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Responding to a gap in existing programs that aim to prevent spinal cord and brain injuries among children, an interactive activity-based program was developed and implemented through local elementary schools, focusing on children 8 to 10 years of age. Evaluation involved a pretest/post-test design with a comparison group who had not experienced the program. Children who participated in the program showed increases in knowledge, self-reported changes in behaviour, and favourable shifts in attitudes about vulnerability to injury four months after exposure to the program. Control group children responded similarly to how children in the intervention group responded on the pretest measure.

Injuries are the leading cause of death during childhood. Although many injuries to toddlers occur when children are at home and being supervised by caregivers, there has been little research examining how parents respond to children approaching injury-risk hazards. In the present study mothers and their toddlers were unobtrusively videotaped as they waited in an office containing a number of contrived hazards that could result in injury to the child. From the video records we examined when mothers attended to hazards (before or after the child approached the hazard), what they said or did (remove hazard, redirect child- verbally or physically), and children's responses to their mother's efforts to redirect them away from injury hazards. Other factors that were examined as potential influences on parents' responses included the child's injury history, the parent's report of the child's typical level of risk taking, and the child's level of receptive language development. Boys were more likely than girls to approach injury-risk hazards and were more likely immediately to touch or retrieve the item; frequency of touching hazards positively correlated with mothers' reports of children's risk taking and injury histories. Mothers used more, and more effortful, redirection strategies for boys, and boys were less compliant than girls in response to their mother's efforts to redirect them from hazards.

Objective: Assessed for age and sex differences in school-age children's reporting of injury-risk behaviors, ratings of injury-risk in various play situations, attributions for injuries (self, other, bad luck), and beliefs about their vulnerability to injury in comparison to their peers (more, less, comparable vulnerability). Methods: We used a structured interview and drawings that depicted children showing wary or confident facial expressions when engaged in injury-risk play activities. Results: Children's reported risk taking could be predicted from their risk appraisals, beliefs about the likelihood of injury, and attributions of injuries to bad luck, and these factors resulted in 80% correct assignment of cases by sex in a discriminant analysis. The wary affect display resulted in higher injury-risk ratings than the confident display, with this effect being greater for girls than boys. Conclusions: Cognitive-based factors differentiate boys from girls and contribute to sex differences in children's injury-risk behaviors.

The majority of research on infant crossmodal perception has addressed the question of whether infants 4 months and older demonstrate the ability. By contrast, the focus in the present study was on newborns and the primary goal was twofold: to determine if newborns can learn arbitrary sight-sound pairings and to evaluate possible inferences that neonates make when repeatedly presented arbitrary sight-sound pairings. Alert neonates were familiarized with toy-sound pairs using an infant-controlled habituation procedure. They were then given a violation-of-expectancy test to determine if they had learned these sight-sound pairings and drawn any inferences about certain properties of these bimodal events. Results supported the conclusion that infants just a few hours old can learn sight-sound pairings. Furthermore, the findings suggested that newborns expected sight-sound pairs to remain colocated even when they move to a new location, they recognized that the sound was an attribute of a specific object, and they recognized that a specific spatial location was not an attribute of the sight-sound pair. Thus, infants made important and correct inferences based on limited experiences with specific auditory-visual events, and they did so just after birth. Implications of these findings for theories of crossmodal perceptual development are discussed.

The goal of the present study was twofold: to examine the influence of two amodal properties, co-location and temporal synchrony, on infants' associating a sight with a sound, and to determine if the relative influence of these properties on crossmodal learning changes with age. During familiarization 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-month-olds were presented two toys and a sound, with sights and sounds varying with respect to co-location and temporal synchrony. Following each familiarization phase infants were given a paired preference test to assess their learning of sight-sound associations. Measures of preferential looking revealed age-related changes in the influence of co-location and temporal synchrony on infants' learning sight-sound associations. At all ages, infants could use temporal synchrony and co-location as a basis for associating an auditory with a visual event and, in the absence of temporal synchrony, co-location was sufficient to support crossmodal learning. However, when these cues conflicted there were developmental changes in the influence of these cues on infants' learning auditory-visual associations. At 2 and 4 months infants associated the sounds with the toy that moved in synchrony with the sound's rhythm despite extreme violation of co-location of this sight and sound. In contrast, 6- and 8-month-olds did not associate a specific toy with the sound when co-location and synchrony information conflicted. The findings highlight the unique and interactive effects of distinct amodal properties on infants' learning arbitrary crossmodal relations. Possible explanations for the age shift in performance are discussed.

OBJECTIVES: Although many injuries happen when school age children are away from home and in the company of other children, we know surprisingly little about interpersonal influences on children's risk taking decisions. The aim of the present study was to examine the influence of older siblings' persuasive appeals on young children's decisions about engaging in behaviours that could threaten their physical safety. METHODS: Forty same sex sibling pairs participated. Children were shown drawings of play scenes (bicycling, river crossing, and sledding), with each depicting lower and higher risk paths of travel. Children of 8 years made initial decisions as to which paths they would take. Subsequently, their older sibling acted as a confederate and tried to persuade them to change their decisions. RESULTS: After the appeals of older siblings, younger children significantly shifted their decisions: choices of less risky paths replaced the initial selection of more risky paths, and vice versa. A positive sibling relationship was predictive of younger siblings' decision changes. Boys and girls were equally effective in persuasion but they did so using different types of arguments, with boys communicating primarily appeals to fun and girls emphasizing appeals to safety. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the effect that older siblings can have on risk taking decisions of younger siblings. Accordingly, they document the importance of considering the interpersonal context of risk taking when designing interventions to reduce injuries among elementary schoolchildren.

