Expanding future research to include self-reported data from older adolescents and teacher observations could provide a more rounded perspective on the children’s psychological outcomes. Environmental barriers, such as a lack of school community support, should also be investigated to see how external settings influence a child’s social and academic success.

The findings suggest that medical and psychological interventions should address a child’s holistic behavioral and educational needs, rather than just managing core hyperactivity traits. Fostering better long-term outcomes also requires supporting the mental health of caregivers and treating co-occurring medical conditions like autism or anxiety alongside the primary symptoms.

The study, “The Long-Term Impact of ADHD on Children and Adolescents’ Health-Related Quality of Life: Results From a Longitudinal Population-Based Australian Study,” was authored by Ha Nguyet Dao Le, Courtney Keily, David Coghill, and Lisa Gold.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/tracking-the-13-year-well-being-toll-of-childhood-hyperactivity/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHDlongterm #ChildWellbeing #QualityOfLife #Hyperactivity #Inattention #ADHDawareness #ChildDevelopment #SocialEmotionalHealth #PediatricsResearch #MentalHealthSupport

DATE: June 20, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Childhood hyperactivity symptoms show long-term associations with lower life quality

URL: https://www.psypost.org/tracking-the-13-year-well-being-toll-of-childhood-hyperactivity/

Children and adolescents who exhibit symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder experience persistent reductions in their overall well-being throughout their developmental years. A new longitudinal analysis shows that these life quality disparities span physical, emotional, and social functioning from ages 4 to 17. The findings were published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder is a very common childhood neurodevelopmental condition. It involves persistent patterns of inattention, excess movement, and impulsive actions. While many evaluations of the condition focus on school performance or behavioral disruptions, overall health extends beyond just educational outcomes or symptom management.

The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” To quantify this broad concept, medical professionals use a metric called health-related quality of life. This subjective measurement evaluates how health conditions and medical treatments change a person’s daily functioning and personal appraisal of their own life.

Past research has examined how attention conditions affect this wellness metric, but most investigations only offer a snapshot at a single point in time. Short-term observational studies can miss how disparities might evolve, stabilize, or worsen as a child grows. Understanding the long-term developmental trajectory helps healthcare providers identify ideal moments to intervene and offer targeted support.

Ha Nguyet Dao Le, a health economics researcher at Deakin University in Australia, led a team to investigate this gap in the scientific literature. They sought to map out the long-term relationship between clinical symptoms and overall life quality, spanning early childhood through late adolescence.

The research team utilized data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. This nationwide project relies on large-scale cluster sampling to track the physical and psychological development of thousands of young people over many years. Le and her colleagues analyzed a subgroup of 4,194 children, following their progress from age 4 to age 17.

Parents completed comprehensive questionnaires every two years. To gauge the children’s well-being, the researchers used a standardized pediatric inventory covering physical, emotional, social, and school-related functioning. Young children often lack the necessary vocabulary or communication skills to rate their own psychological or emotional states accurately.

This communication challenge is magnified in children dealing with severe inattention, who might struggle to focus on taking a self-administered test. To solve this communication barrier, researchers often rely on parents to act as proxies. Caregivers answer the questionnaire items based on their direct observations of the child’s daily habits, behaviors, and moods.

Because a formal medical diagnosis can sometimes be delayed over several years, the research team looked specifically at the presence of clinical symptoms rather than waiting for an official medical record. A formal diagnosis delay often occurs due to inequities in healthcare access and education systems. Tracking symptoms directly catches children who are struggling but have not yet successfully navigated the regional medical system.

The team defined clinical symptoms based on parent ratings of hyperactivity and inattention on a standard behavioral screening tool. They matched these symptom severity profiles with the corresponding quality of life scores at each age benchmark. They applied mathematical models to account for a variety of background traits, such as family income, gender, parent mental wellness, and other co-occurring medical conditions.

Children with high levels of hyperactivity and inattention experienced consistently lower life quality scores than their peers without such symptoms. This gap remained evident at every single measurement point between ages 4 and 17. The reduction in well-being was observable across all assessed domains, meaning the affected children struggled more with physical activities, social interactions, emotional regulation, and classroom functioning.

The largest disparities appeared in the social and emotional categories. Children exhibiting the most attention symptoms had a harder time making friends, dealing with peer rejection, and managing feelings of worry or sadness. Communication and social skills can be strained in children with hyperactivity, which impacts their relationships at home, in the classroom, and in the broader community.

In health research, statistical calculations might uncover tiny numerical differences that do not actually affect a person’s life in a meaningful way. To ensure their findings reflected real-world impacts, the researchers compared the score gaps against established clinical thresholds. The defined deficits seen in the emotional and social categories were more than double the numerical threshold required to be considered practically noticeable in a patient’s daily life.

Physical well-being scores were also lower in the affected group. While children with hyperactivity engage in excessive movement, they are sometimes less likely to participate in organized physical activities or recreational sports. This lower participation rate might stem from cognitive and emotional difficulties rather than physical limitations.

The researchers also examined external variables that might alter a child’s wellness trajectory. Living in a family with two or more siblings was associated with better overall life quality. On the other hand, factors like the presence of autism, having a caregiver with mental illness, or having other persistent medical conditions were linked to lower wellness scores.

The link between maternal or paternal psychological distress and lower child well-being aligns with previous psychological research. Stressed caregivers sometimes exhibit less responsiveness and empathy, which can reduce the amount of daily emotional and practical care a child receives. This dynamic creates specific challenges for children with attention issues, who often require increased emotional and learning support from their family members.

Many children with attention-deficit conditions also experience internalizing problems like anxiety and depression or externalizing problems like conduct-related behavioral issues. The researchers factored these co-occurring challenges into their calculations. While internalizing and externalizing behaviors did lower the children’s life quality, they did not fully explain the primary association.

The core symptoms of hyperactivity independently contributed to the children’s reduced everyday well-being. This separate mathematical contribution suggests that the attention deficit itself creates distinct hurdles for the child, above and beyond the combined effects of general anxiety or behavioral noncompliance.

One observation from the data was that children taking medication for the underlying attention condition had fundamentally lower wellness scores. The authors advise caution when interpreting this specific data point, noting that observational studies cannot evaluate how a specific treatment improves or worsens an outcome compared to an unmedicated baseline over time.

