NACD Science Corner
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NACD Science Corner Vol. 14 – Why Do People with Down Syndrome Have Less Cancer?

A study published in Nature – International Journal of Science confirms that individuals with extra copies of chromosome 21, as found in individuals with Down syndrome, have genes that block certain types of cancer growth. This may have far-reaching implications in the therapies we use to treat cancer. Most types of cancer are rare in…

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NACD Science Corner Vol. 13 – Is Reading to Your Child Better Than Using Other Media?

  A newly published study explored the effects of reading to your child versus having them use other media, such as watching a cartoon or listening to an audiobook. “In a single generation, the explosion of screen-based media has transformed the experience of childhood, from TV and videos, to an unlimited range of content available…

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NACD Science Corner Vol. 12 – Brain Function Begins to Decline Over the Age of 24

  A study out of Simon Frazer University indicates that cognitive-motor function begins to decline at the age of 24. In this study the researchers analyzed the data derived from 3,305 players, ranging in age from 16 to 44, of a complex computer game called Starcraft 2. According to Joe Thompson, the lead investigator of the…

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NACD Science Corner Vol. 11 – Study Links Child Prodigies & Working Memory

A 2012 study of child prodigies conducted by Joanne Ruthsatz and Jourdan B. Urbach found that all the children studied tested in the 99th percentile for working memory. Each of the child prodigies tested at what was considered a moderately elevated intelligence and exhibited high scores relative to their attention to detail. But the most…

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Science Corner Vol. 10 – How Watching Television Can Affect Your Child’s Health

  Researchers at the University of Montreal and its affiliated Saint-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital reported that each weekly hour of TV watched by 2.5- to 4.5-year olds had statistically significant effect correlation to athletic ability and waist size by the second and fourth grade, respectively, for those children. Parents of 1,314 children reported…

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Science Corner Vol. 9 – Evidence That Sending a Child on a Guilt Trip Has Long-Lasting, Negative Effects

  A recent research article published in The Journal of Family Psychology reported the use of guilt-inducing parenting causes distress and anger that is still measurable the next day. Guilt-inducing parenting is when a parent tries to impact a child’s behavior by trying to make them feel guilty. An example might be when a child…

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Science Corner Vol. 8 – Be Smart About Breakfast

  Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing reported that children who ate breakfast more often had significantly higher IQ scores on the full scale, verbal, and performance tests. The study included 1,269 six-year-old children. After controlling for seven potential sociodemographic variables, the study found children who ate breakfast on a near-daily basis…

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Science Corner Vol. 7 – Sleep Apnea and Its Association to Behavior, Learning Problems and ADHD

  The Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study was published this year in the journal SLEEP [1]. In this study of 263 youth, sleep study and neurobehavioral data was collected twice, five years apart. Twenty-one of the children had persistent sleep apnea throughout the entire study. These children were six times more likely to…

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Science Corner Vol. 6 – Optimal Outcome for a Diagnosis of Autism

Historically, it has not been considered a “realistic” goal in the mainstream world for a child with autism to ever lose their diagnosis, let alone lose all the symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder and move completely into the non-autistic range of normal social interaction and communication. Although much recent research has documented individuals with ASD…

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Science Corner Vol. 5 – Anxiety

Anxiety disorders are supposedly the 
most common mental health issue 
today for adolescents, with one
 national study of more than 10,000 
adolescents finding that about 31%
 qualified for an anxiety disorder at 
least at one point in their lives 
(Merikangas et al., 2010). 
Prescriptions given to children for 
these anxiety disorders are
antidepressants that include selective
…