In this Ted Talk, seven-year-0ld Molly Wright explains how parents can help their kids thrive and develop into calm, happy children and adults. Connection and playing with your children is of the utmost important, something that Molly summarizes with the phrase “Serve and Return”. In an age of technology and ever-increasing responsibilities for parents, it important to give your kids your undivided attention as often as possible. Games like peek-a-book, copy-cat, and naming games all help children to develop important things, like trust, imagination, and vocabulary, while reinforcing the bond and connection between parent and child.

The first five years of a child’s life are a period of crucial development and growth, and parents’ support of their children during this time creates a foundation that the child can develop from for the rest of their life.

To watch the full Ted Talk and learn more, click here!

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS Research Assistant

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday with UConn KIDS!

Last Week’s Question: What is it called when kids learn by watching others?

Last Week’s Answer: Observational Learning

 

This week’s questions is…

At what age range do kids partake in parallel play, a form of play where kids play in similar manners next to each other without directly engaging with one another?

a) 0-1 years

b) 2-3 years

c) 4-5 years

d) 6-7 years

Tune in next week for the answer!

In honor of today being Earth Day, we’ve picked another article that takes a look at the reasons why it is beneficial for kids to spend time outdoors. Kids are spending more and more time indoors with the increase in technology and the increasing parental concerns about disease and danger. However, spending time outside in nature has significant health benefits to children and many researchers even consider it a necessity.

Kids that play outside are “smarter, happier, more attentive, and less anxious” than those that don’t. Spending time in the nature also teaches kids practical lessons, such as responsibility, confidence, and the power of creativity. With the reminder of Earth Day being today, it’s important for parents to emphasize the importance of spending time outside to their kids and encourage them to go outdoors and play!

Click here to read more!

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS Research Assistant

Playing team sports has several benefits to children and aids in proper child development in many ways. Especially today, when children are tending to spend more time playing video games indoors than playing outdoors and rates of childhood obesity are on the rise, it’s important to know all the ways kids benefit from playing in outdoor team sports.

The physical benefits to kids playing in outdoor team sports are the most obvious. In addition to preventing obesity, lower risks of future illness such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are also linked to playing sports. Kids also benefit from better development of  bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons, improved sleep, and “greater development of hand-eye coordination, functional movement skills, endurance, and strength.”

There are also psychological benefits to playing outdoor sports, such as lower stress levels, lower rates of anxiety and depression, and greater reported self-confidence and self-esteem. Playing in sports has also been linked to greater academic success for kids, as lower dropout rates and higher GPAs are correlated with playing team sports. There is also some research suggesting this manifests later in life as well, as kids who played sports see a 7-8% increase in annual earning compared to those who didn’t play sports.

Overall, it is clear that there are significant benefits to children that come with playing team sports, especially outdoor sports, during childhood. Having coaches that are supportive and positive mentors to kids is also crucial, and can greatly impact a child experience with playing sports.

Click here to read the full article!

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS Research Assistant

For scientists studying children and early language development, we are currently living in an exciting time for scientific discovery! With the popularization of technologies like phones and TVs, and the increasingly likelihood of children using and watching screens as early as infancy, scientists are trying to determine what effect screen time has on language development.

There is still much unknown about this topic, so this video by HELLO Lab showcases the different type of screen times (active vs passive) that your baby or child may be engaging in and how they can potentially impact language development. The concept of “parental technoference” is also explained, and how that may be having more of an effect than parents even realize!

Stay tuned for more HELLO Lab content and click here to watch the full video!

 

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS Research Assistant

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday with UConn KIDS!

Last week’s question: What age do children begin organizing information in their memories?

The answer to last week’s question: d) around 7 years old

 

This week’s question is…

Around what percentage of school-age children in the US have a learning disability?

a) 0% to 5%

b) 5% to 15%

c) 15% to 25%

d) 25% to 35%

 

Tune in next week to find out the answer!

