June 25, 2007
Study on I.Q. Prompts Debate on Family Dynamics
By BENEDICT CAREY
The new evidence that eldest children develop higher I.Q.’s than their siblings has intensified the debate over two of the most stubborn questions in social science: What are the family dynamics that enhance intelligence? And can they — and should they — be changed?
The new findings, from a landmark study published Friday, showed that eldest children had a slight but significant edge in I.Q. — an average of three points over the closest sibling. And it found that the difference was not because of biological factors but the psychological interplay of parents and children.
Predictably, the study set off a swarm of Internet commentary from parents, social scientists and others, speculating about what in families could enrich one child’s intellectual environment more than others’.
“Anyone with siblings wonders about this,” said Sue Monaco, 51, of Delaware, who has two sons and five siblings. She was one of about 150 readers who posted questions on Friday to a New York Times Web forum about the study.
Researchers acknowledge that few of the family variables affecting intelligence are well understood, and some argue that peer influences are eventually more significant. But studies suggest that two elements are important during childhood: the perceived role a child has in the family; and the apparent benefit a child receives when he or she tutors someone else, like a younger sibling.
Well before entering the high school hothouse of geeks and jocks, children who grow up with siblings get tagged with labels: The screw-up of the family. The airhead, the klutz, the whiner. And then there is the serious one, little Mr. or Ms. Responsible, who most often is the eldest, psychologists have found.
“In our family we had the straight one, the oldest, followed by the one who snuck out,” said Elisabeth Ferris, 55, a former teacher who lives near Baltimore. “I was the one who snuck out, who had a lot more fun in high school, and who went to art school.”
Studies suggest that other family members tend to consider the eldest the most conscientious of the siblings, more likely to achieve academically. At least for some firstborns, that role may be self-fulfilling.
“I don’t know about our I.Q.’s but, yes, she was the more studious one,” Ms. Ferris said of her older sister.
Psychologists say that filling the role of the responsible firstborn, while important to academic achievement, still does not account for eldest children’s higher average scores on intelligence tests. Robert Zajonc, a psychologist at Stanford University, has argued that in fact having a younger sibling or two diminishes the overall intellectual environment for eldest children — who otherwise would be benefiting from the rich vocabulary and undivided attention of parents.
This helps explain why, under the age of 12, younger siblings actually outshine older ones on I.Q. tests.
Something else is at work, Dr. Zajonc said, and he has found evidence that tutoring — a natural role for older siblings — benefits the teacher more than it does the student. “Explaining something to a younger sibling solidifies your knowledge and allows you to grow more extensively,” he said. “The younger one is asking questions, and challenging meanings and explanations, and that will contribute to the intellectual maturity of the older one.” (Only children receive the benefit of more parental attention but miss the opportunity to tutor a younger brother or sister.)
Ms. Monaco, who has two sons in their 20s, said her oldest was expected to help his brother from an early age. “He was a teacher to his brother, and he has grown up to be a more intense thinker; he’s studying business management,” she said. “His brother is more easygoing, independent; he’s studying leisure and recreation and has an internship at a golf course.” The two are very close friends, she said.
Parents who recognize the different niches that their children fill can enhance the family’s intellectual environment by exploiting each child’s expertise, researchers say. “Given the evidence we have on this, I would as a parent encourage late-born siblings to take on teaching roles, with other siblings or other children,” said Paul Trapnell, a psychologist at the University of Winnipeg.
Dr. Trapnell compared this process to the so-called jigsaw approach used in classrooms, in which complex projects are divided up and each child becomes an expert in a particular task and instructs the others.
Younger siblings often have something more to pass on than the tricks of their favorite hobby, or the philosophy behind their social charm. Evidence suggests that younger siblings are more likely than older ones to take risks based on their knowledge and instincts.
It is important to keep in mind, too, that the new study found average difference in I.Q.; the scores varied widely from family to family. In many families, younger brothers and sisters eventually took the lead in I.Q., no matter if they were the screw-up or the whiner.
Moreover, experts have long noted that while even slight differences in I.Q. score can be important for some, the test measures a narrow set of skills. Excessive attention to it can blind parents to the diverse and equally rich expertise that later-born children usually develop.
The best way to react to the news, some psychologists said, is to relax.
“When parents ask me what to do about this, I always say the same thing: nothing,” said Frank J. Sulloway, a psychologist at the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of an editorial in the journal Science that accompanied one of the reports. Another report on the study was published in the journal Intelligence.