Unintentional injuries are the number one cause of death among children beyond one year of age. Many injuries among school-age children happen when they are away from home and in the company of peers. The aim in this study was to examine peer influences on children's judgments about engaging in behaviors that threaten their physical safety. Children were shown pictures depicting play situations which involved different paths of travel, each of which posed different degrees of injury risk. Children were asked to select the path they would take, and to assign a danger rating to reflect their beliefs about the likelihood of injury along this path. A peer-influence session followed, in which a same-sex friend attempted to persuade the child to take another path. Following exposure to the friend's arguments, children made their final decision about a path of travel in each play situation; the peer was not present during this decision and the experimenter present was unaware of the child's initial path choice. A number of other measures were taken in an effort to determine factors that influence children's risk-taking decisions. Results revealed that friends were successful in their persuasion efforts: for two of the three play situations, a significant number of children who initially selected low-risk paths switched to more risky paths. Appraisal of danger related to initial path decisions, but number of hazards identified and injury history did not significantly relate to initial decisions. The implications of these results for our understanding of injury-outcome processes are discussed.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this longitudinal study was to determine how children's participation in swim lessons impacts parents' appraisals of children's drowning risk and need for supervision. METHOD: Parents with 2-5-year old children enrolled in community swim lessons completed the same survey measures up to 4 times over an 8-month period. RESULTS: Multilevel regression analyses examining temporal relationships between parents' perceptions of their child's swim ability, supervision needs around water, and children's ability to keep themselves safe in drowning risk situations revealed that as children progressed through swim lessons, parents' perceptions of their child's swim ability and their belief that children are capable of keeping themselves safe around water increased. Further, the relation between parents' perceptions of swim ability and judgments of children's supervision needs was mediated through parents' judgment about their child's ability to secure their own safety near water. CONCLUSIONS: As parents perceive their child to be accumulating swim skills, they increasingly believe that children are capable of keeping themselves from drowning, and as a result, that less active parent supervision of their child is necessary. Implications of these findings for intervention efforts to counter this unwelcome way of thinking that may arise through continued participation in swim lessons are discussed. Incorporating a parent-focused component into children's learn-to-swim programs to promote more realistic appraisals of children's supervision needs and drowning risks may further enhance the positive benefits that swim lessons have for children's safety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). Language: en

Background Enhancing caregivers’ awareness of children9s injury risks and increasing knowledge about strategies for injury prevention often involve presenting parents with written materials and accompanying images. Objectives To assess parents’ appraisals of different variations of images and identify those features that enhance their attention to safety messages. Methods Eight images showing risk situations were taken from the A Million Messages safety education parent-directed programme in Canada and modified to create a corresponding image that clearly showed negative consequences for the child, and facial expressions of fear and/or upset. Mothers with young children were presented with the eight pairs of images (negative consequence vs risk situation) and asked to select the best accompaniment to a safety message and to provide an explanation for their choice. Each image was then also rated for fit to the safety message, communication of danger, emotional arousal and attention elicitation. Results The images depicting negative consequences were chosen for most comparisons (78%) and higher scores were assigned to these images for all four features rated by parents (danger communicated, emotions evoked, attention elicitation and fit to the safety message). Moreover, ratings of danger, emotions and attention predicted ‘fit to safety message’ scores. Conclusions Depicting negative consequences and showing negative emotions is important to maximise the effectiveness of images in communicating danger and evoking attention and concern when targeting parents with child-safety messaging.

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of Motivational Interviewing (MI) as an intervention for promoting self-efficacy and weight loss in a sample of overweight and obese youth. Methods /Design 40 participants (aged 10-18 years) were randomly assigned to control (social skills training) or treatment (MI) group. Both groups received individual therapy (~30 min/month) in addition to usual care of diet/exercise counseling. Pre- and post- (at 6 months follow-up) variables included measures of self-efficacy and anthropometrics. Results Although significant between-group differences were not found, individuals in the MI group attended more sessions. Overall, participants in both groups showed significant increases in self-efficacy and a trend of decreased body mass index z-scores. Conclusions Health benefits from participation in individual therapy may have been accrued; however, specific benefits attributable to MI were limited. Findings suggest that more than one type of counseling intervention (i.e., MI and social skills training) may be beneficial when providing integrative treatment for obese youth.

OBJECTIVES: The current research examined the impact of peer social norms on the physical risk-taking decisions of elementary-school children. METHOD: Children 6-12 years of age completed a novel video-viewing decision task in which they observed risk and non-risk child behaviors on a playground and, after each behavior, indicated their willingness to model each of the behaviors in their own video, both before and after exposure to peer-communicated social norms (encouragement, discouragement). RESULTS: Exposure to peer social norms resulted in significant changes in risk taking, with changes predicted from ratings of perceived social norms and appraisals of injury vulnerability and severity. CONCLUSION: Exposure to peer social norms can provide another means by which injury prevention programs can aim to reduce injury-risk behaviors among school-age children. Language: en

Concerns about safety and rigorous ethic standards can make it very difficult to study children's risk taking. The goal of this study was to determine how closely intentions to risk take relate to actual risk taking among boys and girls 6-11 years of age.Children initially completed an "intentions to risk take" task. Following administration of several questionnaires they later participated in an actual risk taking task.At all ages, for both boys and girls, intentions to risk take was highly positively correlated with actual risk taking. When discrepancies occurred these were usually of minimal magnitude.Tasks that tap children's intentions to risk take can serve as proxy indicators of children's actual risk taking.

Sibling supervision has been shown to increase the risk of supervisee's unintentional injury in the home. Both poorer supervision by the older sibling and noncompliance by the younger sibling have been shown to contribute to this risk. Previous studies have shown that informing older siblings that they are responsible for the behavior of their younger sibling improves their supervision. The present study, conducted in Canada, examined whether informing both children the older child is in charge would improve both older sibling supervisory practices and compliance by the younger child. Younger and older siblings were initially placed in a room containing contrived hazards, and their interactions were unobtrusively recorded. In a second contrived hazards room, both children were then informed that the older sibling was in charge, and the supervisor was privately told not to let the supervisee touch hazardous objects. Results revealed that sibling supervisors showed improved supervision but supervisee behavior did not vary across conditions. Implications for injury prevention and future research directions are discussed.

Objectives Sibling supervision increases young children's risk of unintentional injury. Both noncompliance by the supervisee and insufficient supervision contribute to this risk. The current study examined whether explicitly instructing older siblings to supervise their younger siblings and prevent specific risky behaviors improves their supervision practices. Methods Supervisees and older siblings were placed together in a playroom. One group of older siblings were given explicit instructions not to allow the supervisee to engage in specific risk behaviors, whereas a second group was not. Results Informing older siblings that they were "in charge" resulted in a higher frequency of proactive supervision strategies, more forceful reactions to stop supervisee risk taking, and a trend toward improved watchfulness. Supervisees in the no instruction condition also engaged in more hazard interactions compared with those in the instruction condition. Conclusions Explicitly informing older children to supervise younger siblings may reduce younger children's risk of injury when siblings are supervising. Language: en

In their chapter, Family Discord and Child Health: An Emotional Security Formulation, Davies, Sturge-Apple, and Martin (Chap. 5) link children’s mental health outcomes to emotional and communication patterns expressed between parents. In this chapter, we discuss, from a clinical/interventionist perspective, several unique contributions made by emotion security theory that help to explain the impact family discord has on children’s mental health. We then place this theory within a broader context of research on child health outcomes and discuss some challenges for this theory by exploring the role of compensatory parent influences, differential susceptibility to risk exposure in children, socioemotional development, bidirectional parent–child influences, and extrafamilial influences on children’s mental health. In discussing these challenges, we consider findings from research on factors that influence unintentional childhood injury risk.

OBJECTIVE: Unintentional injuries are the number one cause of death for infants. Many of these injuries could be prevented if parents took additional safety precautions. In this study physicians' and parents' perspectives regarding the part that physicians play in educating first time parents about child safety issues were compared. METHODS: All pediatricians and family physicians in London, Ontario were surveyed by mail (68% return rate) regarding their practices, attitudes, and beliefs related to parent education about child safety issues. A sample of 114 first time mothers, including 38 each with 6, 12, and 18 month old infants, completed a telephone interview. All parents had physicians who had returned questionnaires. RESULTS: There was good correspondence between parents' and physicians' judgments about the safety issues most often covered, and what role physicians should adopt regarding parent education about child safety issues. In addition, they both agreed that parents seldom seek out safety information by asking questions. Relative to parent reports, however, physicians significantly overestimated the time they spent on safety issues and the degree of their direct involvement in communicating this information. The best predictor of time spent by physicians on safety issues was their rating of the importance of assuming the role of parent educator. The best predictor of parents asking questions about child safety was their rating of the adequacy of physicians' responses to previously asked questions. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that both physicians and parents contribute to undermine communication about child safety during well-baby visits.

Background Previous research has shown that children engage in greater physical risk taking when in an elevated positive mood state. The current study examined whether exposure to a peer-communicated behavioural norm about safety could counteract this effect. Methods Community recruitment resulted in a sample of 120 children (7 to 10 years), including 60 boys ( M age = 8.13 yrs; SD = 0.93 yrs) and 60 girls ( M age = 8.02 yrs; SD = 0.91 years). Children’s intentions to engage in risk taking (based on identifying from photos which risky playground behaviours they would do if they had to make a videotape later that day) and actual risk behaviours (based on how they behaved when running through an obstacle course that contained hazards) were measured while in a neutral and positive mood state, with positive mood induced experimentally via false positive feedback during the playing of a novel videogame (emotion ratings throughout the session validated the positive mood induction worked; there was a significant increase in positive mood, as expected, t (119) = 15.12, p Results Exposure to the non-norm communication had no effect on risk taking: children showed an increase in risk taking and intentions when in a positive aroused mood state compared to a neutral mood state ( M change = +0.65 standardised RT score), F (1, 59) = 71.31, p p 2 = 0.55. In contrast, exposure to the peer-communicated behavioural norm about safety was effective to counteract this effect: children actually showed a significant decrease in risk taking and intentions when in a positive compared to neutral mood state ( M change = −0.47 standardised RT score), F (1, 115) = 84.77, p p 2 = 0.42. Both risk taking measures yielded the same effects. Conclusion Manipulating children’s exposure to peer-communicated behavioural norms can be an effective strategy for reducing injury-risk behaviours.