The sample of medicated children was quite small, especially in the younger age brackets. Those receiving pharmaceutical interventions likely exhibited much more severe baseline symptoms than the unmedicated group. More severe symptoms naturally correspond with steeper functional challenges, meaning the lower scores likely reflect the underlying severity of the condition rather than a negative effect of the medicine itself.

The study design carries a few computational limitations. Evaluating behavior and wellness solely through parent proxy reports can introduce shared measurement variance. Because the same parent is reporting on both the child’s hyperactivity symptoms and their daily quality of life, their own mood or reporting biases might influence both scores simultaneously.

Additionally, the behavioral screening tool used in the study identifies symptoms but does not replace a comprehensive clinical psychiatric assessment. Expanding future research to include self-reported data from older adolescents and teacher observations could provide a more rounded perspective on the children’s psychological outcomes. Environmental barriers, such as a lack of school community support, should also be investigated to see how external settings influence a child’s social and academic success.

The findings suggest that medical and psychological interventions should address a child’s holistic behavioral and educational needs, rather than just managing core hyperactivity traits. Fostering better long-term outcomes also requires supporting the mental health of caregivers and treating co-occurring medical conditions like autism or anxiety alongside the primary symptoms.

The study, “The Long-Term Impact of ADHD on Children and Adolescents’ Health-Related Quality of Life: Results From a Longitudinal Population-Based Australian Study,” was authored by Ha Nguyet Dao Le, Courtney Keily, David Coghill, and Lisa Gold.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/tracking-the-13-year-well-being-toll-of-childhood-hyperactivity/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ADHDlongterm #ChildWellbeing #QualityOfLife #Hyperactivity #Inattention #ADHDawareness #ChildDevelopment #SocialEmotionalHealth #PediatricsResearch #MentalHealthSupport

The Weather of Our First Reaching

https://thereflectivemind9.wordpress.com/2026/06/18/the-weather-of-our-first-reaching/

The Weather of Our First Reaching

https://thereflectivemind9.wordpress.com/2026/06/18/the-weather-of-our-first-reaching/

The First Universe We Ever Knew

https://thereflectivemind9.wordpress.com/2026/06/16/the-first-universe-we-ever-knew/

The First Universe We Ever Knew

https://thereflectivemind9.wordpress.com/2026/06/16/the-first-universe-we-ever-knew/

DATE: June 13, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Risky play helps children develop real-world safety skills, new virtual reality research suggests

URL: https://www.psypost.org/risky-play-helps-children-develop-real-world-safety-skills-new-virtual-reality-research-suggests/

A recent study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology suggests that children who engage in risky play tend to develop better risk management skills for real-world situations. The research provides evidence that taking physical chances during playtime helps children learn to navigate higher-consequence hazards, such as crossing a busy street, with greater efficiency. Children who took more risks on the playground made safe decisions more quickly when navigating a simulated busy intersection.

Risky play refers to activities that involve a sense of uncertainty and physical thrill. Examples include climbing high structures, moving at fast speeds, or exploring a neighborhood without adult supervision. Adults often view these activities as hazardous. But allowing children to test their physical limits tends to foster resilience, physical coordination, and emotional growth.

When children encounter physical risks, they engage in a framework of behaviors known as the dynamic risk management model. The first step in this model is an emotional process called risk willingness, which involves a child’s natural interest in taking on a physical challenge. They also practice risk assessment, a cognitive process of evaluating the danger before acting. Finally, they engage in risk handling, which refers to the actual physical movements taken to navigate the situation.

Over time, these repeated cycles of perceiving a challenge and taking physical action help children build a mental map of their capabilities. This continuous learning cycle is known as the perception-action loop. Through repeated trial and error, children learn to interpret environmental clues and adjust their physical movements accordingly. Environmental psychologists often refer to these environmental clues as affordances, which are the physical opportunities for action that a specific space provides relative to a child’s unique abilities.

Past research supports the idea that risky play builds general competence in traditional play settings. However, it remained unknown whether these skills transfer to completely different, non-play scenarios. The current research was designed to test whether the benefits of childhood risk-taking during play actually translate into practical safety skills, like pedestrian navigation.

Parents, schools, and policymakers have spent decades trying to make childhood safer by removing risk. But researchers theorize that if children never get to practice assessing and confronting small, manageable dangers, they may not develop the judgment they need for bigger ones.

Mariana Brussoni, a professor at the University of British Columbia department of pediatrics and school of population and public health, director of the Human Early Learning Partnership, and researcher at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, helped lead the research. “This risky play is a fundamental way that children learn about the world, about themselves and how to keep themselves safe in diverse situations,” Brussoni said.

The authors also wanted to explore how different cultural environments might shape a child’s willingness to take physical chances. For instance, Norwegian culture and national education policies actively encourage outdoor independence and risk-tolerant play. By contrast, Canadian environments tend to feature more restricted, supervised childhoods. To investigate this, an international team of scientists from the University of British Columbia, Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education in Norway, and Colorado State University collaborated on the project.

To safely observe children navigating hazards, the researchers utilized immersive virtual reality technology developed by the ViRMa project at Queen Maud University College. This allowed the scientists to place children in simulated risky environments without exposing them to actual bodily harm. A notable 85 percent of the children reported that the virtual reality environments felt realistic to them.

This technological approach was necessary because of the obvious dangers of testing pedestrian behavior in the real world. “I don’t think there’s any ethics board in the world that would allow you to throw children into traffic to see how they did,” Brussoni said. Brussoni authored the study alongside Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, a researcher at Queen Maud University College.

“We really haven’t been able to properly test this hypothesis before we had access to these kinds of technologies,” Brussoni added. The sample consisted of 424 children between the ages of seven and eleven. Specifically, the group included 361 children from Norway and 63 children from Canada.

Each child completed two separate virtual reality tasks while wearing a specialized headset and moving around a real gymnasium. The first task was a playground scenario designed to measure risk willingness and the likelihood of failure. Children explored a virtual structure made of balance beams and small freestanding pillars. The simulated heights varied across the structure, reaching up to 1.5 meters at the highest point.

The researchers measured several variables to calculate an overall risk willingness score. They tracked how fast the children moved, how much time they spent in the most dangerous elevated sections, and how often they ventured onto the tricky freestanding pillars. The children were given a three-minute window to explore the virtual environment as they saw fit. If a child lost their simulated balance and fell, it was recorded as a play failure.

The second task simulated an urban pedestrian traffic environment to measure risk management outside of a play context. Children had to decide when it was safe to cross a virtual bicycle path and a simulated street with oncoming traffic. The virtual vehicles moved at a constant speed of five meters per second. The traffic density started high and gradually decreased over time, making the crossing easier the longer the child waited.

The scientists recorded the children’s assessment time across the six pedestrian tasks. This measurement captured how long the children waited before deciding to cross the road. On average, the participants spent about 107 seconds evaluating the traffic across all trials. The researchers also tracked collisions and near-misses, defined as crossing within 0.8 seconds of a moving vehicle. Across the sample, 27 percent of the children managed to cross safely in all six trials.

The researchers found that Norwegian children demonstrated significantly higher risk willingness during the playground task than their Canadian peers. This pattern remained true even after adjusting for differences in age and sex. The Canadian participants were slightly older on average, but they still displayed more risk-averse behavior. Older children and boys generally exhibited higher risk willingness across both cultural groups.

Among all participants, having a higher risk willingness was associated with a greater likelihood of falling off the virtual playground equipment. Overall, 21 percent of the children experienced a simulated fall during the playground scenario. Statistical models showed that a unit increase in a child’s risk willingness score raised the odds of a simulated fall by 78 percent. The researchers suggest that falling, stumbling, and trying again teaches children what they are capable of, where their limits are, and how to adjust.

Interestingly, this increased willingness to take risks during play translated to more efficient decision-making in the higher-stakes traffic scenario. Children who showed higher risk willingness in the playground spent significantly less time evaluating the traffic before deciding to cross the street. For example, a child with the highest risk willingness score spent about 68 seconds less assessing the traffic than a child with the lowest score.

Most importantly, this faster decision-making did not result in more pedestrian accidents. The researchers observed that higher risk willingness was not associated with an increase in dangerous choices, such as collisions or near-misses with the virtual vehicles. The children with higher risk willingness simply processed the environmental information faster, read the situation, and made safe crossing decisions more efficiently.

While the study provides evidence for the benefits of risky play, readers should avoid interpreting these findings as a recommendation to expose children to extreme or unmanageable dangers. The concept of risky play revolves around manageable challenges that match a child’s growing physical capabilities, rather than reckless endangerment. The findings suggest that the playgrounds we design, and the freedoms we grant or withhold, might be shaping a child’s ability to navigate a complex world long after they leave the swings behind.

“Keeping children safe means letting them take risks,” Brussoni said. To support children’s outdoor risky play, Brussoni points to three main ingredients: time, space, and freedom. She suggests parents carve out real, unstructured time every day and find interesting places to play with other children, rather than relying solely on standard playground equipment that kids quickly outgrow.

Parents should then step back enough to let children actually play, which includes allowing small physical risks that might feel scary to watch. For parents who struggle to resist intervening, Brussoni offers a simple trick. She recommends counting to 17 before saying “be careful.” This brief pause is just long enough to shift from a fear response to a more considered reaction.

For communities, the findings point toward a need to cultivate collective understanding around the importance of risky play and independent mobility for children. This means ensuring there are natural and creative spaces for play that are as safe as necessary, rather than as safe as possible.

The authors note a few limitations to their research. Although a vast majority of the children rated the virtual reality environments as highly realistic, computer simulations cannot perfectly capture the complex physical nuances of the real world. The pedestrian task also used only one trial per difficulty level. This design choice reduced testing fatigue but limited the researchers’ ability to analyze how an individual child’s behavior might vary across multiple identical attempts.

In addition, the virtual reality setup was not designed to accommodate children who use physical mobility aids, such as wheelchairs. This aspect of the methodology limits the ability to generalize the findings to children with different physical disabilities. Scientists will need to adapt these virtual environments to ensure future research includes participants of all physical abilities.

Another notable detail is that the Canadian children were recruited from a specific school known for encouraging outdoor risky play. Because this school is not entirely representative of standard Canadian educational environments, the sample might reflect an unusually high risk tolerance for the region. The true cultural gap in risk willingness between typical Norwegian and Canadian children might be even larger than what the scientists observed in this specific study.

Future research could explore a wider variety of cultural groups and physical scenarios to see if these patterns hold across different populations. Scientists might also develop new technological methods to track children’s behavior in actual real-world settings to verify the results gathered from the virtual reality simulations.

The study, “The developmental importance of risky play: A cross-national virtual reality study,” was authored by Mariana Brussoni, Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, Ole Johan Sando, Rasmus Kleppe, Megan Zeni, and Anita Bundy.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/risky-play-helps-children-develop-real-world-safety-skills-new-virtual-reality-research-suggests/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #RiskyPlay #ChildSafety #RiskManagement #PedestrianSafety #VirtualRealityResearch #EnvironmentalPsychology #ChildDevelopment #OutdoorPlay #CulturalDifferences #SafeYetRisky

DATE: June 13, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: Risky play helps children develop real-world safety skills, new virtual reality research suggests

URL: https://www.psypost.org/risky-play-helps-children-develop-real-world-safety-skills-new-virtual-reality-research-suggests/

A recent study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology suggests that children who engage in risky play tend to develop better risk management skills for real-world situations. The research provides evidence that taking physical chances during playtime helps children learn to navigate higher-consequence hazards, such as crossing a busy street, with greater efficiency. Children who took more risks on the playground made safe decisions more quickly when navigating a simulated busy intersection.

Risky play refers to activities that involve a sense of uncertainty and physical thrill. Examples include climbing high structures, moving at fast speeds, or exploring a neighborhood without adult supervision. Adults often view these activities as hazardous. But allowing children to test their physical limits tends to foster resilience, physical coordination, and emotional growth.

When children encounter physical risks, they engage in a framework of behaviors known as the dynamic risk management model. The first step in this model is an emotional process called risk willingness, which involves a child’s natural interest in taking on a physical challenge. They also practice risk assessment, a cognitive process of evaluating the danger before acting. Finally, they engage in risk handling, which refers to the actual physical movements taken to navigate the situation.

