“For children living in poverty, there are often conditions present that can negatively affect cognitive development,” says Bialystok, Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. “Our study is the first to show that bilingualism can override some of the cognitive deficits associated with low socio-economic status.”

Ellen Bialystok

The study, published in the journal , followed a total of 80 second-graders from low-income families. Half of the children were first or second generation immigrants to Luxembourg, originally from Northern Portugal, who spoke both Luxembourgish and Portuguese on a daily basis. The other half of the children lived in Northern Portugal and spoke only Portuguese.

The children were first tested on their vocabulary and asked to name items presented in pictures. Both groups completed the task in Portuguese and the bilingual children also completed the task in Luxembourgish.

To examine how the children represented knowledge in memory, the researchers asked them to find a missing piece that would complete a specific geometric shape. They also measured how much visual information the children could keep in mind at a given time. The children then participated in tasks that looked at their ability to direct and focus their attention when distractions were present.

Although the bilingual children knew fewer words than their monolingual peers, and did not show an advantage for memory tasks, they performed better on the control task in which they needed to direct and focus their attention when distractions were present.

The researchers say in-school immersion programs could be a promising tool toward reducing the achievement gap between more- and less-advantaged children by contributing to the construction of a sound cognitive foundation.

"In previous research, bilingualism has been shown to be a powerful force in shaping developing minds," says Bialystok. "This is the first evidence that it can also compensate for some of the cognitive disadvantages associated with poverty and boost children's executive control ability, arguably the most important cognitive system we have."

Psychological Science is the journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

For more University news, photos and videos, visit the homepage.

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Debra Pepler

Creating Healthy Relationships to Prevent Bullying: Get the Tools to Take Action will take place June 19 at the Chestnut Conference Centre, 89 Chestnut St. in Toronto.

Wendy Craig

PREVNet (Promoting Relationships Eliminating Violence), a national network of 60 Canadian researchers from 27 universities and 50 national child and youth serving organizations, is led by 91��ɫ psychology Professor Debra Pepler and Queen’s University Professor Wendy Craig (MA ’89, PhD ’93), two of Canada’s experts in the field of bullying.

Coordinator of at the Toronto District School Board, Ken Jeffers, will deliver the keynote address, “Sex, Gender and Schools Oh My!”. A series of workshops will follow, where researchers, counsellors, parents, volunteers, youth and anyone else interested in bullying prevention will learn about the latest knowledge and gain practical tips regarding bullying from researchers and national community organizations.

Ken Jeffers

In the first workshop, Pepler will talk about ways to build healthy relationships with children and youth in any setting. Research is beginning to show how absolutely essential healthy relationships are for healthy development, she says. From the study of genetics at a cellular level through to studies of societal factors, clear links are emerging between the quality of children’s relationship experiences and their healthy development.

Professor of the University of Illinois will look at bullying and sexual harassment prevention and intervention among middle and high school students. In this talk, research will be presented to illustrate the prevalence and relations among bullying, homophobic teasing and sexual harassment among early adolescents. Masculinity and restricted gender expression also appear to be important factors contributing to these phenomena among adolescents.

Dorothy Espelage

A growing body of recent research, however, has documented the importance of social and emotional learning as critical to the creation of safe and caring learning environments, and ultimately as a foundation for academic success. Professor of the University of British Columbia will look at the importance of fostering social and emotional learning in schools.

Shelley Hymel

Criminal justice Professor of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire will discuss the challenges of cyberbullying, what parents and educators need to know about how youth use and misuse technology to harm their peers, and outline strategies for preventing and responding to cyberbullying.

Justin Patchin

Craig, along with Professor David Smith of the University of Ottawa, will talk about how organizations can choose a bully prevention program. Shelley Cardinal, aboriginal consultant and national manager of Walking the Prevention Circle at the Canadian Red Cross, and Claire Crooks, a psychologist at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health’s Centre for Prevention Science, will look at engaging aboriginal communities and youth in violence prevention.

For more information, including a complete list of , visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience higher rates of bullying, which are associated with a higher incidence of mental health issues, according to a study in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders this month by 91��ɫ researchers.

“Very little research has been done to assess the relationship between bullying and mental health in youth with ASD. It’s always been suspected there was a link, but this study confirms that,” says 91��ɫ Psychology Professor Jonathan Weiss, lead researcher of the study and co-author of the article, along with Debra Pepler, Distinguished Research Professor in Psychology, and first author M. Catherine Cappadocia, PhD candidate in clinical-developmental psychology.