Background Diving related injuries are often catastrophic and result in life altering effects for victims and their families. One common approach to alerting people to diving hazards and injury risks is through the posting of warning signs. Of course, whether warning signs are effective for these purposes depends in part on how well viewers understand the intended message. The current study examined children’s understanding of various features of No Diving warning signs. Methods Normally developing 7 to 10 year olds were asked questions to assess their understanding of text, images, and main messages on No Diving warning signs. These structured interviews were audio recorded and responses were later coded, with excellent resulting reliability (Kappa = 0.91). Results Children understood the behaviour advised against (diving), why it is prohibited (can hit head on the bottom), and what can happen (serious injury including hospitalisation). They understood that breaking your neck results in limitations in mobility and can occur from diving, but they did not anticipate that such an injury is likely to occur. There were no gender and few age differences, but diving experience was associated with children significantly downplaying their risk of injury. Conclusions Having No Diving warning signs explicitly mention a broken neck, may serve to remind children of this potential consequences at the time of decision making. Active adult supervision is particularly important for children who have prior positive diving experiences.

Spatial knowledge was evaluated in sighted and congenitally blind children using a large-scale four-location navigation task adapted from the work of Landau, Spelke, and Gleitman (1984). From video records we coded the exact path taken and determined accuracy of initial turn, closest position, and final position, relative to target location. We then computed a score to index the efficiency of the path taken. For the sighted sample, after the navigation task, children constructed a tactile map of the test space without the aid of vision and, following removal of the blindfold, drew from memory the spatial layout of the test space. Performance on the navigation and mapping tasks consistently indicated increasing cognitive mapping skills with age in sighted children. Blind children performed comparably to the sighted on all measures except accuracy at final position, for which their performance was worse than that of the sighted. Analysis of the directness of novel paths and other measures taken suggest caution in ascribing well developed Euclidean coding skills to very young children. Results are discussed in light of Landau et al.'s (1984) conclusions.

Farm environments pose unique safety hazards for children. With this in mind, this paper raises several points about how caregiver supervision influences risk of childhood injuries. First, research suggests that it is not the absence of a supervisor per se but the poorer quality of supervision that leads to pediatric injuries on farms, particularly for young children who behave in unpredictable ways at a time when caregivers are likely to be distracted with farm work. Second, research suggests that "adequate" supervision varies with context. In nonfarm contexts, continuous attention and close proximity (i.e., being within arm's reach) constitute an adequate level of supervision to ensure young children's safety. In agricultural contexts, attention and continuity are also relevant. However, close proximity is less beneficial because this often results in exposing children to hazards (animals, dangerous equipment) if the supervisor is working. Third, research suggests that in both agricultural and nonagricultural contexts, the extent to which supervision is associated with injury varies with a child's developmental level. Specifically, supervision seems to play a more primary role in moderating injury risk for young children (preschool), and this influence decreases as children age and increasingly independent are allowed to engage in more activities without a supervisor present. Building on these findings, practical recommendations are provided to enhance the safety of children on farms and future research directions are discussed.

Objective: Fire is a leading cause of unintentional injury and, although young children are at particularly increased risk, there are very few evidence-based resources available to teach them fire safety knowledge and behaviors. Using a pre-post randomized design, the current study evaluated the effectiveness of a computer game (The Great Escape) for teaching fire safety information to young children (3.5-6 years). Method: Using behavioral enactment procedures, children's knowledge and behaviors related to fire safety were compared to a control group of children before and after receiving the intervention. Results: The results indicated significant improvements in knowledge and fire safety behaviors in the intervention group but not the control. Conclusion: Using computer games can be an effective way to promote young children's understanding of safety and how to react in different hazardous situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). Language: en

Newborns' localization of sounds was examined in two experiments that utilized different psychophysical procedures and imposed different task demands. The results of both experiments were consistent in indicating that neonates not only differentiate the hemifield of a sound source but have some capacity to localize a sound within the hemifields. Adjustment of their initial head turn angle following a within-hemifield shift in location of an ongoing sound indicated that head orientation in neonates is elicited not only by sound onset but also by changes in location of an ongoing sound. Thus, multiple stimulus parameters impact on this neonatal response. Results are related to research on sound localization in older infants, and discussed in light of early development of the central auditory system.

Development of the haptic system was evaluated by examining object exploration and recognition in sighted children between the ages of 3 and 8 years. To determine the importance of visual experience for these abilities, the performance of seven congenitally blind children was compared with that of sighted peers matched for age and gender. Performance was evaluated in terms of the speed and correctness of object identification, thoroughness of exploration of object parts, representation of the global form versus local parts of objects, and the possible role of critical parts in object identification. Four types of common objects were presented: normal-sized, miniaturized small, miniaturized large, and oversized objects. All subjects were required to manipulate and identify these objects haptically, without the aid of vision. Results revealed the emergence of a developmental pattern in all performance measures for sighted children. Older sighted children were not only able to recognize more objects and to do so more quickly, but also were more thorough in their exploration patterns. With increasing age, children appear to change their representation of objects from one based predominantly on global shape to one that incorporates a balance of global shape and specific local parts. In agreement with this, critical parts also played a role in object identification, particularly in older children. Blind and sighted children did not differ in any performance measures, which suggests that previous visual experiences do not determine tactile exploration strategies and are not essential for haptic object recognition.