Over time, these repeated cycles of perceiving a challenge and taking physical action help children build a mental map of their capabilities. This continuous learning cycle is known as the perception-action loop. Through repeated trial and error, children learn to interpret environmental clues and adjust their physical movements accordingly. Environmental psychologists often refer to these environmental clues as affordances, which are the physical opportunities for action that a specific space provides relative to a child’s unique abilities.

Past research supports the idea that risky play builds general competence in traditional play settings. However, it remained unknown whether these skills transfer to completely different, non-play scenarios. The current research was designed to test whether the benefits of childhood risk-taking during play actually translate into practical safety skills, like pedestrian navigation.

Parents, schools, and policymakers have spent decades trying to make childhood safer by removing risk. But researchers theorize that if children never get to practice assessing and confronting small, manageable dangers, they may not develop the judgment they need for bigger ones.

Mariana Brussoni, a professor at the University of British Columbia department of pediatrics and school of population and public health, director of the Human Early Learning Partnership, and researcher at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, helped lead the research. “This risky play is a fundamental way that children learn about the world, about themselves and how to keep themselves safe in diverse situations,” Brussoni said.

The authors also wanted to explore how different cultural environments might shape a child’s willingness to take physical chances. For instance, Norwegian culture and national education policies actively encourage outdoor independence and risk-tolerant play. By contrast, Canadian environments tend to feature more restricted, supervised childhoods. To investigate this, an international team of scientists from the University of British Columbia, Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education in Norway, and Colorado State University collaborated on the project.

To safely observe children navigating hazards, the researchers utilized immersive virtual reality technology developed by the ViRMa project at Queen Maud University College. This allowed the scientists to place children in simulated risky environments without exposing them to actual bodily harm. A notable 85 percent of the children reported that the virtual reality environments felt realistic to them.

This technological approach was necessary because of the obvious dangers of testing pedestrian behavior in the real world. “I don’t think there’s any ethics board in the world that would allow you to throw children into traffic to see how they did,” Brussoni said. Brussoni authored the study alongside Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, a researcher at Queen Maud University College.

“We really haven’t been able to properly test this hypothesis before we had access to these kinds of technologies,” Brussoni added. The sample consisted of 424 children between the ages of seven and eleven. Specifically, the group included 361 children from Norway and 63 children from Canada.

Each child completed two separate virtual reality tasks while wearing a specialized headset and moving around a real gymnasium. The first task was a playground scenario designed to measure risk willingness and the likelihood of failure. Children explored a virtual structure made of balance beams and small freestanding pillars. The simulated heights varied across the structure, reaching up to 1.5 meters at the highest point.

The researchers measured several variables to calculate an overall risk willingness score. They tracked how fast the children moved, how much time they spent in the most dangerous elevated sections, and how often they ventured onto the tricky freestanding pillars. The children were given a three-minute window to explore the virtual environment as they saw fit. If a child lost their simulated balance and fell, it was recorded as a play failure.

The second task simulated an urban pedestrian traffic environment to measure risk management outside of a play context. Children had to decide when it was safe to cross a virtual bicycle path and a simulated street with oncoming traffic. The virtual vehicles moved at a constant speed of five meters per second. The traffic density started high and gradually decreased over time, making the crossing easier the longer the child waited.

The scientists recorded the children’s assessment time across the six pedestrian tasks. This measurement captured how long the children waited before deciding to cross the road. On average, the participants spent about 107 seconds evaluating the traffic across all trials. The researchers also tracked collisions and near-misses, defined as crossing within 0.8 seconds of a moving vehicle. Across the sample, 27 percent of the children managed to cross safely in all six trials.

The researchers found that Norwegian children demonstrated significantly higher risk willingness during the playground task than their Canadian peers. This pattern remained true even after adjusting for differences in age and sex. The Canadian participants were slightly older on average, but they still displayed more risk-averse behavior. Older children and boys generally exhibited higher risk willingness across both cultural groups.

Among all participants, having a higher risk willingness was associated with a greater likelihood of falling off the virtual playground equipment. Overall, 21 percent of the children experienced a simulated fall during the playground scenario. Statistical models showed that a unit increase in a child’s risk willingness score raised the odds of a simulated fall by 78 percent. The researchers suggest that falling, stumbling, and trying again teaches children what they are capable of, where their limits are, and how to adjust.

Interestingly, this increased willingness to take risks during play translated to more efficient decision-making in the higher-stakes traffic scenario. Children who showed higher risk willingness in the playground spent significantly less time evaluating the traffic before deciding to cross the street. For example, a child with the highest risk willingness score spent about 68 seconds less assessing the traffic than a child with the lowest score.

Most importantly, this faster decision-making did not result in more pedestrian accidents. The researchers observed that higher risk willingness was not associated with an increase in dangerous choices, such as collisions or near-misses with the virtual vehicles. The children with higher risk willingness simply processed the environmental information faster, read the situation, and made safe crossing decisions more efficiently.

While the study provides evidence for the benefits of risky play, readers should avoid interpreting these findings as a recommendation to expose children to extreme or unmanageable dangers. The concept of risky play revolves around manageable challenges that match a child’s growing physical capabilities, rather than reckless endangerment. The findings suggest that the playgrounds we design, and the freedoms we grant or withhold, might be shaping a child’s ability to navigate a complex world long after they leave the swings behind.

“Keeping children safe means letting them take risks,” Brussoni said. To support children’s outdoor risky play, Brussoni points to three main ingredients: time, space, and freedom. She suggests parents carve out real, unstructured time every day and find interesting places to play with other children, rather than relying solely on standard playground equipment that kids quickly outgrow.

Parents should then step back enough to let children actually play, which includes allowing small physical risks that might feel scary to watch. For parents who struggle to resist intervening, Brussoni offers a simple trick. She recommends counting to 17 before saying “be careful.” This brief pause is just long enough to shift from a fear response to a more considered reaction.

For communities, the findings point toward a need to cultivate collective understanding around the importance of risky play and independent mobility for children. This means ensuring there are natural and creative spaces for play that are as safe as necessary, rather than as safe as possible.