M. Catherine Cappadocia

“In the study, those youth with ASD who experienced little or no victimization, less than two or three times in the past month, compared to those victimized at least once a week, exhibited less anxiety, self-injury and over-sensitive behaviours,” says Cappadocia. She, Weiss and Pepler, who is scientific co-director of the Promoting Relationships & Eliminating Violence Network (), are all members of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health.

In “”, the researchers surveyed 192 parents whose children, between the ages of five and 21 and enrolled in elementary or secondary school up to Grade 12, had been diagnosed with ASD. The authors examined the parents’ reports of victimization, along with the association between the rate of victimization experienced and mental health issues. Seventy-five per cent reported their child with ASD had been bullied within the last month at school, 23 per cent reported victimization two or three times, 13 per cent reported victimization once a week and 30 per cent two or more time a week. Fifty per cent of the youth with ASD had experienced victimization for more than a year, and that can lead to anxiety, depression, self-injury, hyperactivity, over-sensitivity and a lower self-concept, says Cappadocia.

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Jonathan Weiss

“It’s one of the first studies to look at bullying in youth with ASD. It’s important as it shines a light on youth with ASD and victimization,” says Weiss. “I think it really highlights that chronic victimization is common for some of these youth. A large percentage of the youth in this study experience chronic victimization. Those are the youth that have significantly more mental health concerns.” In addition, he says, one in 110 children has been diagnosed with ASD. “It’s one of the most common identifications in the school system.”

One factor that puts youth with ASD at risk for victimization is when they have more difficulty being assertive and making friends at school. They often lack social and pragmatic skills, and their parents may be less empowered to effect change as a result of the number of major stresses in their lives. “These are a lot of the same factors that are found in the general population of kids that are bullied,” says Weiss. “What really stands out in this study is the association with these risk factors.”

A lack of friends is a significant risk factor for bullying even in the general population and leaves these children unprotected by their peers. That means no one is going to stand up for them when someone starts to bully them. “Eighty-five per cent of the time when bullying happens, peers are watching,” says Cappadocia. “If a peer stands up, 50 per cent of the time the bullying stops. Peer support makes a huge difference and represents a robust protective factor these kids are missing.”

 Debra Pepler

Youth with ASD may also be more vulnerable because they lack the skills needed to react effectively to victimization when it does occur. “When children with ASD are targeted, there can be a more intense behavioural reaction, which may encourage the child who is bullying to continue,” she says. “If a child with ASD has a strong emotional or behavioural reaction, the bullying can become chronic, especially if peers tend to jump in and encourage the child who is bullying. It can keep escalating.”

Weiss, Pepler and Cappadocia all do clinical work in addition to research. In her clinical work, Cappadocia frequently sees youth with ASD who have been bullied. “Part of the interest in pursuing this particular research came from being interested clinically in how to help these children.”

The next step is to find interventions to help these children and their classmates, which would then translate to the general population, says Weiss. He is looking to run groups at 91��ɫ next year for youth with ASD who experience bullying, which will look at all facets of the problem, from peers, the school, their family, as well as the child.

He is also interested in looking at what makes some youth with ASD, who’ve been victimized, resilient. He’ll be examining what the peer, family and school relations are like, and why they may buffer the potential mental health impact of victimization.

Cappadocia received support through the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child & Youth Mental Health at CHEO Graduate Award and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Award. Weiss was supported by a New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, while Pepler was supported by Networks of Centres of Excellence through its support of PREVNet.

For more information, visit the website.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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All bilingual children – regardless of the languages they speak – show cognitive advantages over their English-only peers, although they may experience weakness in areas like vocabulary acquisition, says a new study by 91��ɫ researchers.

The study, published today in the journal Child Development, examined the effects of specific language pairings on children’s verbal and non-verbal development, taking into account language similarities, cultural background and educational experiences.

Researchers compared more than 100 six-year-old monolingual and bilingual children (English monolinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals), measuring their verbal and non-verbal cognitive development. The children were all public school students from the Greater Toronto Area and of similar socio-economic background.

The study reports that bilingual children differ from each other and from monolingual children in how they develop language and cognitive skills through the early school years. Children who grow up speaking two languages generally have slower language acquisition in each language than children raised speaking just one language. However, they have better “metalinguistic” development that gives them a deeper understanding of the structure of language, a skill that’s important for literacy. They also perform better on tests of non-verbal executive control, which measure the ability to focus attention where necessary without being distracted, and to shift attention when required.

“Our research shows that it doesn’t matter what the other language is – all bilingual children have an equal advantage over monolinguals in terms of non-verbal cognitive control,” says study co-author Ellen Bialystok, DistinguishedResearch Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health.

Study co-author Ellen Bialystok

“People always ask if the languages themselves matter – and now we can definitively say, ‘no.’”

