Wow, I really enjoyed Dr. Jim Stieben's lecture on Monday. Who would'da ever figured a talk about the anterior cingulate could be that interesting.

DIR seems like such a natural way to interact with children, especially special needs kids. After spending many many hours supply teaching in special needs classrooms, I realize how frustrating it can be to try to interact with an autistic kid. Without knowing what I was doing, I have in fact (on a very minor level) utilized some of the DIR techniques to play with one student in particular (Although, he is rather high functioning and does have some language). Wouldn't it be amazing if we could provide enough support to families of autistic kids to allow for DIR and ABA therapy. It would be even more amazing if we could take Cuba's lead and attempt to identify and treat autistic symptoms in children as early as three months of age.

As a (future) educator and definitely as a mother, bullying is an enormous concern for me. In the classroom I try to be sensitive to signs of bullying. At home, my husband and I have always tried to instill compassion in our children, so that they would reach out to others who were left out or centred out.

A little over a year ago we discovered our confident, rather large, very strong for his age son was being bullied by a 'good' friend. Even though he knew the threats he was receiving would not be carried out (the bully was smaller and weaker than him) he felt that he had to take the verbal threats and not defend his honour or himself. The bully was the center of all the grade eight boys. They shared all of the same friends. He knew he could easily put a stop to the cyber threats at home and the embarassing taunts at school by confronting the bully. He also knew if he confronted him, their shared friends would have to choose between the two of them. He was pretty sure they would pick the side of the school's coolest kid. After two months he had enough and responded to the threat "you wanna go" with yes! Without hurting the boy, he put him in a submission hold on the ground in a matter of a second or two. The boy cried foul, my son let him up. The boy lunged for him and my son put him back on the ground in a submission hold. The bully was embarassed. My son won the fight, but lost the battle. The bully has never threatened him since, but did put pressure on the other kids not to hand around him. Our son started to become socially isolated. Many of the 'friends' choose cool. Instead of always having tons of buddies around, he only had a few.

It's taken a year, but some of the old friends are starting to come around again. My son puts up with them but feels betrayed and prefers the friends who stuck around him.

As a parent, we really felt like we could do nothing to put an end to it and all we could do was support him. If we turned to the school, we knew the social isolation would become worse.

Our son never lost his sense of confidence and did not regret standing up to the boy (although, he's lucky the boy didn't want to retaliate with a weapon), because losing a few friends was better than putting up with the harassment. He was lucky, he's the type of kid who will always have a few friends around.

The antibullying video you posted, drove home how detrimental bullying can be. There are no easy solutions to bullying. Hopefully, videos like this will help bystanders choose to be strong and back the victim. Adults can provide emotional support to the victim, they must provide safety, but they can't stop the social isolation that bullys can orchestrate. All adults can do is to try to instill a social consciousness in our adolescents.

After listening to Dr. Stuart Shanker's radio broadcast about the Bonobo Apes, I couldn't help but research the topic further. I found an amazing TEDtalks video at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html with Susan Savage-Rumbaugh presenting her research and videos on the Bonobo Apes she works with.

Probably what stuck with me most after listening to Dr Shanker's broadcast was the fact the these apes have the ability to not only learn another language, they have in fact learned two languages (spoken english, and a form of sign language).

If it is true that we lose our ability to learn language without exposure before the age of 6, then it seems reasonable that apes would lose that ability at some point as well. Considering the fact that these apes (of various ages) have learned human like language, then possibly some Chomskian, language acquisition device is present in them, which must mean the ape comunities must use some form of language to communicate. (Maybe if not an aquisition devise, possibly a biological predisposition towards language aquistion ). It is amusing that without being taught these apes have learned to understand our language, yet we still can't communicate with them in their language.

It is also quite amazing that this species has the ability for empathy and self soothing. Could we learn more about the treatment of conditions such as autism by observing Bonobos?