The authors note a few limitations to their research. Although a vast majority of the children rated the virtual reality environments as highly realistic, computer simulations cannot perfectly capture the complex physical nuances of the real world. The pedestrian task also used only one trial per difficulty level. This design choice reduced testing fatigue but limited the researchers’ ability to analyze how an individual child’s behavior might vary across multiple identical attempts.

In addition, the virtual reality setup was not designed to accommodate children who use physical mobility aids, such as wheelchairs. This aspect of the methodology limits the ability to generalize the findings to children with different physical disabilities. Scientists will need to adapt these virtual environments to ensure future research includes participants of all physical abilities.

Another notable detail is that the Canadian children were recruited from a specific school known for encouraging outdoor risky play. Because this school is not entirely representative of standard Canadian educational environments, the sample might reflect an unusually high risk tolerance for the region. The true cultural gap in risk willingness between typical Norwegian and Canadian children might be even larger than what the scientists observed in this specific study.

Future research could explore a wider variety of cultural groups and physical scenarios to see if these patterns hold across different populations. Scientists might also develop new technological methods to track children’s behavior in actual real-world settings to verify the results gathered from the virtual reality simulations.

The study, “The developmental importance of risky play: A cross-national virtual reality study,” was authored by Mariana Brussoni, Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, Ole Johan Sando, Rasmus Kleppe, Megan Zeni, and Anita Bundy.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/risky-play-helps-children-develop-real-world-safety-skills-new-virtual-reality-research-suggests/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #RiskyPlay #ChildSafety #RiskManagement #PedestrianSafety #VirtualRealityResearch #EnvironmentalPsychology #ChildDevelopment #OutdoorPlay #CulturalDifferences #SafeYetRisky

DATE: June 13, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: How a third grader’s afternoon restlessness predicts their chances of finishing college

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-third-graders-afternoon-restlessness-predicts-their-chances-of-finishing-college/

A recent study published in Developmental Psychology suggests that a child’s ability to control their physical movement tends to wear down as the school day progresses. This steady decline is linked to their long-term academic success. By tracking elementary students with wearable devices, researchers found that children who can sustain their behavioral control for longer periods tend to achieve more in high school and complete more years of education as adults.

Self-regulation is the ability to manage thoughts, emotions, and actions to fit the expectations of a specific environment. In a standard classroom setting, this might look like a student raising their hand to speak rather than shouting out an answer. It also involves staying seated during a lesson instead of wandering around the room.

“Being in the classroom requires some degree of self-control. Children are expected to walk instead of run, keep their hands to themselves, and stay in their seats when the situation requires,” says lead author Andrew E. Koepp, an assistant professor of applied psychology at New York University.

Controlling these natural impulses takes mental effort. Because managing behavior requires ongoing cognitive energy, a child’s capacity to regulate their actions might not be a fixed trait.

“Applying this self-control takes effort and by the final ring of the school bell, children have been doing it for hours,” Koepp says. As a result, this ability may change throughout the day as mental fatigue sets in.

Traditional tools for measuring behavior usually rely on adult observations or surveys conducted over several months. Sometimes researchers also use one-time laboratory tasks to test a child’s restraint. These methods make it difficult to observe how a student’s self-control might fluctuate from hour to hour in a natural school setting.

Adult observations can also introduce interpersonal biases. For example, a teacher’s subjective rating of a student might be influenced by a halo effect, where a generally positive impression colors their specific behavioral ratings. A continuous objective measurement tool helps avoid these human biases.

To overcome this measurement barrier, scientists can use wearable technology. Devices that track physical movement provide continuous naturalistic data about how active a child is during the day. This passive sensing happens in the background without interrupting the student’s normal routine.

Since regulating physical movement is a primary way young students are expected to show self-control, tracking gross motor activity offers a window into their behavioral endurance. The authors sought to understand if this physical self-regulation deteriorates across the typical school hours. They also wanted to see if individual differences in this daily behavioral stamina might predict a student’s educational success years into the future.

The authors analyzed data from a large national project that followed a group of children from birth to age 26. Their specific analytic sample included 747 participants. The demographic breakdown of the group was 49 percent female, 76 percent White, 13 percent Black, 6 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent other racial or ethnic backgrounds.

When these participants were in the third grade, they wore small devices called accelerometers around their waists for up to five school days. An accelerometer is a wearable sensor that measures the frequency and intensity of a person’s physical movement. The research team collected this continuous movement data for each hour between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to establish a timeline of behavior.

“We focused on third grade because it marks a transition to middle childhood and greater independent control of behavior,” the authors note in the study. This period represents an important phase when students generally stay in a single classroom rather than moving around for different subjects.

In addition to the movement tracking, teachers and trained classroom observers independently rated the children on hyperactive and disruptive behaviors. The children also completed standardized academic tests in the third grade to measure their learning in math and reading. Following up years later, the participants completed academic tests again at age 15.

When the participants reached 26 years of age, they reported the total number of years of education they had completed. The researchers also examined observational data of the participants’ mothers interacting with them during early childhood. These early assessments occurred at regular intervals from age six months up to four and a half years.

The data showed that, on average, a child’s physical activity levels tend to steadily increase as the school day progresses. The authors suggest this rising physical activity reflects a gradual decline in the students’ ability to regulate their behavior. As the hours pass, the mental effort required to sit still seems to deplete.

“Our findings imply that, behaviorally speaking, most children tend to ‘lose it’ a bit by the end of the school day,” notes Koepp. This physical restlessness appears to mirror mental exhaustion.

There were notable individual differences among the students. Some children showed much steeper daily increases in activity than others. Teachers and classroom observers rated the students who had the steepest activity increases as more impulsive and disruptive overall.

The scientists found that the rate at which a child’s activity increased across the day predicted their academic performance. Children who showed larger increases in physical movement from morning to afternoon tended to have lower academic test scores in the third grade. This suggests that the ability to sustain behavioral regulation is tied to a student’s capacity to engage with classroom learning.

“Interestingly, those who could ‘keep it together’ for longer tended to do better in school and were more likely to achieve educational success long-term,” says Koepp. The data highlighted a notable link to higher education.

This pattern had long-term implications. Lower academic achievement in the third grade provided a developmental pathway to lower test scores in high school. It also predicted fewer total years of education completed by the time the participants reached early adulthood. In fact, children with more self-control had 20 percent greater odds of completing a four-year degree.

