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A new study published in Child Development looked at how children and adolescents rectify unequal allocations of leadership duties in the classroom. “This study is about whether children and adolescents recognize when biases occur in the classroom and what they think about it,” study author Melanie Killen told us. “One context where this happens is when teachers assign students to take on highly valued leadership duties (e.g., assigning only boys to become crossing guards)." [More]

Violence and aggression against teachers has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Research published by the American Psychological Association found that whilst threats and violence decreased during the pandemic, they have now returned to pre-pandemic levels or increased. [More]

Teenagers who grow up in large families have poorer mental health than their peers who grew up in a family with fewer siblings. Researchers from Ohio State University found that in an analysis of children growing up in the US and China, a larger number of siblings had ramifications for the mental health of teenagers. [More]

A new study published in Cities and Health looked at associations between real-time, self-reported adolescent mental health and urban and architectural design concepts. “First, we designed a walking route (1.7km) with seven stops, and quantified the actual spaces according to a number of features of pedestrian and transit oriented design,” study author Leia Minaker told us. “Next, we took 70 kids between nine and 17 years old on a walk, and had them fill out these surveys at each stop.” [More]

autistic children in the aftermath of events on October 7th, 2023 in Israel. “Following the unprecedented attacks by Hamas on October 7th, we sought to understand the psychological experience of autistic and non autistic children and their parents,” Dr. Judah Koller of the School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem told us. [More]

Parents are feeling the pressure this holiday season. Data from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at University of Michigan Health found one in five parents think their children have unrealistic expectations of the holiday, and one in four parents admit they themselves set overly idealistic expectations for the holidays. [More]

A new study published in the Lancet looked at autism in England with regard to assessing under-diagnosis in a population-based cohort study of prospectively collected primary care data. “People often think of autism as a childhood condition, and historically, autism has mostly been diagnosed in children,” study author Elizabeth O’Nions told us. “Many autistic adults were not diagnosed when they were children, either because autism didn’t exist as a diagnosis when they were young, or the criteria were narrower, meaning that only a very small number of people were considered to be autistic at the time.” [More]

Children who are close to their parents early in life are more likely to be kind, helpful and prosocial when they grow up. Researchers from the University of Cambridge found that children who had a strong bond with their parents early in their life were more likely to treat others kindly and act with empathy. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Immunity looked whether there was a potential link between early life stress and the onset of mental disorders. “Individuals who suffer childhood abuse/neglect are much more likely to develop mental diseases, including depression and schizophrenia,” study author Wok-Suk Chung told us. “Additionally, stress has been shown to elicit a decrease in the number of excitatory synaptic connections in the brain and impair their functions. However, the underlying mechanism by which early life stress induces synaptic and behavioral symptoms later in life have been unclear.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine looked at adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and aging-associated functional impairment in a national sample of older community-dwelling adults. “In recent years, there has been growing interest and research in how stress and traumatic events that happen in childhood can impact people’s health in their early adult years, from increasing people’s risk of depression all the way to other diseases like diabetes,” study author Victoria M. Lee told us. [More]