OBJECTIVE: Pre-post-randomized design evaluated The Blue Dog, a dog safety software program. METHODS: 76 children aged 3.5-6 years completed 3 tasks to evaluate dog safety pre- and postintervention: (a) pictures (recognition of safe/risky behavior), (b) dollhouse (recall of safe behavior via simulated dollhouse scenarios), and (c) live dog (actual behavior with unfamiliar live dog). Following preintervention evaluation, children were randomly assigned to dog or fire safety conditions, each involving 3 weeks of home computer software use. RESULTS: Children using Blue Dog had greater change in recognition of risky dog situations than children learning fire safety. No between-group differences emerged in recall (dollhouse) or engagement (live-dog) in risky behavior. Families enjoyed using the software. CONCLUSIONS: Blue Dog taught children knowledge about safe engagement with dogs, but did not influence recall or implementation of safe behaviors. Dog bites represent a significant pediatric injury concern and continued development of effective interventions is needed. Language: en

Objective: Teaching safety rules is a common way parents attempt to moderate injury risk for elementary-school children, but few studies have examined the nature of this teaching. The present study explored whether mothers’ safety rules varied with type of injury (falls, poisoning, burns and cuts), the nature of these teaching strategies about rules, and how effective these rules were to moderate children’s risk behaviour when in a setting having ‘contrived’ hazards that were targeted by these rules. Methods: Mothers completed an interview about safety rules, and children’s behaviour was unobtrusively observed in a ‘contrived hazards’ situation having hazards relevant to falls, poisoning, burns and cuts. Results: Mothers had significantly fewer rules addressing fall risks than other types of injuries, and fall-related rules were highly hazard-specific in nature, rather than aimed at teaching general principles for appraising fall risks. For all types of injuries except falls, children interacted with fewer hazards for which there were rules. Conclusions: Rules can have preventive properties that can serve to moderate children’s interacting with hazards when alone, but this seems to vary depending on the type of rule that has been taught. Given that falls are a leading cause of injury hospitalization for children and that parents are not emphasizing fall prevention as much as other types of injuries, efforts should be extended to promote parents’ shifting their prevention approaches to better address this particular injury risk.

Background Childhood obesity is associated with serious physiological and psychological consequences including type 2 diabetes, higher rates of depression and low self-esteem. With the population of overweight and obese youth increasing, appropriate interventions are needed that speak to the issue of readiness to change and motivation to maintain adherence to healthy behavior changes. Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a method of therapy found to resolve ambivalence, enhance intrinsic motivation and promote confidence in a person's ability to make behavior changes. While MI has shown promise in the adult obesity literature as effecting positive lifestyle change, little is known about the effectiveness of MI with overweight and obese youth. This study aims to: 1) demonstrate that MI is an effective intervention for increasing a person's self-efficacy; 2) demonstrate that exposure to MI will facilitate healthy behavior changes; 3) explore psychological changes related to participation in MI and 4) compare physiological and anthropometric outcomes before and after intervention. Methods/Design The current investigation is a prospective study conducted with ongoing participants who regularly attend an outpatient pediatric care center for weight-loss. Overweight youth (BMI > 85th %ile) between the ages of 10 and 18 who meet eligibility criteria will be recruited. Participants will be randomly assigned to a control group (social skills training) or a treatment group (MI). Participants will meet with the therapist for approximately 30 minutes prior to seeing the dietician, over the course of 6 months. Participants will also undergo a full day assessment at the beginning and end of psychology intervention to evaluate body fat, and metabolic risk (screening for diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and fitness level). The paper and pencil portions of the assessments as well as the clinical testing will occur at baseline and at the conclusion of the intervention (6 months) with a repeat assessment 6 months following the completion of the intervention. Discussion Results from this study are expected to enhance our understanding of the efficacy of MI with children and adolescents who are overweight or obese. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials #NCT00326404.

Objectives The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the supervision attributes and risk-taking questionnaire (SARTQ), which is a new measure of caregiver supervision and child risk-taking that applies to elementary school children 7–10 years of age. Methods Using a prospective design, scores on the SARTQ were related to children9s recent and long-term history of injuries and to parents9 supervision scores that were derived based on measuring their home supervision practices over 8 weeks. Results Subscale scores on the SARTQ related differentially to measures of supervision and child injury scores, providing support for the criterion validity of this new measure. Conclusion Results from this initial test of the SARTQ suggest that it holds promise as a measure that is relevant to understanding injury risk for elementary school children.

Objectives Parental supervision reduces young children9s risk of unintentional injuries, but supervision by older siblings has been shown to increase risk. The current study explored how this differential risk of injury may arise. Methods The supervision behaviours of mothers were compared to those of their older children when each was the designated supervisor of a young child in their family in a setting having ‘contrived hazards’. Results Mothers engaged in more proactive safety behaviours by removing hazards, whereas older siblings more often modelled injury-risk behaviours by interacting with hazards, and supervisees were likely to interact with hazards the older sibling touched. Supervisees displayed more injury-risk behaviours when supervised by a sibling, yet sibling supervisors were less attentive to supervisee risk behaviours than mothers. Supervisees also were more non-compliant with older siblings than mothers when requested to stop risk taking. Conclusions Both supervisor and supervisee behaviour patterns contribute to increase the risk of injury when older siblings supervise younger ones.

In this article research examining the effects of formal training on children's perception of music is reviewed. Consideration is given both to perception of rhythmic and tonal properties of melodies. It is concluded that training in children serves to enhance perception of more detailed aspects of melodies, to facilitate the speed at which this information is encoded, and to result in better memory for this material. Moreover, it seems to affect not only perception of rhythmic details but also organisational strategies, and to accelerate the emergence of sensitivity to diatonic scale structure and the ease of application of this knowledge to music perception tasks. Future research might be aimed at determining if these auditory processing effects are specific to musical sequences or generalise to the perception of other patterned stimuli such as speech. Empirical efforts aimed at increasing our understanding of the mechanisms mediating the effects of training are also sorely needed.

