Child Development News

December 5, 2023

Top Headlines

Adversity Accelerates Epigenetic Aging in Children With Developmental Delays, but Positive Parenting Can Reverse Course

Dec. 4, 2023 — Research has shown that children who experience adversity during their early years may undergo faster biological aging. Nonetheless, a recent study reveals that positive parenting interventions can ...

Brains of Newborns Aren't Underdeveloped Compared to Other Primates

Dec. 4, 2023 — Contrary to current understanding, the brains of human newborns aren't significantly less developed compared to other primate species, but appear so because so much brain development happens after birth, finds a new ...

Why Reading Nursery Rhymes and Singing to Babies May Help Them to Learn Language

Dec. 1, 2023 — Phonetic information -- the smallest sound elements of speech -- may not be the basis of language learning in babies as previously thought. Babies don't begin to process phonetic information reliably ...

How Pre And Postnatal B-12 Vitamins Improve Breast Milk Vitamin B-12 Levels, Which Supports Infant Brain Development

Dec. 1, 2023 — According to a new study B-12 vitamins increase the presence of the micronutrient in mothers' breast milk, which is especially helpful in countries where it can be difficult to eat what is needed for ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:03pm EST

Despite Pressures Facing Young Families, Parents Take Precious Moments to Play With Their Babies

Nov. 30, 2023 — Four in five primary caregivers of nine-month-old babies reported cuddling, talking and playing with their little one several times a day, in the ...

Parental Engagement Positively Associated With Safer Driving Among Young People, UGR Study Finds

Nov. 30, 2023 — The results show that while close supervision may be linked to increased anxiety when driving, it is also associated with a more cautious attitude ...

Early Body Contact Develops Premature Babies' Social Skills

Nov. 30, 2023 — Skin-to-skin contact between parent and infant during the first hours after a very premature birth helps develop the child's social skills. The study also shows that fathers may play a more important ...

AI May Aid in Diagnosing Adolescents With ADHD

Nov. 29, 2023 — Using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze specialized brain MRI scans of adolescents with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), researchers found significant differences in ...

Pulling an All-Nighter? Don't Follow With an Important Decision

Nov. 29, 2023 — With little insight into the impact of a lack of sleep on risky decision-making at the neuroimaging level, researchers found a 24-hour period of sleep deprivation significantly impacted individuals' ...

Kids Who Feel Their Parents Are Less Reliable Take Fewer Risks Vital to Learning and Growth

Nov. 27, 2023 — The researchers studied decisions that more than 150 children ages 10 to 13 made while playing games that offered opportunities to risk a little and ...

Discrimination During Pregnancy Can Affect Infant's Brain Circuitry

Nov. 27, 2023 — Experiences of discrimination and acculturation are known to have a detrimental effect on a person's health. For pregnant women, these painful experiences can also affect the brain circuitry of their ...

Genes Influence Whether Infants Prefer to Look at Faces or Non-Social Objects

Nov. 27, 2023 — Whether infants at five months of age look mostly at faces or non-social objects such as cars or mobile phones is largely determined by genes. The ...

Extra Practice Blending Letter Sounds Helps Struggling Readers

Nov. 27, 2023 — New research has shown that extra practice in blending printed letter sounds can help struggling beginner readers (age 4-5) learn to ...

New Study on Experience of Adopted People as They Become Parents

Nov. 22, 2023 — A new piece of research looks at the challenges faced by adopted people when they become parents. The study investigated the lived experiences of adopted people in the UK as they become parents. ...

Earlier Headlines

Summaries
Headlines

Our Brains Are Not Able to 'Rewire' Themselves, Despite What Most Scientists Believe, New Study Argues

Nov. 21, 2023 — Contrary to the commonly-held view, the brain does not have the ability to rewire itself to compensate for the loss of sight, an amputation or stroke, for example, say scientists. The researchers ...

Babies as Young as Four Months Show Signs of Self-Awareness

Nov. 21, 2023 — Babies as young as four months old can make sense of how their bodies interact with the space around them, according to new ...

Hearing Loss Is Associated With Subtle Changes in the Brain

Nov. 21, 2023 — A team of researchers employed hearing tests and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine whether hearing impairment is associated with differences in specific brain regions and affects dementia ...