“Younger siblings are more likely to take chances,” Dr. Sulloway added, and to challenge the status quo in creative ways.
Jackie Orsi, 53, of Morrow, Ohio, grew up the youngest of four, five years behind her nearest sibling, and said she discovered in high school that she scored the highest on I.Q. tests. She remembers the sister closest to her bringing home books from elementary school to read to her.
“The older three held me, cherished me, ragged on me, taught me, and gave me an acute view of life,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She added, “I spent my high school years absorbing their books. What a gift. I got my dad’s genius genes, and I got a boost from being last-born. Amen.”
Monday, June 25, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
June 14, 2007
Basic Training
Who, Me Take Running Class?
By SARAH TUFF
WHEN Steve Huda began running nearly three decades ago, he gave little thought to putting one foot in front of the other. “I did what most people do,” said Mr. Huda, 53, a computer specialist from Centennial, Colo. “I just went out and ran.”
In the late 1990s, Mr. Huda suffered a series of injuries, including shinsplints and a pulled quadriceps. But instead of taking up a new sport, he sought a better way to run by signing up in 1999 for a technique-focused running camp in Malibu, Calif. To his delight, Mr. Huda — who describes himself as a recreational runner and could not quantify his typical pace — found that he was not the slowest camper.
Mr. Huda has returned to the Malibu running camp, started by the exercise physiologist Owen Anderson, four times and plans to attend again this summer. “I’m stronger, I get less injured and I’m able to do more challenging runs,” he said. “That’s a cool thing.”
Up until recently, athletic hobbyists might take tennis lessons or attend a swim clinic, but rarely considered learning how to run, an activity they have been doing since they were toddlers. A running injury would simply mean a switch to a less jarring sport.
That was before middling runners realized that form matters. Many recreational runners now solicit advice before they cinch their shorts and lace up their sneakers. For them, there are Web sites promoting injury-prevention techniques and bloggers raring to discuss the latest clinics. Joggers have helped to spike the sales of form-conscious books and DVDs from programs like ChiRunning and the Pose Method. And the number of retreats on Running Times magazine’s Web site has swelled to more than 100, up from 38 in 2000.
“It’s no longer just the geeky runner going to technical stores and learning about form,” said Sean Murphy, a biomechanist with New Balance. “Maybe they’ve been running for 20 years and they can’t get rid of their shinsplints. Runners become addicted and they’re looking for anything to be able to maintain and prolong their running.”
There are now nearly 11 million adult runners in the United States, according to the American Running Association; many just want to clear their minds, not win races. “Surveys show that half the people never enter a single race,” said Jeff Galloway of Atlanta, the Olympian, author and running coach. “They go out and run for their own sanity.”
Impinging on runners’ sanity, however, is the high rate of injury. About 60 to 65 percent of all runners are injured each year in five anatomical hot spots: the knee, the calf and shin, the iliotibial band (the connective tissue of the outer thigh), the Achilles tendon and the foot, according to the Sports Injury Bulletin, a newsletter produced by sports scientists in London.
Ten years ago, most runners did not think about these problems until they were benched by a sprain or a pain, said Jennifer Greenberg, a physical therapist in Manhattan. The Internet has allowed for much more anatomical awareness among amateur athletes, thanks to sites like http://www.runnersworld.com/ and http://www.webmd.com/. “People are just more aware of what causes injuries and more apt to try to prevent it ahead of time,” said Ms. Greenberg, who logs 40 to 50 miles a week.
For those used to ridding their minds of clutter on a five-mile morning loop, suddenly thinking about running can be an adjustment. Aga Goodsell, an aerospace engineer from Mountain View, Calif., ran in college, and resumed the sport 20 years later, but started to have ankle pain and problems with her iliotibial band. So she signed up for a weekly class in ChiRunning, a technique said to prevent injuries by using the stabilizing muscles closest to the spine, a forward-leaning stance and the awareness-building principles of Eastern philosophy.
“It took a lot of focus and concentration in the beginning to start thinking about my running form,” said Ms. Goodsell, 43, by e-mail message. She said that assessing how each part of her body is moving ultimately became second nature. Now injury-free, Ms. Goodsell models ChiRunning form for some of the program’s instructional materials.