Objective: To investigate whether one can differentiate injured and uninjured young children based on child behavioural attributes or indices of caregiver supervision. Method: A matched case–control design was used in which case participants were children presenting to an emergency department for treatment for an injury and age/sex matched control participants presented for illness-related reasons. During structured phone interviews about supervision parents reported on general supervisory practices (standardised questionnaire) and specific practices corresponding to time of injury (cases) or the last time their child engaged in the activity that incited their match’s injury (controls). Parents also reported on child behavioural attributes that have been linked to child risk taking in prior research (inhibitory control, sensation seeking). Results: Results revealed no group differences in child behavioural attributes; however, the control group received more supervision both in general (OR = 4.82, 95% CI 1.89 to 12.33) and during the specified activity that led to injury in cases (OR = 5.38, 95% CI 2.13 to 13.58). Conclusion: These findings confirm past speculation that caregiver supervision influences children’s risk of medically-attended injury and highlight the importance of targeting supervision in child-injury prevention interventions.

Objective: To compare risk perceptions of parents whose child sustained a medically attended playground injury (cases) with those of parents whose child had not (controls) to address two questions. Does having a child experience a medically attended injury: (1) sensitise parents to children’s injury vulnerability and severity; (2) influence parents’ appraisal of the injury mechanism (child’s behaviour), attributions for injuries or beliefs about strategies for prevention? Method: Each case–control parent dyad was assigned to one of two conditions: (1) being presented with 10 common injury-risk playground behaviours specific to the equipment on which their child had been hurt, and asked to appraise injury vulnerability and severity; or (2) being presented with scenarios about playground injuries that varied in severity but were all based on the same child behaviour, and asked questions about this behaviour, attributions for injury and strategies for prevention. Results: The results support the occurrence of a sensitisation process. Compared with control parents, case parents showed higher ratings of injury severity and children’s vulnerability to injury, made fewer attributions for injuries to bad luck, and endorsed a greater diversity of prevention strategies, including parent (closer supervision), child (teaching rules about safe play on playgrounds) and environmental (modifications to playgrounds). Conclusions: A child’s medically attended injury can create a “teachable moment” for the parent. Linking injury-prevention programming to this teachable moment may increase the likelihood of evoking changes in parental supervisory behaviour and their setting of rules limiting their child’s risk behaviours to reduce the occurrence of childhood injury.

A go/no-go conditioned head-turn procedure was used to test 6- and 12-month-olds' discrimination of changes in the distance of a sound source. White-noise bursts initially were presented from a referent loudspeaker positioned at 90° azimuth and at a fixed distance. On experimental trials, these were shifted to be presented either at a closer distance (approaching sound) or a further distance (receding sound), which resulted in an amplitude increase or decrease, respectively. On control trials, the bursts continued at the referent loudspeaker without any change. On catch trials, the sound continued at the referent loudspeaker, but its amplitude was increased or decreased. Performance varied with direction and magnitude of sound shift but not as a function of age. Infants' were significantly better at discriminating approaching sounds as compared to receding sounds and, in both cases, performance improved systematically with increasing magnitude of distance change. Performance on catch trials confirmed better discrimination of an amplitude increase than decrease per se, but performance levels were significantly less than when amplitude changes resulted from changes in the distance of the sound source. The findings suggest an asymmetry in infants' discrimination of auditory depth changes and are discussed in light of adult data on this topic and related research on discrimination of sound amplitude.

Objective The objective of this study was to develop a standardized questionnaire (BACKIE) that would assess the Behaviors (B), Attitudes (A), Cognitions (C), Knowledge (K), and Injury Experiences (IE) that elementary-school children possess pertaining to seven types of injuries, including: falls; motor vehicle collisions; burns; drowning; choking/suffocation; poisoning; and bicycle/pedestrian injuries. Methods Over 500 children in grades two through seven completed the questionnaire, with a sub-sample repeating it two months later to assess test–retest reliability of the measure. Results Psychometric assessment of the instrument revealed acceptable internal and test–retest reliabilities and results of a Confirmatory Factor Analysis provided support for the hypothesized factor structure. Conclusion Having a psychometrically sound measure that allows one to assess attitudes, cognitions, and knowledge is an essential first step to exploring the relative influence of these factors on children's risk and safety practices.

OBJECTIVE: An intervention based on induced hypocrisy was conducted to reduce children's intentions to show fall-risk behaviors on playground equipment. METHODS: To induce hypocrisy participants (7-12 years) advocated for safe-play behaviors while being made mindful about past failures to play safely on playgrounds. To measure the impact of the intervention, children created posters indicating which playground behaviors they Would Do and Would Not Do; children believed they would have to demonstrate the behaviors endorsed on their posters. RESULTS: The intervention resulted in significant reductions in the risk behaviors children endorsed both for risk behaviors targeted (specific effects) and nontargeted risk behaviors (generalized effects). Assessing the mechanism by which the intervention produced changes in behavioral intentions revealed it yielded changes in cognitions that predicted subsequent reductions in risk-taking intentions. CONCLUSIONS: The present intervention was successful in reducing children's intentions to engage in risky playground behaviors and it did so by changing cognitions. Language: en

Recent research reveals that supervision can be a protective factor for childhood injury. Parents who closely supervise young children at home have children who experience fewer injuries. What is not known, however, is what messaging approaches (e.g., injury statistics, graphic images of injured children, personal testimonials by parents) are best to persuade parents to supervise more closely. Using video as the medium, the present focus group study of urban Canadian mothers explored their reactions to different formats and messages in order to: identify best practices to convince mothers that childhood injury prevention is important; determine how best to communicate messages about supervision to mothers; and identify what the nature and scope of these messages should be for motivating and empowering mothers to supervise closely. Results suggest that those who become aware of the scope of childhood injuries are motivated to pay attention to messaging about supervision, that such messages must be delivered with care so that parents do not feel guilty or blamed for acknowledging they could more closely supervise than they already are, that certain messages are not useful for encouraging closer supervision, and that both the content and presentation characteristics (images, accompanying sound) of messages are important determinants of effectiveness for motivating mothers to supervise more closely. Implications for developing interventions that effectively communicate information about child-injury risk and supervision to mothers are discussed.

