Cognitive difficulties are very common in children from impoverished backgrounds, putting them at risk of educational failure. However, it is not clear what influences the development of cognitive abilities…
Sluggish cognitive tempo is used to describe kids whose attentional deficits are due to low levels of mental energy.
Alec Couros/Flickr
Sociology influences medicine more than we like to admit. One only needs to look at the history of psychiatric disorders – a term used broadly here to incorporate developmental disorders – to see how “normal…
Homework is the perfect platform for parents to help children unravel the mystery to learning. Parents are in a unique position to hang the academic concepts that children learn at school onto their real-life…
So little Harry won’t eat his vegetables? Well, he’s not alone. Poor Harry is just protecting himself from the danger of alkaloid toxins – although he doesn’t actually know this. At the tender age of four…
Mothers with genetic mutations not harmful to females may be passing them onto their sons.
Vincent van der Pas/Flickr (resized)
Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, because girls need more extreme genetic mutations to develop them, according to a study published in the American…
Too many two-year-olds.
Edmond Terakopian/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Proposals to allow schools to start looking after two-year-olds go to the heart of a long-standing tension in education policy: is early childhood provision about childcare for working parents or is it…
Hands up who wants to breastfeed at work?
Christian Lutz/AP
Days after Pope Francis told mothers to “not think twice” about breastfeeding at church and in public, Sally Davies, the UK’s chief medical officer, called for women to be allowed to breastfeed at work…
Orphan bonobos at a Congo sanctuary don’t understand how to comfort others or themselves as well as those reared by their mums.
Flickr/Princess Stand in the Rain
Wild bonobos, like all Great Apes, spend long childhoods with their mothers, learning the skills they need to function as socially and emotionally stable members of their community. But orphaned bonobos…
This little tyke is already hard at work studying.
petitshoo
Human foetuses begin to hear sounds outside the womb at about 27 weeks. But whether foetuses can learn from these sounds in ways that shape speech perception and development during infancy has remained…
Children are the most vulnerable and dependent members of our society but it’s still legal to hit them in Australia.
bixentro/Flickr
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) is today launching a call for law reform regarding the use of physical punishment to discipline children. Noting the harms of smacking children, it’s…
Pregnant and breast-feeding women have iodine needs that are 50% higher than the general population.
Teza Harinaivo Ramiandrisoa
Iodine is naturally present in a range of food, especially seaweed and fish. So it may seem odd that the people of an island nation (most of whom live along its vast coastline) are not getting enough of…
Research has shown benefits to mothers and babies when fathers are involved.
Pixabay
We all have different expectations about how involved dads should be during pregnancy and childbirth. In the UK, it’s generally seen as a good thing and research is now beginning to show that it matters…
When humans are challenged, even as very young babies, we really can rise above and excel.
Drew Bennett
What do newborn babies, children who have been severely deprived of human contact, people with autism, and blind mothers have in common? On the surface, not much. But they provide a common theme for understanding…
Picture this: you’re standing in a long, slow-moving queue. People around you are disgruntled and complaining. You turn to talk with the person behind you and someone else jumps the queue in front of you…
I admit it, I love the Olympic Games. The sport, the over-hyped commentary, the fancy-dress national costumes - it’s two weeks of every four years that I anticipate with excitement. In many ways, the Games…
Whether children imitate a bear or a pirate, their imagination could contribute to human advancement.
Juhansonin
We all know the scene: a child, wrapped in his or her own imaginary world, fights off aliens while flying through space on a rocket fashioned from an empty box. But could such flights of fancy be critical…
Praising kids all the time might lead to inflated self-esteem and low regard for others.
Flickr/ymc_photos
When most people picture the typical school bully, they think of a kid who is likely to have been bullied themselves. A child with low self-esteem who is trying to make themselves feel better by picking…
Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary
Director, Center for Community Child Health Royal Children's Hospital; Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne; Theme Director Population Health, Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Assistant professor, School of Psychology, Scientist, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa