Word: behaviorisms
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...more difficult to detect autism in adults than in children. Children often have glaring symptoms, like delays in learning to speak, extreme social withdrawal and terrible tantrums. Less is known about how autism looks in adults. "To diagnose autism, you need to have good information on people's behavior," says Brugha. "It's much more straightforward to get that with children because you've got parents and teachers as observers. Adults with autism are not the best people to describe their own behavior...
...pacify a cranky child or head off a brewing tantrum? When reasoning, threats and time-outs fail, a sugary treat often does the trick. But while that chocolate-covered balm may be highly effective in the short term, say British scientists, it may be setting youngsters up for problem behavior later. According to a new study, kids who eat too many treats at a young age risk becoming violent in adulthood...
...people born during a one-week period in April 1970. That study included periodic evaluations of many different aspects of the growing children's lives, such as what they ate, certain health measures and socioeconomic status. Moore plumbed the data for information on kids' diet and their later behavior: at age 10, the children were asked how much candy they consumed, and at age 34, they were questioned about whether they had been convicted of a crime. Moore's analysis suggests a correlation: 69% of people who had been convicted of a violent act by age 34 reported eating candy...
...those questions is whether sweets themselves contain compounds that promote antisocial and aggressive behavior, or whether the excessive eating of sweets represents a lack of discipline in childhood that translates to poor impulse control in adulthood. Moore is leaning toward the latter. It's possible that children who are given sweets too frequently never learn how to delay gratification - that is, they never develop enough patience to wait for things they want, leading to impulsivity in adulthood. It's also possible that children who are poorly behaved from the start tend to get more candy. (Read "Why Media Could...
Moore acknowledges that there is also some intriguing data suggesting that diet itself may have a profound effect on behavior. A University of Oxford researcher recently published controversial findings hinting that prisoners who were fed vitamin supplements - and therefore presumably getting well-balanced nutrition - had lower rates of disciplinary events and aggressive outbursts than a control group who were given placebo pills. While the association is preliminary, says Moore, "I think looking at diet is a fairly novel way to think of behavior over the life course...