[Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children. - Pediatrics 4apr04]
CHICAGO—Researchers have found that every hour preschoolers watch television each day boosts their chances—by about 10 percent—of developing attention deficit problems later in life.
The findings back up previous research showing that television can shorten attention spans and support American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that youngsters under age 2 not watch television.
"The truth is there are lots of reasons for children not to watch television. Other studies have shown it to be associated with obesity and aggressiveness" too, said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a researcher at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
The study, appearing in the April issue of Pediatrics, focused on two groups of children—aged 1 and 3—and suggested that TV might over-stimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain.
The study involved 1,345 children who participated in government-sponsored national health surveys. Their parents were questioned about the children's TV viewing habits and rated their behavior at age 7 on a scale similar to measures used in diagnosing attention deficit disorders.
The researchers lacked data on whether the youngsters were diagnosed with attention deficit disorders but the number of children whose parents rated them as having attention problems—10 percent—is similar to the prevalence in the general population, Christakis said. Problems included difficulty concentrating, acting restless and impulsive, and being easily confused.
About 36 percent of the 1-year-olds watched no TV, while 37 percent watched one to two hours daily and had a 10 percent to 20 percent increased risk of attention problems. Fourteen percent watched three to four hours daily and had a 30 percent to 40 percent increased risk compared with children who watched no TV. The remainder watched at least five hours daily.
Among 3-year-olds, only 7 percent watched no TV, 44 percent watched one to two hours daily, 27 percent watched three to four hours daily, almost 11 percent watched five to six hours daily, and about 10 percent watched seven or more hours daily.
In a Pediatrics editorial, educational psychologist Jane Healy said the study "is important and long overdue" but needs to be followed up to confirm and better explain the mechanisms that may be involved.
The researchers didn't know what shows the children watched, but Christakis said content likely isn't the culprit. Instead, he said, unrealistically fast-paced visual images typical of most TV programming may alter normal brain development.
"The newborn brain develops very rapidly during the first two to three years of life. It's really being wired" during that time, Christakis said.
"We know from studies of newborn rats that if you expose them to different levels of visual stimuli ... the architecture of the brain looks very different" depending on the amount of stimulation, he said.
Overstimulation during this critical period "can create habits of the mind that are ultimately deleterious," Christakis said. If this theory holds true, the brain changes likely are permanent, but children with attention problems can be taught to compensate, he said.
The researchers considered factors other than TV that might have made some children prone to attention problems, including their home environment and mothers' mental states.
The American Academy of Pediatrics said in 1999 that children under the age of 2 should not watch television because of concerns it affects early brain growth and the development of social, emotional and cognitive skills.
Jennifer Kotler, assistant director for research at Sesame Workshop, which produces educational children's television programs including "Sesame Street," questioned whether the results in the April Pediatrics would apply to educational programming.
"We do not ignore this research," but more is needed on variables that could affect the impact of early exposure to television, including whether content or watching TV with a parent makes a difference, Kotler said.
"There's a lot of research... that supports the positive benefits of educational programming," she said.
source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/04/05/national0636EDT0461.DTL&type=printable 5apr04
CHICAGO—Researchers have found that every hour preschoolers watch television each day boosts their chances — by about 10 percent — of developing attention deficit problems later in life.
The findings back up previous research showing that television can shorten attention spans and support American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that youngsters under age 2 not watch television.
"The truth is there are lots of reasons for children not to watch television. Other studies have shown it to be associated with obesity and aggressiveness" too, said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a researcher at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
The study, appearing in the April issue of Pediatrics, focused on two groups of children — aged 1 and 3 — and suggested that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain.
The study involved 1,345 children who participated in government-sponsored national health surveys. Their parents were questioned about the children's TV viewing habits and rated their behavior at age 7 on a scale similar to measures used in diagnosing attention deficit disorders.
The researchers lacked data on whether the youngsters were diagnosed with attention deficit disorders but the number of children whose parents rated them as having attention problems — 10 percent — is similar to the prevalence in the general population, Christakis said. Problems included difficulty concentrating, acting restless and impulsive, and being easily confused.