The researchers also discovered links to the early childhood experiences of the participants. Mothers who provided more cognitive stimulation and showed higher sensitivity in the early years had children with better behavioral control in preschool.

In turn, that early self-control in preschool predicted smaller increases in physical activity across the third-grade school day. This sequence provides evidence for a developmental cascade where early positive parenting helps build the foundational skills needed for behavioral stamina in elementary school.

While the tracking devices offer an objective way to measure behavior, the authors point out a few limitations. The wearable sensors only capture physical movement, which means they do not measure how well a child regulates their emotions or their internal attention.

Readers should not misinterpret the findings to mean that all physical movement in the classroom is harmful. Physical activity can help children learn by allowing them to explore their environment or use gestures to express complex ideas. The type of movement captured by the waist-worn devices was mostly large bodily shifts that can disrupt traditional classroom tasks.

Another limitation involves the demographic makeup of the participants. The children in this study were born in 1991, and the group was predominantly White. The findings might not perfectly reflect the experiences of a more contemporary and diverse student population.

Future studies might look at how these patterns change as children grow older and their brain development advances. Older students generally become less active and typically develop stronger executive functions. Executive functions are the higher-level mental skills needed to plan ahead, focus attention, and meet goals.

“We know that self-control helps children ignore distractions and focus on learning. Our findings imply that self-control is not just a personality trait, but something that can wear out and also perhaps something that could be restored,” says Koepp.

The researchers suggest exploring specific parts of the school day that might help restore a child’s behavioral stamina. For instance, the data indicated brief shifts in activity around the lunch hour. This hints that a break for food and socializing might temporarily reset a student’s self-control.

“As a society, we should value activities like recess that could let children blow off some steam and potentially recover some of this self-control. It might even benefit their learning,” Koepp adds.

Scientists could also investigate whether a good night of sleep or a vigorous physical education class helps children maintain their focus later in the day. Identifying the daily routines that support behavioral regulation could provide educators with simple ways to improve classroom learning without requiring entirely new curricula.

Future research could also incorporate multiple types of wearable technology. Combining movement sensors with devices that track heart rate or eye movements could provide a much broader picture of how a student manages their arousal and attention. Such tools could help schools find ways to better accommodate movement while supporting student focus.

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The study, “Keeping It Together: Hourly Dynamics of Children’s Behavioral Regulation at School in a Decades-Long Cohort Study,” was authored by Andrew E. Koepp, Elizabeth T. Gershoff, Deborah Lowe Vandell, Angela L. Duckworth, and Allyson P. Mackey.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-third-graders-afternoon-restlessness-predicts-their-chances-of-finishing-college/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #selfregulation #academicachievement #wearables #childdevelopment #educationalresearch #executivefunction #classroombehavior #earlyeducation #psychology #educationtech

DATE: June 13, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------

TITLE: How a third grader’s afternoon restlessness predicts their chances of finishing college

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-third-graders-afternoon-restlessness-predicts-their-chances-of-finishing-college/

A recent study published in Developmental Psychology suggests that a child’s ability to control their physical movement tends to wear down as the school day progresses. This steady decline is linked to their long-term academic success. By tracking elementary students with wearable devices, researchers found that children who can sustain their behavioral control for longer periods tend to achieve more in high school and complete more years of education as adults.

Self-regulation is the ability to manage thoughts, emotions, and actions to fit the expectations of a specific environment. In a standard classroom setting, this might look like a student raising their hand to speak rather than shouting out an answer. It also involves staying seated during a lesson instead of wandering around the room.

“Being in the classroom requires some degree of self-control. Children are expected to walk instead of run, keep their hands to themselves, and stay in their seats when the situation requires,” says lead author Andrew E. Koepp, an assistant professor of applied psychology at New York University.

Controlling these natural impulses takes mental effort. Because managing behavior requires ongoing cognitive energy, a child’s capacity to regulate their actions might not be a fixed trait.

“Applying this self-control takes effort and by the final ring of the school bell, children have been doing it for hours,” Koepp says. As a result, this ability may change throughout the day as mental fatigue sets in.

Traditional tools for measuring behavior usually rely on adult observations or surveys conducted over several months. Sometimes researchers also use one-time laboratory tasks to test a child’s restraint. These methods make it difficult to observe how a student’s self-control might fluctuate from hour to hour in a natural school setting.

Adult observations can also introduce interpersonal biases. For example, a teacher’s subjective rating of a student might be influenced by a halo effect, where a generally positive impression colors their specific behavioral ratings. A continuous objective measurement tool helps avoid these human biases.

To overcome this measurement barrier, scientists can use wearable technology. Devices that track physical movement provide continuous naturalistic data about how active a child is during the day. This passive sensing happens in the background without interrupting the student’s normal routine.

Since regulating physical movement is a primary way young students are expected to show self-control, tracking gross motor activity offers a window into their behavioral endurance. The authors sought to understand if this physical self-regulation deteriorates across the typical school hours. They also wanted to see if individual differences in this daily behavioral stamina might predict a student’s educational success years into the future.

The authors analyzed data from a large national project that followed a group of children from birth to age 26. Their specific analytic sample included 747 participants. The demographic breakdown of the group was 49 percent female, 76 percent White, 13 percent Black, 6 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent other racial or ethnic backgrounds.

When these participants were in the third grade, they wore small devices called accelerometers around their waists for up to five school days. An accelerometer is a wearable sensor that measures the frequency and intensity of a person’s physical movement. The research team collected this continuous movement data for each hour between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to establish a timeline of behavior.

“We focused on third grade because it marks a transition to middle childhood and greater independent control of behavior,” the authors note in the study. This period represents an important phase when students generally stay in a single classroom rather than moving around for different subjects.

In addition to the movement tracking, teachers and trained classroom observers independently rated the children on hyperactive and disruptive behaviors. The children also completed standardized academic tests in the third grade to measure their learning in math and reading. Following up years later, the participants completed academic tests again at age 15.

When the participants reached 26 years of age, they reported the total number of years of education they had completed. The researchers also examined observational data of the participants’ mothers interacting with them during early childhood. These early assessments occurred at regular intervals from age six months up to four and a half years.