Five- and 9-years-olds were presented a 9-note melody and asked to select the line drawing that best depicted the melodic contour, or the sequential pattern of rising and falling pitches. Melodies varied in tonality and contour complexity. Tonal melodies contained only diatonic notes, whereas atonal melodies also included some nondiatonic notes.

Infants' acuity in localizing sounds within hemifields was examined by determining the smallest sound shift off 60 degrees and along the horizontal axis that infants could discriminate reliably, that is, minimum audible angle (MAA). Infants 6, 12, and 18 months of age were tested using a Go/No-Go conditioned head-turn procedure in which infants received an equal number of no-change (control) trials and sound-shift (experimental) trials. A correct response (i.e., a head turn toward the loud-speakers) on an experimental trial resulted in visual reinforcement. Localization acuity for sounds within hemifields was fairly poor and improved systematically with increasing age. MAA estimates at each age were significantly higher, indicating poorer localization acuity, in comparison to those obtained previously in research examining infants' resolution of auditory space near midline. These findings are consistent with adult data and demonstrate a finer partitioning of auditory space near midline than within hemifields. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the development of auditory processing mechanisms in sound localization are discussed.

OBJECTIVE: Unintentional injuries are a leading threat to the health of elementary-school children, with many injuries happening when children are left to make their own decisions about risk taking during play. The present study sought to identify determinants of children's physical taking. METHODS: An ecologically valid task that posed some threat of injury was used (i.e., highest height of a balance beam they would walk across). Ratings of cognitions (extent of danger, perceived vulnerability for personal injury, potential severity of injury) and emotional reactions (fear, excitement) were taken when on the beam, just before the children walked across. RESULTS: Regression analysis, controlling for age and sex, revealed that risk taking was predicted from ratings of danger, fear, and excitement. CONCLUSIONS: Both cognitive and emotional factors independently contribute to predict children's physical risk taking. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. Language: en

To establish the validity and reproducibility of the dietary component of a mobile vitamin D calculator app.Participants entered their dietary intake into the Vitamin D Calculator app on 3 recording days over 1 month and underwent subsequent 24-hour dietary recalls.There were 50 adults (25 female), aged 18-25 years (mean, 22 ± 2 years). Paired-samples t tests tested for significant differences (P.05) in mean vitamin D and calcium intake between the app and dietary recalls; Bland-Altman plots assessed agreement between the 2 measures. Intra-class correlations and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests assessed reproducibility of intakes estimated by the app. Mean vitamin D (n = 50) and calcium (n = 48) intakes and risk classifications did not differ significantly between the 2 measures (P.05).The Vitamin D Calculator app is a valid classification measure for dietary vitamin D and calcium intake. This tool could be used by the general public to increase awareness and intake of these nutrients.

Objective: To identify risk factors for unintentional injuries due to falls in children aged 0–6 years. Design: A systematic review of the literature. Methods: Electronic databases from 1966 to March 2005 were comprehensively searched to identify empirical research that evaluated risk factors for unintentional injuries due to falls in children aged 0–6 years and included a comparison group. Results: 14 studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies varied by the type of fall injury that was considered (ie, bunk bed, stairway, playground or infant walker) and with respect to the quality of evidence. In general, major risk factors for the incidence or severity of injuries due to falls in children included age of the child, sex, height of the fall, type of surface, mechanism (dropped, stairway or using a walker), setting (day care v home care) and socioeconomic status. Conclusion: Despite a high burden, few controlled studies have examined the risk and protective factors for injuries due to falls in children aged 0–6 years. The only study to examine falls from a population health perspective suggests that age, sex and poverty are independent risk factors for injuries due to falls in children.

Unintentional injury is a leading cause of death and hospitalization of young children. Many of these injuries occur in the home when children presumably are being supervised. This study focused on the under-explored issue of sibling supervision in the home, drawing on data collected from a sample of Canadian mothers. Mothers in this sample completed a structured telephone interview and mailed back questionnaires to provide information about the nature and extent of sibling supervision that occurs in the home, as well as the younger child's injury history. Results indicated that older siblings supervise younger ones about 11% of their mutual wake time, with children typically playing and parents usually doing other chores during this time. Time spent with siblings as supervisors was positively related to the supervisee's history of injuries suggesting that sibling supervision may elevate younger children's risk of injury. However, the behavior of the supervisee contributed to risk more so than that of the supervisor. Specifically, sibling supervisors were reported to utilize the same types of strategies as their mother and father in their efforts to supervise and persuade younger children to stop things that could lead to injury. However, poor compliance by the younger child when the older sibling was supervising predicted injury. Implications for childhood injury and directions for future research are discussed.

