Word: pagani
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...majority of kids were not engaging in any of these activities," says Pagani, "but the fact that any of them were was unexpected...
...What struck Pagani most was how predictable the identities of the gamblers were. When she referred back to the ratings from kindergarten, she found that every one-unit increase on the impulsivity scale correlated with a 25% jump in the likelihood a child would be gambling by sixth grade. "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual already refers to gambling specifically as an impulse-control disorder," she says, citing the official text that outlines diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. "And then there were our findings showing that...
...Some of the parents of the kids in the study saw a little gambling as a minor thing, and a number of them even bought lottery tickets for their kids as a reward for good behavior. That, clearly, sends the wrong message. "Scratch-and-win games are for adults," Pagani says flatly. (See pictures of Las Vegas...
...What's more, not only can kids' behavior benefit when impulse issues are spotted early on, so can their brains. Preschool is a time when the prefrontal lobes, which are the center of executive functions - and what Pagani and others call "effortful control" - are just developing. The better the brain can be trained at this stage, the better it performs later in life. Pagani cites a 2007 study published in the journal Science that showed that simple attention-boosting training taught in kindergarten improved focus and concentration in later years. "You can introduce a cost-effective program and reap enormous...
...Pagani plans to check in with the kids in her survey again in another six years, when they're finishing high school and preparing to enter the larger world - with its larger temptations. Even if they were born too late to benefit from her findings, she thinks other kids can. (See the best and worst mothers of all time...