An international team of researchers has developed a rather reliable test that predicts the future improvement of reading abilities in kids with dyslexia. The method uses functional MRI (fMRI) and diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) to scan the brain, and data crunching software to interpret the data. The researchers hope that the finding will help parents and therapists uniquely identify which learning tools are best for each child.
From the announcement by Vanderbilt University :
The 45 children who took part in the study ranged in age from 11 to 14 years old. Each child first took a battery of tests to determine their reading abilities. Based on these tests, the researchers classified 25 children as having dyslexia, which means that they exhibited significant difficulty learning to read despite having typical intelligence, vision and hearing and access to typical reading instruction.
During the fMRI scan, the youths were shown pairs of printed words and asked to identify pairs that rhymed, even though they might be spelled differently. The researchers investigated activity patterns in a brain area on the right side of the head, near the temple, known as the right inferior frontal gyrus, noting that some of the children with dyslexia activated this area much more than others. DTI scans of these same children revealed stronger connections in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, a network of brain fibers linking the front and rear of brain.Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
I got a package in the mail today: My very own (complimentary) copy of Paul Offit’s new book, “Deadly Choices; How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All.” Needless to say, I can’t wait to read it. Not coincidentally, Dr. Offit has been making the rounds of interviews in the wake of the book’s release. Although I haven’t heard any of them directly, I did see a reference to this NPR interview on the FaceBook page of an old friend, who quoted from it thusly:
IRA FLATOW: You write that some pediatricians will not see kids who are not vaccinated. Is that a good solution to the problem?
DR. PAUL OFFIT: I don’t know what’s a good solution to that problem. And I feel tremendous sympathy for the clinician who’s in private practice. On the one hand, and my wife sort of expressed this, she’s a general practitioner, a pediatrician, you know, she’ll say, you know, parents will come into her office and say I don’t want to get vaccines, including, for example, the Haemophilus influenzae vaccine, which is vaccine that prevents what was, at one point, a very common cause of bacterial meningitis.
And, you know, we’ve had three cases or three deaths, actually, from this particular bacterial form of meningitis in the Philadelphia area just in the last couple years.
And, you know, to her, it’s like, you know, let me love your child. Please don’t put me in a position where I have to practice substandard care, which can result in harm, which can hurt your child. Please don’t ask me to do that.
And I certainly understand the sentiment. On the other hand, if you don’t see that child, you know, where does that child go? Do they go to a chiropractor who doesn’t vaccinate?
I think it’s hard because then you lose any chance to really immunize the child.
My friend then offers his take, that of a pediatrician in private practice. Read more »
Just about everybody agrees that kids should eat breakfast every day. Breakfast improves their overall nutrition and their performance in school, among other things. But how helpful can breakfast really be if it consists of cereal deluged in sugar?
“Not very” is the answer.
Thankfully, a new study by Jennifer Harris and colleagues at Yale suggests that kids are perfectly willing to consume low-sugar cereals instead, particularly if they can add a pinch of table sugar or fresh fruit to the mix.
To evaluate kids’ willingness to eat low-sugar cereals, Harris’ team randomized 91 kids between the ages of five and 12 to two groups. Kids in the first group were offered low-sugar cereals like Cheerios, Corn Flakes, and Rice Krispies, which contain one to four grams of sugar per serving. Kids in the other group chose between Cocoa Pebbles, Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops, which contain about 12 grams of sugar per serving.
Kids in both groups were also offered orange juice, 1 percent milk, pre-cut sections of bananas and strawberries, and sugar packets. The kids served themselves and then completed a questionnaire about their breakfast. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
Everyone knows that when it comes to germs and kids, it can sometimes be difficult to limit the spread of infection — especially in a school or daycare setting. In this video, I talked with local TV news last week about germs and kids, and about preventing infections in college students during finals week:
If you find this video helpful, I invite you to check out my other videos at MikeSevilla.TV. Enjoy!
I [recently] participated in an interview for an upcoming publication. As the interview wound down, the dialog downshifted into small talk that included, among other things, hospital blogs.
The interviewer (who had recently been exploring the blogging community) asked me what I thought about Thrive’s (Boston Children’s Hospital blog) recent birthday nod to Seattle Mama Doc (Seattle Children’s Hospital blog). More specifically, did I think it was unusual that one children’s hospital would congratulate a competing institution on its one-year anniversary?
I thought the question was odd but it got me thinking: Do children’s hospitals compete in the social space? I don’t think so. They shouldn’t. And if they were competing, what would they be competing for?
Children’s hospitals are inherently regional. Parents of the northwest see Seattle Children’s as the end of the earth. In the northeast, Boston Children’s is the bee’s knees. And while specialty service lines like congenital heart surgery may draw patients from around the world, most kids come from their corner of the world.
Then there’s the broader question about the point of a blog for a children’s hospital. Is it a marketing gimmick or does it serve a higher function? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
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An international team of researchers has developed a rather reliable test that predicts the future improvement of reading abilities in kids with dyslexia. The method uses functional MRI (fMRI) and diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) to scan the brain, and data crunching software to interpret the data. The researchers hope that the finding will help parents and therapists uniquely identify which learning tools are best for each child.