For long, we have wondered what goes on in a baby’s mind before they are old enough to communicate through speech or intentional movements. Research by scientists in Trinity College Dublin is shedding light on how infants process and make sense of the world, doing things more advanced than we had previously thought possible for 2-month old babies.

The researchers used a combination of brain scans and artificial intelligence (AI) models to record brain activity while showing babies images from 12 familiar visual categories, things like cats, trees and rubber ducks for 15-20 minutes. The scans and following analysis showed that these young babies were able to categorize different images into different categories. Thinking of different categories would light up activity in different parts of the brain. These scans were done on 130 awake babies making this the largest longitudinal study with fMRI (a type of brain scan) done on awake babies.

This study not only shows us that infants are taking in their surroundings and making sense of the world much earlier than we expected, but it also provides a foundation for further studies to take place that combine brain imaging and AI models. The use of both tools enabled the scientists to discover that babies can group together visual items in their mind, furthering our understanding of how the brain develops in infants. This is one great example of the intersection between AI and science and how we can use it in addition to current  tools and techniques to further scientific research!

If you would like to learn more, check out this news article or the published scientific paper here!

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS

Distraction is one of the big ways that kids regulate their emotions. It can be either behavioral distraction, doing an activity as a distraction, or cognitive distraction, where kids thinks about something distracting. Contrary to what it might sound like, distraction isn’t the same as avoiding a problem or feeling, rather kids are simply distracting themselves in the moment to adjust their feelings. Adults do this all the time, and we are able to do it consciously, but young children may need to be prompted as they don’t develop the ability to seek out and plan their distracting ability until later in childhood.

This article looks at the difference between drawing as a distraction and drawing as a means of expression. Kids are naturally inclined towards drawing and creating art, and so it is a good technique for emotional regulation. Although creating art is a great method of expression and kid should be encouraged to express themselves, in terms of mood regulation, drawing as a distraction seems to be more effective. Drawing as a distraction is especially effective when kids are given the choice of what to draw, or draw a positive memory.

The article looks at different studies done on the effects of drawing as a distraction on children of different age ranges. It was found that there was more of a positive effect on younger children, whereas older children still benefited from drawing as a distraction, but to a less extent. This could be due to the fact that younger children generally perceive their art as “better” whereas older kids may be more critical of their art which can lessen the positive effect of drawing. Regardless, drawing as a distraction was seen to be much more effective than drawing to express in improving a kid’s mood. Overall, drawing to distract seems to be a great tool for kids to regulate their emotions and easily improve their mood!

To learn more and read the full article, click here!

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS Research Assistant

In the Ted Talk, “What Lack of Sleep Does to the Teenage Brain” sleep scientist Wendy Troxel explains how chronic sleep deprivation is harmful to teenagers and how a large part of this problem is caused by the early start times for middle and high schools. The vast majority of teenagers are not getting the 8-10 hours of sleep a night that is recommended for teenagers. Troxel explains that because teenagers go through a shift in when their body gets naturally sleepy, teenagers get tired around 2 hours later than children and adults, and so waking up for school at 6am is even harder for a teenager than it is for an adult.

Sleep is so important for brain growth and development, especially for teenagers who are learning so much every day. Sleep is the time when they should be able to rest and relax and let their brain develop, but a chronic lack of sleep hinders a teenager’s ability to do so. Not only this, but sleep deprivation adds to and worsens many behavioral and mental health issues in teenagers, many of which are currently on a rise, such as depression, anxiety, and reckless driving.

Troxel argues that although it will be difficult to make the switch the later school start times, it is a necessary switch for the health and well-being of teenagers. More sleep will allow them to do better at school, have improved mental and physical health, and be the best version of themselves!

To learn more, watch the full video here!

Afrah Rafi

UConn KIDS Research Assistant

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday with UConn KIDS!

Last week’s question: What is the recommended amount of daily exercise for elementary age children?

Last week’s answer: B) 60 minutes

 

This week’s question is…

At what age range do children learn to imitate and play pretend?

a) 0-2 years

b) 2-7 years

c) 7-11 years

d) 12 years and older