About 36 percent of the 1-year-olds watched no TV, while 37 percent watched one to two hours daily and had a 10 percent to 20 percent increased risk of attention problems. Fourteen percent watched three to four hours daily and had a 30 percent to 40 percent increased risk compared with children who watched no TV. The remainder watched at least five hours daily.
Among 3-year-olds, only 7 percent watched no TV, 44 percent watched one to two hours daily, 27 percent watched three to four hours daily, almost 11 percent watched five to six hours daily, and about 10 percent watched seven or more hours daily.
In a Pediatrics editorial, educational psychologist Jane Healy said the study "is important and long overdue" but needs to be followed up to confirm and better explain the mechanisms that may be involved.
The researchers didn't know what shows the children watched, but Christakis said content likely isn't the culprit. Instead, he said, unrealistically fast-paced visual images typical of most TV programming may alter normal brain development.
"The newborn brain develops very rapidly during the first two to three years of life. It's really being wired" during that time, Christakis said.
"We know from studies of newborn rats that if you expose them to different levels of visual stimuli ... the architecture of the brain looks very different" depending on the amount of stimulation, he said.
Overstimulation during this critical period "can create habits of the mind that are ultimately deleterious," Christakis said. If this theory holds true, the brain changes likely are permanent, but children with attention problems can be taught to compensate, he said.
The researchers considered factors other than TV that might have made some children prone to attention problems, including their home environment and mothers' mental states.
The American Academy of Pediatrics said in 1999 that children under the age of 2 should not watch television because of concerns it affects early brain growth and the development of social, emotional and cognitive skills.
Jennifer Kotler, assistant director for research at Sesame Workshop, which produces educational children's television programs including "Sesame Street," questioned whether the results in the April Pediatrics would apply to educational programming.
"We do not ignore this research," but more is needed on variables that could affect the impact of early exposure to television, including whether content or watching TV with a parent makes a difference, Kotler said.
"There's a lot of research... that supports the positive benefits of educational programming," she said.
source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/05/health/printable610222.shtml 5apr04
Psychologists and media experts are concerned, but not surprised, by a landmark study suggesting that frequent television watching by infants and toddlers may shorten their attention span by age 7.
The research, in today's Pediatrics, indicates that the more television very young kids watch, the more likely they are to have trouble concentrating and to become impulsive and restless.
Human brains change rapidly in early life, said UCLA neuropsychologist Elizabeth Sowell, and animal research shows that stimulation can "rewire" the brain.
Things happen fast on the TV screen, so kids' brains may come to expect this pace, "making it harder to concentrate if there's less stimulation," said study leader Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
Also, TV may replace activities, such as reading, that could help children learn to concentrate, Sowell said.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is genetic, but past studies suggest the environment also plays a key role, Christakis said. How different environments might promote ADHD "has barely been touched by systematic research," writes Vail, Colo., educational psychologist Jane Healy in a commentary accompanying the Pediatrics report. TV exposure in young kids is growing, she said.
Although most studies have not considered TV watching by very young children, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey last year found that two out of five children younger than 2 watch every day, and a quarter have TVs in their own rooms, said Vicky Rideout of the foundation.
Also, a soaring number of young kids watch DVDs or videos, some thought to be educational, but others as fast-paced as TV, Rideout said.
Even veteran teachers with superb child-managing skills are reporting more kids who "are off-the-wall. . . . It started about 10 years ago," said Susan Ratterree, a 25-year school-psychologist supervisor in suburban New Orleans. Awareness of ADHD is increasing reports of attention problems, "but the kids are changing, too," she said.
Los Angeles media psychologist Stuart Fischoff said, "Rather than seeing these kids as pathological, maybe we should see them as adaptive, pointing the way to how our society is evolving. Brains may be changing, and we don't know if it's going to be bad or not."
source: http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/clicktrack/print.php?referer=http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0405ATTENTION-react05.html 5apr04
Child-development experts have long warned there are plenty of reasons for kids not to watch too much television. Now a major Seattle-based study shows that very young children who spend hours in front of the tube risk having attention problems when they reach school age.
