Back to School Safety Tips

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a safety fact sheet for older children going to and from school. It goes into detail about the usual stranger safety tips (for example, not accepting rides), but there are a few less obvious tips for parents:

Instruct your children to always take a friend, always stay in well-lit areas, never take shortcuts, and never go into isolated areas.

Instruct your children to leave items and clothing with their name on them at home. If anyone calls out their name, teach them to not be fooled or confused.

In the event your children may be lost or injured, make sure they carry a contact card with your name and telephone numbers such as work and cellular.

The fact sheet also includes safety rules for children. Here are two of them:

ALWAYS TAKE A FRIEND with you when walking, biking,or standing at the bus stop. Make sure you know your bus number and which bus to ride.

NEVER LEAVE SCHOOL GROUNDS before the regular school day ends. Always check with the office before leaving school early.

I encourage parents to read the entire fact sheet here. It's also available as a downloadable color poster in both English and Spanish.

Have a safe school year!

Kindergarten Attention Problems Affect High School Achievement

A new study published in the June issue of Pediatrics (The Impact of Early Behavior Disturbances on Academic Achievement in High School) provides evidence of the long-term negative impact of attention problems in kindergarten on standardized high-school achievement tests. Six-year-old children who were rated by teachers as having problems paying attention performed more poorly at age seventeen in reading and math when compared to children with internalizing (depression and anxiety) or externalizing (aggression and rule-breaking) problems.

In a press release from the University of California at Davis School of Medicine, the lead author Dr. Joshua Breslau states:

Many children have behavioral problems of the types we examined in this study, but we don’t know which types of problems have the most serious long-term consequences. By identifying attention problems as the most consequential for academic achievement over the long term, this study helps us decide where to put our clinical resources.

One of the co-authors, Dr. Julie Schweitzer, points to the importance of having young children evaluated when they show problems paying attention in school. She suggests that parents start by talking to their child's pediatrician and determine the need for an evaluation by a psychologist.

A careful evaluation of medical and psychological factors related to poor attention is necessary to determine the best interventions. Although attention problems are often caused by attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), other causes include learning disabilities, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), poor nutrition, sleep problems, lead poisoning, and a variety of medical illnesses.

For more details on the study's design and results, see Peter West's article at HealthDay.

ADHD Medication Improves Test Scores

Recent research published in the May issue of Pediatrics--Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics--shows improved standardized reading and math scores in a nationally-representative, longitudinal sample of 594 school children from kindergarten through grade 5.

As reported by Tara Parker-Pope, in her New York Times' health blog (A.D.H.D. Drugs Linked to Higher Test Scores, April 27, 2009):

Children with attention deficit problems make bigger academic gains if they are taking stimulant medications compared to similar kids who aren’t receiving drug therapy...

She quotes the study's first author, Richard Scheffler, Ph.D., from the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health:

I think the findings are important because this is the first time that we’ve had objective educational performance measures, to look at whether kids who are taking medications for A.D.H.D. compared to kids who are not, that actually show that they are doing better.

For details, see the journal article's abstract -- Positive Association Between Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder Medication Use and Academic Achievement During Elementary School. The full article is available on-line to journal subscribers or for a single-use fee.