Sales at ChiRunning have increased by 50 percent each year since its national start in 2004. The program now has more than 100 instructors in six countries, up from 25 in the first year. It is the brainchild of Danny Dreyer, a California running coach who said that his business’s rapid growth has tortoises rather than hares to thank. “Most are recreational runners who at some point or another have gotten injured,” said Mr. Dreyer, 57. who oversees ChiRunning with Katherine Dreyer, his wife. “Or they say, ‘I’ve always wanted to run, but it hurt so much, I couldn’t do it.’ ”
ChiRunning, which works with gravity to help pull the runner forward, is similar to the Pose Method, developed by a sports physiologist, Nicholas Romanov, in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. Dr. Romanov immigrated to the United States in 1993 and the method took off in 2001 after he founded a Web site, which sells his book and DVD and promotes his theories through online forums and a video blog. He now travels around the country, correcting what he sees as the “national disaster” of uneducated runners.
“It’s a healthy thing and a beautiful thing to run,” said Dr. Romanov, 56. “But if you don’t know how to do it, you’re in trouble.”
Some running advocates, however, warn that more distress can come from messing with the way your body naturally moves. David Willey, the editor in chief of Runner’s World, said that Paula Radcliffe’s funky form and that Alberto Salazar’s broken-glass-in-the-shorts style are proof that the unorthodox can win races.
“Go stand at any finish line of any marathon in American and you see people with the most god-awful running form, hunched over and bowlegged,” Mr. Willey said. “But they’re booking across sub three, running a lot faster than I ever can.”
Mr. Galloway said that there is no perfect way to run. “The human body is designed to run, and it makes all types of adaptations,” he said.
That hasn’t stopped shoe companies from introducing footwear for the form-obsessed. In 2004, Nike sent forth the slipperlike Free to strengthen muscles and improve flexibility, inspiring a crop of athletic shoes that angle the runner for purported better form. Last summer, the Swiss SpringBoost footwear line hit stores in the United States; it is designed to position the heel lower than the forefoot to activate muscles and improve stability. Velocy, a brand from Portland, Ore., that made its debut last fall, is, like the Nike shoe, said to push the runner forward to relieve stress on the ankle and the knees.
Ray Fredericksen, a biomechanist in East Lansing, Mich., said that such concepts are plausible. “What we find is that if you can enhance some instability, then you can improve balance and posture,” he said.
Enrollment is rising at running camps like that of the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in northeastern Vermont. Established in 1978, the center targeted its first running camps at “serious” runners who spent their sessions doing little more than racking up miles on dirt roads, according to Russell Spring Jr., the general manager. Now, Craftsbury campers undergo a video analysis of their technique and then work on form alterations to improve efficiency and prevent injuries.
The camp reports a 30 percent increase for summer 2007 from previous years, in part because of recreational runners chasing correct form, said Greg Wenneborg, the head coach and director.
While many running camps — often held in idyllic locations — are mere getaways for some campers, others use them as a chance to learn a sport from the ground up. Campers are excited to receive suggestions on form, said Jessica Cover, another Craftsbury coach. “It’s like Christmas,” she said.
Ms. Cover, 37, said that running lessons, along with smarter training and nutrition, are ways her sport has advanced. “In the old days, the crazy guys would just run themselves to the ground,” she said.
But some believe the emphasis on form is taking running in the wrong direction. Dr. Jason Friedman, a physician and a coach who last summer founded the Shawangunk Running Camp in New Paltz, N.Y., went so far as to call it “gimmicky.”
“You can lose sight of what’s great about the sport — which is that it’s simple,” he said. “There’s no substitute for hard work and just getting out and doing the miles.”
Basic Training looks at the latest thinking about conditioning and technique for recreational athletes. It appears periodically.
Basic Training
Who, Me Take Running Class?
By SARAH TUFF
WHEN Steve Huda began running nearly three decades ago, he gave little thought to putting one foot in front of the other. “I did what most people do,” said Mr. Huda, 53, a computer specialist from Centennial, Colo. “I just went out and ran.”
In the late 1990s, Mr. Huda suffered a series of injuries, including shinsplints and a pulled quadriceps. But instead of taking up a new sport, he sought a better way to run by signing up in 1999 for a technique-focused running camp in Malibu, Calif. To his delight, Mr. Huda — who describes himself as a recreational runner and could not quantify his typical pace — found that he was not the slowest camper.
Mr. Huda has returned to the Malibu running camp, started by the exercise physiologist Owen Anderson, four times and plans to attend again this summer. “I’m stronger, I get less injured and I’m able to do more challenging runs,” he said. “That’s a cool thing.”
Up until recently, athletic hobbyists might take tennis lessons or attend a swim clinic, but rarely considered learning how to run, an activity they have been doing since they were toddlers. A running injury would simply mean a switch to a less jarring sport.