Epidemiological studies have found that teenage workers have higher occupational injury rates than adult workers, and that young males are a particularly high-risk subgroup. However, there have been few studies to date that have explored qualitatively young workers' everyday understandings and experiences of occupational health risks. Based on focus groups conducted with Canadian urban and suburban teenagers aged 16-18 years, this paper explores young workers' understandings and experiences of occupational health risks, and their gendered nature. The respondents were employed in a diverse range of jobs. The findings suggest that young workers experience a number of minor injuries and physical complaints related to their work. These injuries were typically seen as "part of the job" because they happened frequently and were of low severity. Also, the experience of these injuries as "part of the job" was informed by the young workers' perceived lack of control to improve or alter the conditions of their work. Furthermore, young workers' complaints and concerns were systematically discounted and this happened in a gendered fashion. Whereas the females emphasized how their complaints were actively disregarded by their superiors, males (and some females in male-dominated work settings) described how they stifled their complaints in order to appear mature among their (older) co-workers. Comparisons with qualitative studies of adult workers suggest that accepting some risks and injuries as "part of the job" is not peculiar to young workers. The implications of these findings for improving workplace safety for young workers are discussed.

OBJECTIVE: This study describes the supervision beliefs of parents of children with unintentional poisonings and examines the relationship between supervision beliefs, household composition, and parental age. METHODS: Children aged

OBJECTIVE: To introduce and evaluate the Stamp-in-Safety program, a behavioral intervention designed to increase the quality of supervision by teachers on preschool playgrounds and to reduce the risk of unintentional child playground injury. METHODS: A quasi-experimental time series design was used, with observational techniques, to evaluate behavior on the playground before, during, and after the intervention as well as during a 6-month post-intervention assessment. RESULTS: Both applied behavior analysis techniques and inferential statistics suggest that the Stamp-in-Safety program resulted in behavioral changes likely to reduce the risk of child injury on the playgrounds of childcare centers. CONCLUSION: Results indicate promise for the Stamp-in-Safety program as a low-cost, easily implemented intervention to reduce pediatric playground injury risk at childcare centers. Suggestions for future research are offered.

Objective: To further establish the psychometric properties of the Parent Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire (PSAPQ), a questionnaire measure of parent supervision that is relevant to understanding risk of unintentional injury among children 2 through 5 years of age. Methods: To assess test-retest reliability, parents completed the PSAPQ twice, with a one month interval. Internal consistency estimates for the PSAPQ were also computed. Confirmatory factor analyses were applied to the data to assess the four factor structure of the instrument by assessing the convergent and divergent validity of the subscales and their respective items. Results: Test-retest reliability and internal consistency scores were good, exceeding 0.70 for all subscales. Factor analyses confirmed the hypothesized model—namely that the 29 item questionnaire comprised four unique factors: protectiveness, supervision beliefs, risk tolerance, and fate influences on child safety. Conclusions: Previous tests comparing the PSAPQ with indices of actual supervision and children’s injury history scores revealed good criterion validity. The present assessment of the PSAPQ revealed good reliability (test-retest reliability, internal consistency) and established the convergent and divergent validity of the four factors. Thus, the PSAPQ has proven to have strong psychometric properties, making it a unique and useful measure for researchers interested in studying links between supervision and young children’s risks of unintentional injury.

Objective: To identify child and parent attributes that relate to caregiver supervision and examine how these factors influence child-injury risk. Methods: Mothers completed diary records about supervision of their young child (2-5 years) when at home. Standardized questionnaires provided information about child attributes, maternal attributes, and children's history of injuries. Results: Correlations revealed that child attributes and parent attributes related both to actual maternal supervision and child-injury scores. Regression analyses to predict injury scores revealed child-temperament factors alone predicted all levels of severity (minor, moderately severe, and medically attended), but parent supervision also contributed to predict medically attended injuries. Conclusions: Both child and parent factors influenced caregiver's supervision of young children at home and related to child-injury risk. For medically attended injuries, child attributes and parent supervision both predicted risk, whereas for less serious injuries, child factors alone determined risk.

OBJECTIVE: To identify determinants of mothers' home-safety practices for preventing six types of common injuries to children (burns, poisoning, drowning, cuts, strangulation/suffocation/choking, and falls). METHODS: Home interviews were conducted with mothers of children 19-24 and 25-30 months old about home-safety practices. For each of 30 safety precautions to prevent these six types of injuries, mothers indicated whether or not they engaged in the practice, and explained why. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed both common and unique determinants of mothers' home-safety practices to prevent these six types of home injuries. For burns, cuts, and falls, beliefs that child characteristics and parent characteristics elevated the child's risk of injury were the key determinants of the mother's engaging in precautionary measures. For drowning, poisoning, and suffocation/strangulation/choking, health beliefs also contributed to predict mothers' practices, including beliefs about potential injury severity and extent of effort required to implement precautionary measures. CONCLUSIONS: The factors that motivated mothers to engage in precautionary measures at home varied depending on the type of injury. Intervention programs to enhance maternal home-safety practices will need to target different factors depending on the type of injury to be addressed.

Objective: To examine 4- to 6-year-old children’s knowledge of their parents’ home safety rules and to identify predictors of children’s home injuries. Methods: Within the context of an interview, parents completed a home safety questionnaire in which they specified home safety rules, rated their child’s compliance with each rule, explained not having rules, reported on maternal supervision, and reported on the frequency of their child’s injuries. We evaluated children’s knowledge of home safety rules by having them play a home safety game designed for this study. Results: Children spontaneously recalled only about half of their parents’ home safety rules. Prompting resulted in their recognition of about 40% more rules. However, children’s knowledge scores did not predict the frequency of their injuries. The best predictors of children’s injuries were children’s compliance with home safety rules and extent of parental supervision. Conclusions: These findings suggest that interventions to promote young children’s safety knowledge will not likely reduce childhood injuries unless children consistently comply with these rules or parents supervise children to ensure compliance.