The data showed that, on average, a child’s physical activity levels tend to steadily increase as the school day progresses. The authors suggest this rising physical activity reflects a gradual decline in the students’ ability to regulate their behavior. As the hours pass, the mental effort required to sit still seems to deplete.

“Our findings imply that, behaviorally speaking, most children tend to ‘lose it’ a bit by the end of the school day,” notes Koepp. This physical restlessness appears to mirror mental exhaustion.

There were notable individual differences among the students. Some children showed much steeper daily increases in activity than others. Teachers and classroom observers rated the students who had the steepest activity increases as more impulsive and disruptive overall.

The scientists found that the rate at which a child’s activity increased across the day predicted their academic performance. Children who showed larger increases in physical movement from morning to afternoon tended to have lower academic test scores in the third grade. This suggests that the ability to sustain behavioral regulation is tied to a student’s capacity to engage with classroom learning.

“Interestingly, those who could ‘keep it together’ for longer tended to do better in school and were more likely to achieve educational success long-term,” says Koepp. The data highlighted a notable link to higher education.

This pattern had long-term implications. Lower academic achievement in the third grade provided a developmental pathway to lower test scores in high school. It also predicted fewer total years of education completed by the time the participants reached early adulthood. In fact, children with more self-control had 20 percent greater odds of completing a four-year degree.

The researchers also discovered links to the early childhood experiences of the participants. Mothers who provided more cognitive stimulation and showed higher sensitivity in the early years had children with better behavioral control in preschool.

In turn, that early self-control in preschool predicted smaller increases in physical activity across the third-grade school day. This sequence provides evidence for a developmental cascade where early positive parenting helps build the foundational skills needed for behavioral stamina in elementary school.

While the tracking devices offer an objective way to measure behavior, the authors point out a few limitations. The wearable sensors only capture physical movement, which means they do not measure how well a child regulates their emotions or their internal attention.

Readers should not misinterpret the findings to mean that all physical movement in the classroom is harmful. Physical activity can help children learn by allowing them to explore their environment or use gestures to express complex ideas. The type of movement captured by the waist-worn devices was mostly large bodily shifts that can disrupt traditional classroom tasks.

Another limitation involves the demographic makeup of the participants. The children in this study were born in 1991, and the group was predominantly White. The findings might not perfectly reflect the experiences of a more contemporary and diverse student population.

Future studies might look at how these patterns change as children grow older and their brain development advances. Older students generally become less active and typically develop stronger executive functions. Executive functions are the higher-level mental skills needed to plan ahead, focus attention, and meet goals.

“We know that self-control helps children ignore distractions and focus on learning. Our findings imply that self-control is not just a personality trait, but something that can wear out and also perhaps something that could be restored,” says Koepp.

The researchers suggest exploring specific parts of the school day that might help restore a child’s behavioral stamina. For instance, the data indicated brief shifts in activity around the lunch hour. This hints that a break for food and socializing might temporarily reset a student’s self-control.

“As a society, we should value activities like recess that could let children blow off some steam and potentially recover some of this self-control. It might even benefit their learning,” Koepp adds.

Scientists could also investigate whether a good night of sleep or a vigorous physical education class helps children maintain their focus later in the day. Identifying the daily routines that support behavioral regulation could provide educators with simple ways to improve classroom learning without requiring entirely new curricula.

Future research could also incorporate multiple types of wearable technology. Combining movement sensors with devices that track heart rate or eye movements could provide a much broader picture of how a student manages their arousal and attention. Such tools could help schools find ways to better accommodate movement while supporting student focus.

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The study, “Keeping It Together: Hourly Dynamics of Children’s Behavioral Regulation at School in a Decades-Long Cohort Study,” was authored by Andrew E. Koepp, Elizabeth T. Gershoff, Deborah Lowe Vandell, Angela L. Duckworth, and Allyson P. Mackey.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-a-third-graders-afternoon-restlessness-predicts-their-chances-of-finishing-college/

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #selfregulation #academicachievement #wearables #childdevelopment #educationalresearch #executivefunction #classroombehavior #earlyeducation #psychology #educationtech

DATE: June 11, 2026 at 02:17PM
SOURCE: STAT NEWS NEUROSCIENCE

TITLE: Study highlights influence of socioeconomic status on children’s brain development

URL: https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/socioeconomic-status-impact-brain-development/?utm_campaign=rss

During the first five years of life, more than half the calories a growing child consumes go to fueling the massive construction project inside their cranium. Building a brain — all the neuronal connections that form memories, store language, perceive the world, control bodily movements — is an energy-intensive act of singular creation. The unique architecture of a child’s mind — what defines how they think and feel — is constantly being shaped by the interplay of the surrounding environments and the genetic blueprints spooled inside their developing tissues. 

Scientists have long wondered which aspects of childhood most influence neural development. But it’s only in the last few years that collections of data large enough to start to answer those questions have emerged. Now, after analyzing brain scans from nearly 12,000 9- and 10-year old kids, a group of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine has found that the number one environmental factor influencing brain structure and function — more than IQ, parenting style, or health history — is the socioeconomic status of a child’s family.

Read the rest…

URL: https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/socioeconomic-status-impact-brain-development/?utm_campaign=rss

-------------------------------------------------

STAT News reports "from the frontiers of health and medicine".

Learn more at https://www.statnews.com/topic/neuroscience .

See also their complete Mastodon account at @STAT .

This robot is NOT affiliated with STAT news and merely rebroadcasts from their site. Responses posted here are not monitored.

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #socioeconomicstatus #braindevelopment #childdevelopment #neuroscience #earlychildhood #brainhealth #lifecourse #educationinequality #childhoodresearch #healthinequality

DATE: June 11, 2026 at 02:17PM
SOURCE: STAT NEWS NEUROSCIENCE

TITLE: Study highlights influence of socioeconomic status on children’s brain development

URL: https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/socioeconomic-status-impact-brain-development/?utm_campaign=rss

During the first five years of life, more than half the calories a growing child consumes go to fueling the massive construction project inside their cranium. Building a brain — all the neuronal connections that form memories, store language, perceive the world, control bodily movements — is an energy-intensive act of singular creation. The unique architecture of a child’s mind — what defines how they think and feel — is constantly being shaped by the interplay of the surrounding environments and the genetic blueprints spooled inside their developing tissues. 

