Faculty Bibliography

'The literature really strongly suggests the average early to mid-adolescent needs 9 to 9.25 hours a night,' said Dr. Judith Owens, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who directs the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic at Hasbro Children's Hospital. Mary Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown and the director of chronobiology research at E. P. Bradley Hospital, says that in the sleep lab, researchers can assess a child's sleep drive by looking at EEG recordings of the brain, and monitor circadian rhythm by testing saliva

Here are three things I now know I should have done: I didn't tell the mother that bullying can be prevented, and that it's up to the school. I didn't call the principal or suggest that the mother do so. And I didn't give even a moment's thought to the bullies, and what their lifetime prognosis might be. Dr. Robert D. Sege, chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and a lead author of the new policy statement, says the [Dan Olweus] approach focuses attention on the largest group of children, the bystanders. 'Olweus's genius,' he said, 'is that he manages to turn the school situation around so the other kids realize that the bully is someone who has a problem managing his or her behavior, and the victim is someone they can protect.' The other lead author, Dr. Joseph L. Wright, senior vice president at Children's National Medical Center in Washington and the chairman of the pediatrics academy's committee on violence prevention, notes that a quarter of all children report that they have been involved in bullying, either as bullies or as victims. Protecting children from intentional injury is a central task of pediatricians, he said, and 'bullying prevention is a subset of that activity.'

The other lead author, Dr. Joseph Wright, senior vice president at Children's National Medical Center in Washington and the chairman of the pediatrics academy's committee on violence prevention, notes that a quarter of all children report that they have been involved in bullying, either as bullies or as victims

Knowledge and research that have accumulated over decades about the effects of physical abuse and sexual abuse are being codified into a curriculum; fellowship training in the field will have to meet certain standards; an expert, testifying in court, can expect to be questioned about being board-certified

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether maternal literacy level accounts for associations between educational level and the cognitive home environment in low-income families. DESIGN: Analysis of 369 mother-infant dyads participating in a long-term study related to early child development. SETTING: Urban public hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Low-income mothers of 6-month-old infants. MAIN EXPOSURE: Maternal literacy level was assessed using the Woodcock-Johnson III/Bateria III Woodcock-Munoz Tests of Achievement, Letter-Word Identification Test. Maternal educational level was assessed by determining the last grade that had been completed by the mother. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The cognitive home environment (provision of learning materials, verbal responsivity, teaching, and shared reading) was assessed using StimQ, an office-based interview measure. RESULTS: In unadjusted analyses, a maternal literacy level of ninth grade or higher was associated with increases in scores for the overall StimQ and each of 4 subscales, whereas a maternal educational level of ninth grade or higher was associated with increases in scores for the overall StimQ and 3 of 4 subscales. In simultaneous multiple linear regression models including both literacy and educational levels, literacy continued to be associated with scores for the overall StimQ (adjusted mean difference, 3.7; 95% confidence interval, 1.7-5.7) and all subscales except teaching, whereas maternal educational level was no longer significantly associated with scores for the StimQ (1.8; 0.5-4.0) or any of its subscales. CONCLUSIONS: Literacy level may be a more specific indicator of risk than educational level in low-income families. Studies of low-income families should include direct measures of literacy. Pediatricians should develop strategies to identify mothers with low literacy levels and promote parenting behaviors to foster cognitive development in these at-risk families

'When I gave a discussion to a group of parents at my daughter's day care,' said my friend Dr. Mitchell H. Katz, the San Francisco public health director, 'I counseled parents who were worried about the risks of vaccination to give their children -- if healthy -- the nasal vaccine, because what don't our children put up their noses? 'Given the variety of viruses that our children are exposed to through their noses, it's very hard to imagine how the vaccination could be that different. There had been some tragic and terrifying deaths; I read the news articles about a kindergartner -- healthy boy, no asthma, no heart disease -- who died at Vanderbilt in early September, and the subsequent meetings held at his school with crowds of worried parents, about the sanitizing of the school and the wiping down of the district's 600 school buses