I'm still pretty intrigued by the brain plasticity video we watched last week. I can't help but wonder about all of the implications of brain plasticity, especially in areas such as PDD's, and learning disabilities (although many other areas have me interested too, like Alzheimers{family history and aging parents}). I found the link between reading disorders and processing rapid auditory signals pretty promising. (Been wondering about the link between auditory processing and dyslexia for a couple of years myself). The fact that training the neural systems responsible for this processing is improving reading skills in the reading disordered kids, has me pretty optimistic that similar training may improve other L.D.'s. (from the Foundations for a New Science of Learning article) The research with externalizing/internalizing comorbid kids and the Go/No Go testing could lead to new types of therapy for these kids (including ADHD kids).

I'm not sure how much of the information on MNS I fully understand, but I found the connection to Autism (and ASD) rather interesting. (interesting article on the deficit of MNS in autistic individuals at this site, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411204511.htm) If you consider that children with autism have dysfunction with the MNS its easy to make a connection between the MNS and development of social relationships through responding to others with mimicry . Infants who are later diagnosed with Autism respond differently to their parents almost immediately, they don't recognize faces as distinct from objects which could mean that they are not programmed to watch facial expressions in order to mimic them. Parents have reported that their infants did not follow their gaze, but also did not respond to a parents embrace/hold. Instead of imitating the parents embrace and snuggling in, they lay limp which could be interpreted as not mimicking the embrace. I guess what I'm trying to say is in retrospect many parents of autistic children recognize differences in their autistic babies almost from the start of life. If the MNS is responsible for much of the social deficiencies in autistic people, it possibly provides evidence of the existance of the MNS at birth. It could be that the reason that a confident diagnosis of autism can't be made until children are older (6-10) is because either the MNS is still developing, or because the effects of inability to mimic create an escalating problem that isn't fully visible until later.

As would be expected, after reading all of the articles on attachment it appears secure attachment is quite important in the lives of infants, children and adolescents.

It seems like common sense, when a child has a secure bond with their parents they are free to explore the world without the fear of being left alone to fend for themselves. They develop confidence in their ability to face the world because they have an inner sense that they are not alone. Although not every securely attached individual has high self confidence, there is no doubt that if you didn't develop a secure attachment your confidence level has got to be affected negatively.

Secure attachment helps us believe that ultimately, everything will be all right and that we have alternatives. Just like the female rats that did not receive affectionate licking from their mothers, humans that received lesser amounts of affection and bonding are more likely to be victimized. Perhaps, in humans its a belief that they are not worthy of better. Like the rats, humans exposed to stressful situations (natural disasters etc.) will have less innate factors to protect them from anxiety if they didn't have that initial secure attachment. Perhaps, your initial belief as an infant that your protector will always come back to you, protects you when you mature into an adolescent (and even as an adult) from disasters by giving you a sense that you are not alone and you are protected.

Over the past year or two (which coincides with the maturation level of my children), I've started to believe that adolescents begin pulling from their parents (and increasing conflict) in order to enable them to go out into that big bad world (and it also helps the parents let them go). Maybe as siblings begin to get older, they realize its them against their parents and they start to transfer their parental bonds to their sibling (who should be around for most of their lives).

My grandmother, who would be over 100 now (if she were still alive) was a firm believer in physical contact between mother and infant. She often reminded my mother, (who reminded me) how important it was to hold our babies, cuddle them, message their feet, stroke their backs, speak directly to them, make eye contact, etc. She was a peasant, who never had the opportunity to go to high school, but still, she new that it was imperative to the babies well being to have positive physical and mental stimulation from their caregivers. She didn't talk about attachment but she did say babies needed to feel secure if they were going to grow up "into good people". She said that loving physical contact made babies more alert and inquisitive. She also believed this close contact with the baby would make the trials of sleepless nights and collic more bearable for the new mother.

It's a little funny that science has finally caught up to the wisdom of another 'old wives' tale.

It is apparent that almost every aspect of our lives is effected by our attachment style. How we handle stress, issues of trust, risk taking, our self confidence and many other things are effected by the relationships we had/have with our caregivers.