Scientists have long wondered which aspects of childhood most influence neural development. But it’s only in the last few years that collections of data large enough to start to answer those questions have emerged. Now, after analyzing brain scans from nearly 12,000 9- and 10-year old kids, a group of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine has found that the number one environmental factor influencing brain structure and function — more than IQ, parenting style, or health history — is the socioeconomic status of a child’s family.

Read the rest…

URL: https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/socioeconomic-status-impact-brain-development/?utm_campaign=rss

-------------------------------------------------

STAT News reports "from the frontiers of health and medicine".

Learn more at https://www.statnews.com/topic/neuroscience .

See also their complete Mastodon account at @STAT .

This robot is NOT affiliated with STAT news and merely rebroadcasts from their site. Responses posted here are not monitored.

-------------------------------------------------

Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org

Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

-------------------------------------------------

#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #socioeconomicstatus #braindevelopment #childdevelopment #neuroscience #earlychildhood #brainhealth #lifecourse #educationinequality #childhoodresearch #healthinequality

💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: A #UMass #Amherst #study tracked 379 preschoolers and found that irregular bedtimes predicted lower #vocabulary and #memory scores, even after accounting for total sleep. 😴

#Children’s #sleep timing fluctuated by about 60 minutes on average. Surprisingly, attention was unaffected, suggesting irregular sleep hits specific #brain functions rather than everything at once. 🧠

👉 https://neurosciencenews.com/irregular-sleep-memory-learning-30818/

#preschool #childdevelopment #neuroscience #parenting #education #pediatrics #health #actigraphy

💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: A #UMass #Amherst #study tracked 379 preschoolers and found that irregular bedtimes predicted lower #vocabulary and #memory scores, even after accounting for total sleep. 😴

#Children’s #sleep timing fluctuated by about 60 minutes on average. Surprisingly, attention was unaffected, suggesting irregular sleep hits specific #brain functions rather than everything at once. 🧠

👉 https://neurosciencenews.com/irregular-sleep-memory-learning-30818/

#preschool #childdevelopment #neuroscience #parenting #education #pediatrics #health #actigraphy

New York Times: ‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School. This link goes to a gift article. “Again and again, the world’s leading social media companies have targeted students, even as complaints have mounted that they are hurting teenagers’ mental health and academic performance, according to a New York Times review of internal documents that lay […]

New York Times: ‘Teachers Are Going to Hate It’: How Social Media Apps Hooked Teens at School. This link goes to a gift article. “Again and again, the world’s leading social media companies have targeted students, even as complaints have mounted that they are hurting teenagers’ mental health and academic performance, according to a New York Times review of internal documents that lay […]

4-year-old’s emotional intelligence is off the charts, and people are giving kudos to his mom

http://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/4-year-old-emotional-intelligence-is-off-the-charts-and-people-are-giving-kudos-to-his-mom-ex1/

4-year-old’s emotional intelligence is off the charts, and people are giving kudos to his mom

http://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/4-year-old-emotional-intelligence-is-off-the-charts-and-people-are-giving-kudos-to-his-mom-ex1/

Sometimes you want to speak to your child’s teacher, but you also don’t want to come across as 'that parent' 🤍. Educational psychologist Claire Maher shares insights on how to approach difficult conversations with teachers without creating tension or conflict.

Read more here:https://zurl.co/7w0m2

#Parenting #SchoolLife #ParentingTips #BabyYumYum #Teachers #ParentingJourney #ChildDevelopment #SouthAfricanParents #Education #MomLife

Screen Time: A Childhood Crisis of Our Own Making?

Leading doctors agree excessive screen time is bad for children's development. Learn about the risks and what parents should know.

#ScreenTime, #ChildDevelopment, #KidsHealth, #ParentingTips, #DigitalWellness

https://newsletter.tf/too-much-screen-time-harms-child-development/

Doctors are seeing more problems in children linked to too much screen time. This is a big concern for child development.

#ScreenTime, #ChildDevelopment, #KidsHealth, #ParentingTips, #DigitalWellness
https://newsletter.tf/too-much-screen-time-harms-child-development/

Single motherhood isn’t the problem — unsupported motherhood is. When mothers have stability, childcare, mentorship, and community support, boys have a stronger foundation to thrive.

#SingleMothers #MentalHealth #FamilySupport #Telehealth #ChildDevelopment

Single motherhood isn’t the problem — unsupported motherhood is. When mothers have stability, childcare, mentorship, and community support, boys have a stronger foundation to thrive.

#SingleMothers #MentalHealth #FamilySupport #Telehealth #ChildDevelopment

New York City Mayor: Ahead of Summer Break, Mayor Mamdani Launches Interactive Website Connecting Young New Yorkers to Free and Low-Cost Summer Programs. “The website allows users to search by age, ZIP code, interests and travel distance, helping families find activities ranging from painting classes to basketball leagues, soccer programs, and other extracurricular opportunities. It also […]

🧠👶 New scans show that fathers’ #brains undergo significant restructuring in the first six months after #childbirth.

Gray matter shrinks in some regions and swells in others, with changes tied to #caregiving, attention, emotional processing, and the brain’s reward system. Led by psychiatrist Negin Daneshnia in #Germany, the study suggests the male brain prunes and rewires itself to meet the demands of caring for a #newborn, much like the maternal brain does during #pregnancy.

👉 https://www.sciencealert.com/fatherhood-dramatically-rewires-your-brain-scans-reveal

#fatherhood #neuroscience #parenting #science #mentalhealth #biology #research #family #childdevelopment #parenthood

Associated Press: America’s tech-filled classrooms are facing a backlash against school-assigned devices. “After pouring billions of dollars into laptops, tablets and learning apps, many schools are facing a digital reckoning. Classrooms have become saturated with screens, and a growing number of parents, teachers and school districts are saying it is time to scale back.”

Bedtime battles are different for neurodivergent children 😴💛
It’s not about 'trying harder' but understanding how their brains and bodies process sleep.
Support over struggle can change everything. Insights shared by The Neuroverse.

Read more here:https://zurl.co/2xzJx

#BabyYumYum #BYY #Neurodivergent #ParentingTips #SleepSupport #AutismAwareness #ADHDSupport #ParentingJourney #ChildDevelopment #Neurodiversity