That was before middling runners realized that form matters. Many recreational runners now solicit advice before they cinch their shorts and lace up their sneakers. For them, there are Web sites promoting injury-prevention techniques and bloggers raring to discuss the latest clinics. Joggers have helped to spike the sales of form-conscious books and DVDs from programs like ChiRunning and the Pose Method. And the number of retreats on Running Times magazine’s Web site has swelled to more than 100, up from 38 in 2000.
“It’s no longer just the geeky runner going to technical stores and learning about form,” said Sean Murphy, a biomechanist with New Balance. “Maybe they’ve been running for 20 years and they can’t get rid of their shinsplints. Runners become addicted and they’re looking for anything to be able to maintain and prolong their running.”
There are now nearly 11 million adult runners in the United States, according to the American Running Association; many just want to clear their minds, not win races. “Surveys show that half the people never enter a single race,” said Jeff Galloway of Atlanta, the Olympian, author and running coach. “They go out and run for their own sanity.”
Impinging on runners’ sanity, however, is the high rate of injury. About 60 to 65 percent of all runners are injured each year in five anatomical hot spots: the knee, the calf and shin, the iliotibial band (the connective tissue of the outer thigh), the Achilles tendon and the foot, according to the Sports Injury Bulletin, a newsletter produced by sports scientists in London.
Ten years ago, most runners did not think about these problems until they were benched by a sprain or a pain, said Jennifer Greenberg, a physical therapist in Manhattan. The Internet has allowed for much more anatomical awareness among amateur athletes, thanks to sites like http://www.runnersworld.com/ and http://www.webmd.com/. “People are just more aware of what causes injuries and more apt to try to prevent it ahead of time,” said Ms. Greenberg, who logs 40 to 50 miles a week.
For those used to ridding their minds of clutter on a five-mile morning loop, suddenly thinking about running can be an adjustment. Aga Goodsell, an aerospace engineer from Mountain View, Calif., ran in college, and resumed the sport 20 years later, but started to have ankle pain and problems with her iliotibial band. So she signed up for a weekly class in ChiRunning, a technique said to prevent injuries by using the stabilizing muscles closest to the spine, a forward-leaning stance and the awareness-building principles of Eastern philosophy.
“It took a lot of focus and concentration in the beginning to start thinking about my running form,” said Ms. Goodsell, 43, by e-mail message. She said that assessing how each part of her body is moving ultimately became second nature. Now injury-free, Ms. Goodsell models ChiRunning form for some of the program’s instructional materials.
Sales at ChiRunning have increased by 50 percent each year since its national start in 2004. The program now has more than 100 instructors in six countries, up from 25 in the first year. It is the brainchild of Danny Dreyer, a California running coach who said that his business’s rapid growth has tortoises rather than hares to thank. “Most are recreational runners who at some point or another have gotten injured,” said Mr. Dreyer, 57. who oversees ChiRunning with Katherine Dreyer, his wife. “Or they say, ‘I’ve always wanted to run, but it hurt so much, I couldn’t do it.’ ”
ChiRunning, which works with gravity to help pull the runner forward, is similar to the Pose Method, developed by a sports physiologist, Nicholas Romanov, in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. Dr. Romanov immigrated to the United States in 1993 and the method took off in 2001 after he founded a Web site, which sells his book and DVD and promotes his theories through online forums and a video blog. He now travels around the country, correcting what he sees as the “national disaster” of uneducated runners.
“It’s a healthy thing and a beautiful thing to run,” said Dr. Romanov, 56. “But if you don’t know how to do it, you’re in trouble.”
Some running advocates, however, warn that more distress can come from messing with the way your body naturally moves. David Willey, the editor in chief of Runner’s World, said that Paula Radcliffe’s funky form and that Alberto Salazar’s broken-glass-in-the-shorts style are proof that the unorthodox can win races.
“Go stand at any finish line of any marathon in American and you see people with the most god-awful running form, hunched over and bowlegged,” Mr. Willey said. “But they’re booking across sub three, running a lot faster than I ever can.”
Mr. Galloway said that there is no perfect way to run. “The human body is designed to run, and it makes all types of adaptations,” he said.
That hasn’t stopped shoe companies from introducing footwear for the form-obsessed. In 2004, Nike sent forth the slipperlike Free to strengthen muscles and improve flexibility, inspiring a crop of athletic shoes that angle the runner for purported better form. Last summer, the Swiss SpringBoost footwear line hit stores in the United States; it is designed to position the heel lower than the forefoot to activate muscles and improve stability. Velocy, a brand from Portland, Ore., that made its debut last fall, is, like the Nike shoe, said to push the runner forward to relieve stress on the ankle and the knees.