In terms of language acquisition, however, the study shows that some types of bilingualism – particularly where the languages are similar in origin – may have slight advantages over others. For example, Spanish-English bilinguals outperformed Chinese-English bilinguals and monolinguals on a test of English phonological awareness.

“There is really no generalized verbal outcome of bilingualism,” says Bialystok. “In terms of the language consequences of bilingualism, we found it matters very much what the other language is, what language is used in school and likely other factors as well,” she says.

Even though bilingual children may be somewhat slower in learning the vocabulary of each of their languages, Bialystok emphasizes that the benefits of speaking more than one language far outweigh any drawbacks. In previous studies, she and other researchers established that bilingualism postpones symptoms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease.

“The benefits of bilingualism are evident in every stage of life, from early childhood through to one’s senior years. If children are in a position to learn and speak another language, parents should definitely do everything to encourage that,” she says.

The study, “Bilingual Effects on Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Role of Language, Cultural Background and Education”, is co-authored by Raluca Barac, a PhD student in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. The research is supported by the US National Institutes of Health.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The award is, in part, based on the researcher’s record of early career achievement. For Weiss, that encompasses the research on developmental disabilities that he’s conducted over the last three or more years. He is one of two recipients of the award this year, handed out by the CPA.

Right: Jonathan Weiss

“The award is really recognition for the type of research I’ve been able to do prior to and since beginning at 91��ɫ,” says Weiss, a clinical psychologist in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health. “It’s been great to be recognized by psychologists, not just in the field of developmental disabilities, but by colleagues from other fields.”

He is co-investigator for three Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded projects, two of which look at children with developmental disabilities and the third at understanding pathways to emergency health care for adolescents and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Weiss also received a three-year New Investigator Fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation in 2010 to study people with developmental disabilities, who make up between one and three per cent of the Canadian population. At least one in three people with developmental disabilities will have mental health problems or serious challenging behaviours as an adolescent or young adult, says Weiss.

His goal for this project is to learn what leads a young person with developmental disability to have mental health problems, and how it is related to their service use, their skills, academic success and family functioning.

For more information about the President’s New Researcher Award, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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A leading Canadian divorce researcher, however, warns that escapism carries a high price, if not for couples who've survived a split than for those teetering on the edge of their vows.

"They may find self-renewal, but it comes at the expense of a lot of suffering," says Anne-Marie Ambert, a retired professor of sociology at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies]. "There's definitely a crop of children who are very, very negatively affected by their parents' divorce."

Ambert's research finds 221 divorces per 100,000 population in Canada, representing a significant decline from 362 in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, roughly two in five marriages dissolve before the 30th anniversary.

"The truth is that only about a third of all divorces are the result of what we'd call 'bad marriages’," says Ambert.

Posted by Arielle Zomer, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Two graduates will present their theses – and compete for prizes – at the Graduate Program in Education Spring Colloquium May 26.

Opiyo Oloya (right) (PhD ’10) and master’s graduand Farra Yasin will explain their final academic projects in the Senior Common Room, 021 Winter’s College, from 4:30 to 6pm.

Oloya is a high school principal who fled Uganda in the early 1980s. The former pro-democracy fighter’s dissertation, “Becoming a Child Soldier: A Cultural Perspective from Autobiographical Voices”, explores how Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) transformed abducted children into soldiers. Oloya highlights the importance of culture in turning children into soldiers and in creating a resilience to survive their ordeal in the bush. As a researcher, Oloya is also interested the peace process, humanitarianism and the impact of war on society and culture.

Yasin teaches Grade 8, has a passion for writing and used to run an art gallery. Her MEd thesis explores middle-school students’ use of comic strip figures and creative writing to construct their identity. She has presented her work at conferences of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Education Graduate Students.

All are welcomed to attend. Refreshments will be served.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Encourage him to read novels. Ongoing studies at 91��ɫ [by psychology Professor Raymond Mar and colleagues in the Faculty of Health] show that people who read more fiction than nonfiction score higher on empathy tests.

Why?

Researchers theorize that the parts of the brain we use to understand how fictional characters feel are the same ones we use to figure out how real people feel. And the more we use those parts of our brain, the stronger our ability to understand others.

See YFile for more coverage of Mar's research.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The federation is making the change – which affects players between the ages of 6 and 21 – in an effort to create a safer environment for new players to develop skills. The rule change affects house league and select players in most of the province, though Ottawa and Thunder Bay aren't governed by the OHF.

91��ɫ health professor Alison Macpherson, who was among the first researchers to call for bodychecking to be disallowed in recreational hockey, called it a great first step. "I know some parents keep their kids out of hockey, especially out of competitive hockey, because they worry about the injuries that might ensue when kids are allowed to bodycheck," she said Thursday.

