PTSD Seen in Teens Near Ground Zero
A total of 83 (7.4%) of 1,122 high school students who lived in the borough of the Bronx in New York City at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks met the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) based on questionnaires completed at school 8 months after the attacks.
Michele E. Calderoni, D.O., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York and her colleagues designed the study to assess whether the high incidence of violent crime and poverty in the Bronx caused stress in these students that would make them especially vulnerable to PTSD after a major traumatic event (J. Adolesc. Health 2006;39:57–65).
Students who reported financial difficulties in the wake of the attacks were about five times more likely to have PTSD than were those without financial difficulties, and students who reported psychotropic medication use prior to Sept. 11 were nearly four times as likely to meet criteria for PTSD than were students who did not take medication. Students who reported feeling more vulnerable and less protected by the government were about four times more likely to have PTSD than were students without these characteristics.
Several specific PTSD symptoms–including flashbacks about the event and emotional reactions to reminders of the event–were significantly more common in girls than in boys, but gender and ethnicity were not significant factors in the overall PTSD rates.
The 7.4% rate was significantly higher than the 2% rate of PTSD found in a National Institute of Mental Health-sponsored study of children in four geographic areas other than New York City before Sept. 11, 2001.
Race and Mother/Daughter Sex Talks
Ethnicity was a significant predictor of mothers' discomfort in discussing sex-related topics with their daughters, according to data from surveys of 6,929 adolescent girls and their biological mothers.
Compared with white mothers, Asian mothers were more than five times as likely, Latina mothers more than four times as likely, and black mothers more than twice as likely to report discomfort in discussing sex with their daughters, reported Lisa M. Meneses, M.P.H., of the University of California, Berkeley, and her colleagues (J. Adolesc. Health 2006;39:128–31).
Overall, 57% of the mothers were white, 21% were black, 14% were Latina, 4% were Asian, and 4% were mixed ethnicity or didn't respond to the survey. Data were taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
The surveys also measured how often the mothers and daughters talked about sex and whether the mothers had correct information about their daughters' sexual activities. Compared with white mothers, Asian mothers were more than six times as likely and Latina mothers about 1.5 times as likely to report that they talked to their daughters about sex infrequently. Compared with black mothers, both Latina and Asian mothers were less likely to have discussed sex with their daughters but were more likely to be accurate about their daughters' sexual status.
The ethnic differences in maternal discomfort with sex talks, frequency of such talks, and awareness of sexual status persisted after controlling for confounding factors including mothers' and daughters' age, education, and religious beliefs.
Stutterers Struggle With Emotions
Children who stutter are significantly more emotional in stressful situations compared with their non-stuttering peers, a study shows.
To compare the differences in emotional regulation, Jan Karrass, Ph.D., and colleagues at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., examined data from parents' reports on the behavior of 65 children who stuttered and 56 age-matched children who did not. The children were aged 3–5 years.
The scores on 31 selected items from a 100-item questionnaire suggested that, in addition to being easily stressed, stutterers were significantly less able to regulate emotions and calm down after being stressed.
They were also significantly less able to disengage themselves from an emotional stimulus and refocus their attention, compared with non-stuttering peers. The results were statistically significant after the investigators controlled for age, gender, language ability, and socioeconomic status (J. Commun. Disord. doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2005.12.004).
The interaction between speech errors and emotions may make stuttering worse over time if the child does not outgrow the condition or receives no treatment, Dr. Karrass and colleagues reported.
The study is among the first to identify a link between stuttering and emotional regulation, although previous studies in preschool and school-aged children have suggested that stutterers are less attentive and adaptable than are non-stutterers.