Ray Fredericksen, a biomechanist in East Lansing, Mich., said that such concepts are plausible. “What we find is that if you can enhance some instability, then you can improve balance and posture,” he said.
Enrollment is rising at running camps like that of the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in northeastern Vermont. Established in 1978, the center targeted its first running camps at “serious” runners who spent their sessions doing little more than racking up miles on dirt roads, according to Russell Spring Jr., the general manager. Now, Craftsbury campers undergo a video analysis of their technique and then work on form alterations to improve efficiency and prevent injuries.
The camp reports a 30 percent increase for summer 2007 from previous years, in part because of recreational runners chasing correct form, said Greg Wenneborg, the head coach and director.
While many running camps — often held in idyllic locations — are mere getaways for some campers, others use them as a chance to learn a sport from the ground up. Campers are excited to receive suggestions on form, said Jessica Cover, another Craftsbury coach. “It’s like Christmas,” she said.
Ms. Cover, 37, said that running lessons, along with smarter training and nutrition, are ways her sport has advanced. “In the old days, the crazy guys would just run themselves to the ground,” she said.
But some believe the emphasis on form is taking running in the wrong direction. Dr. Jason Friedman, a physician and a coach who last summer founded the Shawangunk Running Camp in New Paltz, N.Y., went so far as to call it “gimmicky.”
“You can lose sight of what’s great about the sport — which is that it’s simple,” he said. “There’s no substitute for hard work and just getting out and doing the miles.”
Basic Training looks at the latest thinking about conditioning and technique for recreational athletes. It appears periodically.
June 19, 2007
Really?
The Claim: Hydrogen Peroxide Is a Good Treatment for Small Wounds
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
THE FACTS
It is a staple in medicine cabinets everywhere, a first-line treatment for the small cuts and scrapes that a hazardous world can inflict upon our skin. But does hydrogen peroxide really make a difference?
According to most studies of its effectiveness, not really. Parents and school nurses might insist otherwise, but researchers have found that hydrogen peroxide has little ability to reduce bacteria in wounds and can actually inflame healthy skin cells that surround a cut or a scrape, increasing the amount of time wounds take to heal.
In a study published in The Journal of Family Practice in 1987, scientists compared the effects of various topical treatments by taking a group of volunteers, administering several small blister wounds on each of their forearms, and then infecting their wounds with bacteria. After applying a different treatment to each wound, they measured bacterial amounts and rates of healing. They found that hydrogen peroxide did not inhibit bacterial growth and that wounds treated with the antibiotic bacitracin healed far more quickly.
Another study, in The American Journal of Surgery, looked at more than 200 people who had appendectomies and found that hydrogen peroxide did not reduce the risk of infection at the site of their incisions. But according to the American Medical Association, hydrogen peroxide does have at least one benefit: it can help dislodge dirt, debris and dead tissue in some wounds.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Studies show hydrogen peroxide is not a very effective treatment for small wounds.
Really?
The Claim: Hydrogen Peroxide Is a Good Treatment for Small Wounds
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
THE FACTS
It is a staple in medicine cabinets everywhere, a first-line treatment for the small cuts and scrapes that a hazardous world can inflict upon our skin. But does hydrogen peroxide really make a difference?
According to most studies of its effectiveness, not really. Parents and school nurses might insist otherwise, but researchers have found that hydrogen peroxide has little ability to reduce bacteria in wounds and can actually inflame healthy skin cells that surround a cut or a scrape, increasing the amount of time wounds take to heal.
In a study published in The Journal of Family Practice in 1987, scientists compared the effects of various topical treatments by taking a group of volunteers, administering several small blister wounds on each of their forearms, and then infecting their wounds with bacteria. After applying a different treatment to each wound, they measured bacterial amounts and rates of healing. They found that hydrogen peroxide did not inhibit bacterial growth and that wounds treated with the antibiotic bacitracin healed far more quickly.
Another study, in The American Journal of Surgery, looked at more than 200 people who had appendectomies and found that hydrogen peroxide did not reduce the risk of infection at the site of their incisions. But according to the American Medical Association, hydrogen peroxide does have at least one benefit: it can help dislodge dirt, debris and dead tissue in some wounds.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Studies show hydrogen peroxide is not a very effective treatment for small wounds.
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