The Bilingual Brain May Be Better at Ignoring Irrelevant Information

Nov. 21, 2023 — Results showed that bilinguals seem to be more efficient at ignoring information that's irrelevant, rather than suppressing -- or inhibiting information. ...

AI Can 'Lie and BS' Like Its Maker, but Still Not Intelligent Like Humans

Nov. 20, 2023 — A researcher contends that the understanding of AI is muddled by linguistics: That while indeed intelligent, AI cannot be intelligent in the way that humans are, even though 'it can lie and BS ...

Children's Brains Shaped by Their Time on Tech Devices, Research to-Date Shows

Nov. 17, 2023 — Time spent watching television or playing computer games has measurable and long-term effects on children's brain function, according to a review of 23 years of neuroimaging research, which ...

High Levels of Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Linked to Children's Behavior Problems

Nov. 16, 2023 — Children whose mothers are highly stressed, anxious or depressed during pregnancy may be at higher risk for mental health and behavior issues during their childhood and teen years, according to new ...

When Languages Collide, Which Survives?

Nov. 14, 2023 — Researchers incorporate language ideologies, along with the impact of interaction between individuals with opposing preferences, on the language shift process. The team chose a quantitative approach ...

Study Finds Melatonin Use Soaring Among Youth

Nov. 13, 2023 — Nearly one in five school-aged children and preteens now take melatonin for sleep, and some parents routinely give the hormone to preschoolers, according to new ...

Early-Life Stress Changes More Genes in Brain Than a Head Injury

Nov. 13, 2023 — A surprising thing happened when researchers began exploring whether early-life stress compounds the effects of a childhood head injury on health and behavior later in life: In an animal study, ...

Physical Fitness Since Childhood Predicts Cerebellar Volume in Adolescence

Nov. 10, 2023 — Physical fitness since childhood is associated with cerebellar grey matter volume in adolescents. Those who were stronger, faster and more agile, in other words, had better neuromuscular fitness ...

New AI Noise-Canceling Headphone Technology Lets Wearers Pick Which Sounds They Hear

Nov. 9, 2023 — Researchers have developed deep-learning algorithms that let users pick which sounds filter through their headphones in real time. Either through voice commands or a smartphone app, headphone wearers ...

Brain Imaging Identifies Biomarkers of Mental Illness

Nov. 9, 2023 — Research and treatment of psychiatric disorders are stymied by a lack of biomarkers -- objective biological or physiological markers that can help diagnose, track, predict, and treat diseases. In a ...

Autism Brain States Hold the Key to Unlocking Childhood Memories, Findings Show

Nov. 9, 2023 — Neuroscientists have discovered a fascinating connection between the retention of early life memories and brain developmental trajectories associated with ...

Connectivity Scans Could Serve as Brain 'Blueprints' for Adolescents, Researchers Find

Nov. 7, 2023 — Two new studies highlight how brain imaging can be used to predict and identify cognitive outcomes and psychiatric risk in young ...

When Dads Are Feeling a Bit Depressed or Anxious, How Do Kids Fare?

Nov. 7, 2023 — A team of researchers has found that slightly higher, but mild anxious or depressive symptoms in fathers were associated with fewer behavioral difficulties in the first years of elementary school and ...

Brain Implant May Enable Communication from Thoughts Alone

Nov. 6, 2023 — A speech prosthetic developed by a collaborative team of neuroscientists, neurosurgeons and engineers can translate a person's brain signals into what they're trying to say. The new ...

Paid Family Leave Boosted Postpartum Wellbeing, Breastfeeding Rates

Nov. 3, 2023 — A new study has found postpartum individuals living in states with generous mandated paid family and medical leave (PFML) are more likely to breastfeed and less likely to experience postpartum ...

How 'Blue' and 'Green' Appeared in a Language That Didn't Have Words for Them

Nov. 2, 2023 — A new study suggests the way a language divides up color space can be influenced by contact with other languages. Tsimane' people who learned Spanish as a second language began to classify blue ...

Why All Languages Have Words for 'This' and 'That'

Oct. 30, 2023 — Researchers have found that languages around the world have words for 'this' and 'that'. The 45-strong international team studied 29 languages from around the world including ...

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