Until now parents who wanted their child to play non-contact hockey didn’t have many options, said Macpherson. “There is pretty good scientific evidence that bodychecking, especially under the bantam level (age 13-14), leads to injury in youth ice hockey,” she said.

A study published last year found kids who were bodychecked were about 2.45 times more likely to suffer an injury than kids who didn’t play with body contact and 1.7 times more likely to suffer a concussion, she said. “Kids are more likely to play if they think they’re not going to get hurt,” said Macpherson. “Which is great because we have an obesity epidemic.”

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“The take home message is that autism research here at 91��ɫ isn’t just one thing,” psychology Professor Jonathan Weiss, chair of the 91��ɫ Autism Research Alliance (YARA) in the Faculty of Health, told the audience. “We want you to have a picture as you walk away from today of the breadth at which different faculty members with different areas of expertise are doing research.”

Left: Dorota Crawford (standing, left) and Jonathan Weiss answering questions from the audience

YARA is an interdisciplinary team of researchers at 91��ɫ that has been in existence for about two years. This was the first time it has reached out to a large range of community service providers as a group. The event was sponsored by .

“The goal was to provide an overview of the incredible range of autism research at 91��ɫ and reach out to service providers and start a conversation with them,” said Weiss. “It’s really about knowledge exchange. This was the first step in that exchange, and they can let us know what they are interested in. Rather than a one way street, it breaks down the academic silos.”

Weiss has just finished two pilot projects using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with people with ASD – one used CBT to help reduce anxiety and the other used it to help build anger management skills. Weiss wants to know if the interventions that already exist can be adapted to help children with ASD, who also suffer from things like anxiety and aggression.

Right: Kari Hoffman explains her research at the inaugural showcase of the 91��ɫ Autism Research Alliance

But that’s not all; he is also interested in knowing whether the level of health care and access to service for families with a teenager or adult with ASD is lacking in various parts of the province, what health care services they need and their experience of the system, and has embarked on a study to find out.

Dorota Crawford, a professor in 91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, told the gathering she is researching whether genes or the environment are responsible for ASD. One of the things she is doing is trying to identify the genes responsible for specific symptoms of ASD and determine how they affect brain function. She has so far recruited 20 families with a child with ASD to give genetic material samples through a mouth swab to be able to compare genes. She is hoping her research will lead to an earlier diagnosis (before the age of two), earlier intervention and development of specific pharmaceuticals.

“The incidence of autism in the last three decades has increased dramatically,” she said. In 1977, only one in 2,500 people were diagnosed with ASD, while in 2009 one in 106 people were diagnosed. Of those being diagnosed, males are four times as likely as females to have ASD.

Left: From left, Jonathan Weiss, Adrienne Perry, James Bebko, Dorota Crawford, Jennifer Steeves, Maz Fallah, Louise Hartley, director of the 91��ɫ Psychology Clinic, and Tania Xerri, director of the Health Leadership & Learning Network

Psychology Professor Kari Hoffman told the audience about her work with social and emotional processing, the destination points for processing and the routes taken, which may be different in people with ASD than in a typical person.

School of Kinesiology & Health Science Professor Maz Fallah is interested in what things people with ASD pay attention to that may differ from others, what is the reason for that and what interventions could help. People who have an ASD have a persistent preoccupation with parts. “They cannot see the forest for the trees,” says Fallah, and that might have to do with an object-based attention deficit, for instance.

As psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves says, “There’s a lot we take for granted when we look around the room, but there’s a lot of computations that are taking place in the brain.”

This plays into what psychology Professor James Bebko is researching. Children with ASD don’t seem to be able to combine visual and auditory cues into a single unit, which is needed to assess emotion when watching and listening to someone talking. Their sensory systems seem largely intact, he said, so it may be that the problem lies in the processing or the transitional skills needed before the processing occurs.

What psychology Professor Adrienne Perry is looking into is the effectiveness of Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI), the program of choice for treating children with ASD. But Perry says the results in the field are variable compared to those in a controlled situation and she wants to know why. She is looking at the predictors of how well IBI works, such as age, IQ and severity of autism, as well as parent involvement.

“It’s great to see that research is going to look at family stress and at the IBI. We really struggle in the community to know what to do,” said Penny Diamantopoulos, a case manager with the child and family team of the (Central CCAC).

Dawn Ullman, also a case manager at Central CCAC, says she hopes the alliance does some follow up with the community in the next year or so. She would like to know what the results are of some of the research the professors highlighted. “I really want to know the bottom line” as the person working with the families.

For more information, visit the 91��ɫ Autism Research Alliance website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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