In the first research of its kind, scientists at Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center and their colleagues found the risk increases by the hour.
For every hour of television watched daily by children at ages 1 and 3, the risk of attention problems at age 7 increases nearly 10 percent.
"The study adds one more reason for children not to watch TV," said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a Children's pediatrician and lead scientist for study.
Other research has shown that children who watch television excessively have increased risks of obesity and aggressive behavior. The new study suggests young children who watch too much have a greater chance of being among the 4 to 12 percent of youngsters in the United States with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Children in the study with attention problems at age 7 were more likely to have difficulty concentrating and to be easily confused, impulsive, restless or obsessive about things in their lives. The problems were similar to symptoms for ADHD.
About 10 percent of the youngsters in the study had the difficulties at age 7.
"A child that watched, say, six hours a day would be 60 percent more likely to have these problems at age 7 than one who watched no television," said Christakis, also director of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington. "That child would have greater challenges in school."
Conducted by researchers at Children's and the UW, the study is reported in the April edition of the journal Pediatrics. It assessed the television-viewing time of 1,278 children at age 1 and 1,345 children at age 3 — all participants in a continuing government-sponsored study that looks at many aspects of children's lives.
The researchers found that the children watched from 0 to 16 hours a day, with an average of 2.2 hours at age 1 and 3.6 hours at age 3. Content of the television programming was not analyzed.
The study took into account several factors, including gestational age, prenatal substance use by the mother and socioeconomic status.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV before age 2 and that children over 2 be limited to one to two hours a day of educational material on TV or other screen media.
The recommendations appear far from reality.
Some 43 percent of children under 2 watch TV every day, and 26 percent have a TV in their bedrooms, according to a recent survey of parents by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
In their earliest years, children's brains are undergoing rapid development, both with their brain cells and with how brain impulses are regulated by substances called neurotransmitters. Studies have shown that young laboratory rats given high levels of visual stimulation have abnormal patterns of brain cells. Scientists say increasing evidence shows that young children's brains are similarly vulnerable.
The rapidly changing images and sounds of television, even in educational children's programming, are certainly mesmerizing to young children but can be overstimulating, scientists say.
Television "is not like a piece of real life," said Christakis. "But it may develop as a child's reality ... a child who later learns that that is not the pace at which events unfold. Yet he is expected to be able to focus."
Christakis said his two children, 3 and 6, are limited to two hours of TV a week, all of it on weekends, always children's videos or PBS programs. They also may watch a movie on family movie night on the weekend.
Child-development experts both decry the effects of television itself and emphasize it takes away from time children need for other activities.
"The problem with watching TV is that kids are not passive learners; they learn by doing," said Lenore Rubin, a child psychologist for Public Health-Seattle & King County.
Rubin says TV also takes time away from nurturing relationships. Children who are well nurtured learn better and generally do better in life, she said.
"There are really better things to do than watch TV," she said. "What's better is to help cook ... or fold laundry or set the table or take a walk and look at the leaves."
Laura Taylor of Shoreline limits her 3-year-old daughter's television watching to one hour a day of children's programming and children's computer-game time to about two hours a week. The programming is almost always interactive, in which characters ask viewers to help them solve problems.
The idea, Taylor said, is for the TV and computer to be more than a baby-sitter. She is very selective to avoid the violence and sexuality of exaggerated body features found in some animated children's materials.
"Kids seem so much happier when they haven't been watching TV," Taylor said. "When they're playing dress up or games outside with other kids, or finding other ways to use their time."
Christakis hopes next to conduct a seven-year research project to see if children whose television watching is significantly reduced or eliminated have lower rates of attention problems. Parents, teachers and others will be asked to discourage TV watching, he said.
Warren King: 206-464-2247 or wking@seattletimes.com
source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2001895819&zsection_id=268889824&slug=tvhurtskids05m&date=20040405 5apr04
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