At first, I was surprised to read that rats were so overtly effected by lack of maternal grooming but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Social animals need to feel secure emotionally and physically. Even rats need to feel loved in order to function in society (and yes, rats live in a rat society).

While reading this study I was reminded of Harlow's Monkeys and how important warmth and security was to their behavior. (I've attached a link to a UTube video of Harlow's monkeys)

While reading the other two studies on attachment I realized the role attachment can play in personality disorders and mental health issues such as depression. I wonder how can we undo the effects of insecure types of attachment. I also wonder if educating at risk expectant parents of the requirements for secure attachment to develop would suffice. Surely, many of us know the correct way to act, but aren't always capable of following through.

We know the importance of developing secure attachment, but what next? Can we do anything to reduce insecure attachement?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsA5Sec6dAI&feature=related

I was happily surprised to read the requirements necessary to become a Naturopathic Doctor and Naturopathic Midwife. I was also surprised to hear how few naturopathic midwives there are in Ontario.

Ideally, its wonderful if want-to-be mothers have the opportunity to create ideal preconception and conception conditions. Although I have my doubts about the ability to detoxify the body by cleansing your colon, especially after having heard how things my mother was exposed to could effect my child (or even my child's child).

I also found it hard to accept the line "When both parents are working hard to pay attention to achieving optimal health before conception, the health of both parents is reflected in healthy pregnancies and healthy babies". Yes, I agree that parents have a responsibility to avoid any substance or life style that can be detrimental to the health of the baby, but that line almost blames parents when things go wrong. And things do sometimes go wrong, no matter how hard you work to achieve optimal health, or how healthy you are. Unfortunately, comments like that lead people to believe that all miscarriages, birth defects and any health issues in the baby are directly linked to behavior of the parents. Sometimes the egg just doesn't develop properly and sometimes genetic issues are present that can not be changed prior to conception. Sometimes things just happen and when they do, the parents have enough to deal with, without adding to the problem with guilt for being at fault.

After reading the Arsenault article I couldn't help but wonder, have any studies been done to track the behavior of children born during OB complications from 'supportive' families? What is the damaging factor that seems to be undone by stable supportive families? Is it that these children have learned to suppress violent or deliquent behavior?

My next question is, what are the rates of complications in births from 'at risk' mothers? Is it possible that the mothers of children who are violent and delinquent have higher risk of OB complications, possibly because of lower SES factors?

What is the percentage of birth complications in the general public?

I also wonder what the common factor is between each of the complication factors studied. I imagine the prolapsed cord and forceps can easily restrict blood flow during delivery, but what is the common factor in preeclampsia and induction? Is it possible that these difficult deliveries interfere with the at risk mother's bonding with her child?

Just so many questions, and possible confounds....

Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009

After reading the initial studies relating birth rate to CHD and diabetes I was somewhat relieved that both of my children were a healthy birth rate (and maintained a steady rate of growth)... Then I read the studies relating birth weight with breast cancer risk. Thank God that we have no family history of breast cancer.

In regards to the study of Swedish woman I wondered what the average birth weight of Swedish children is in relation to the rest of the population (I realize that some cultures usually have larger or smaller babies). I also am curious as to what the national breast cancer rates are like compared to other cultures. Can we generalize the birth weight and associated risk to other cultures?

I also wonder if there is some other variable at work. Some woman are genetically predisposed to larger babies just as some woman have a higher risk of breast cancer. Would trying to mediate the birth weight of babies alter their later breast cancer risk or is there some other factor that is correlated to both? Of course this would be a rather unethical study (considering low birth rate is a risk factor in CHD, diabetes as well as other health problems). I do know that OB's go through phases where they suggest different ideal weight gains for their pregnant patients. Possibly, large babies who's mothers only gained 20 lbs. etc. could be compared to those who gained more.????? Not sure if that would answer my question or not. I guess my question is what is causing the weight of the baby, hormones, genetics or maternal caloric intake? and which factor is related to breast cancer?

P.S. I googled the image and used it from the site www.babytalkers.com

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