Recent Articles

Friday Humor

February 26, 2010 10:28

 I have posted this one before, but it seemed very appropriate in light of this week's posts: Judge: (To young witness) Do you know what would happen to you if you told a lie? Witness: Yes, I would go to hell. Judge: Is that all? Witness: Isn't that enough? From: Say What?

PTSD Linked to Family Violence

February 25, 2010 10:13

Here is another study adding to the literature documenting the correlation between family violence and PTSD.  The study has its limits, but is in line with other recent research.

Testimony from Children

February 23, 2010 10:46

The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently issued an interesting opinion, looking at what formalities are required to accept children as witnesses.  In the Matter of Welfare of J.J.W., No. A09-639 (Minn. App. Feb. 9, 2010) involved a four-year-old child's testimony about sexual abuse by a...

Avoid Television Tip-Overs

February 22, 2010 10:00

I ran across this study, from Clinical Pediatrics, analyzing injuries to children from furniture tip-overs. The researchers found a significant increase in injuries in the last 18 years, with televisions being the most-common furniture to tip over. I have seen a lot of news reports of children...

How Many Psychotropic Drugs are Too Many

January 21, 2010 10:29

The Daytona Beach News-Journal has an excellent article about Florida's review of its policy regarding the prescription of psychotropic drugs for children in foster care.  It notes the side effects of such drugs, such as depression and suicidal thoughts, as well as the difficulty of knowing...

More Zero-Tolerance Idiocy

January 19, 2010 10:59

The San Diego Union-Tribune tells the story of a school lock-down when administrators panicked over an 11-year-old student's home-made motion detector.  The device, a Gatorade bottle with electronic components attached, apparently looked enough like a bomb to panic clueless...

Mild Stress May Be Good for Children

January 18, 2010 10:23

I ran across an interesting entry at Scientific Blogging, explaining a study in Developmental Neuroscience.  The study's authors compared images of the prefrontal cortex of spider monkeys, and concluded that those monkeys who had been through mildly stressful experiences showed an...

Experts May Not Be Objective

January 04, 2010 10:26

 A recent project led me to an interesting study in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology looking at what factors influence the opinions of clinicians about whether child sexual abuse occurred in a given case.  It should come as no surprise that the study found that even expert...

Zero Tolerance, Infinite Idiocy

Debbie Ausburn
December 01, 2009 10:54

In a rare demonstration of common sense, Texas legislators recently enacted a law requiring school administrators to consider several mitigating factors in determining punishment for students.  The hope is that administrators will start to differentiate between Cub Scout camping utensils and...

Handwashing More Effective Than Hand Sanitizers

Debbie Ausburn
November 30, 2009 00:13

   Our recent bout with swine flu (well, technically "flu-like symptoms ") made this new study catch my eye.  Researchers publishing with the American Society for Microbiology found that hand sanitizers are less effective at killing the Norwalk virus than antibacterial skin...