Need more proof that TV’s bad for your kids? Look no further.

In a new study, Ohio scientists have compared mother and child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with toys, to show the impact of TV on child development.

The results indicated that watching TV leads to less interaction between parents and children, and in turn, negatively impacts a child’s literacy and language skills.

One of the main problem lies, the researchers said, in how parents communicate with their children while the kids are engaged with TV, books, or toys.

By describing objects or new words and images, or by prompting conversation through questions, maternal responsiveness can help a child engage with an activity. It can also provide positive feedback or encouragement to a child.

According to the study, mothers who co-read books communicated significantly more with their children than mothers watching TV. Maternal communication was higher among children who read books than those who played toys, but not significantly so.

In addition, when reading a book with their children, parents used a more active communication style, and introduced children to words they may not hear in every day speech, thereby improving their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. In contrast, watching TV consisted of significantly fewer descriptions and positive responses.

“When a mother and child are focusing on the same object, be that a book, toy or TV show, the mother’s response can have an important impact on their child’s understanding and self perception,” said study researcher Amy Nathanson.

“We would encourage parents to regularly substitute TV for other forms of entertainment to ensure frequent and positive interaction with their child,” Nathanson concluded.

The study was published in Human Communication Research.

As the summer days pass by, it gets harder to maintain a schedule with your families enjoying some much-needed down time. A break from the stress of your busy school-year schedules is necessary, but too much time without exercising the brain can be detrimental to your child’s academic health.

This is why it is important to attend to your child’s summer reading list starting now. Most middle and high schools choose one or two required readings and allow for some independence with a suggested reading list. This is a great opportunity for your child to get introduced to a new author or genre he or she may not have known before. In addition to developing a love of reading, children in these grades will likely be tested on material read or be expected to write a response to the text.

You can help your child maintain information about the stories by giving her a journal in which to take notes, reading the book with her, and having weekly discussions with her to ensure she comprehends the material. You may also want to celebrate the completion of books with a special reward, such as a little extra money to spend back-to-school shopping or a family movie night. However you do it, supporting your middle school or high school age child in their summer reading will ensure her school year gets off to a great start.

According to a new study, the brains of people with autism allocate more resources to areas that concentrate on visual perception, which results in less activity on other areas that are used to plan and control thoughts and actions, US News and World Report reported.

University of Montreal researchers said their findings may shed light on why people with autism have exceptional visual abilities.

The researchers collected and analyzed data from 26 brain imaging studies that were conducted over a period of 15 years and included a total of about 700 patients, evenly split between autistic and non-autistic.

“Through this meta-analysis, we were able to observe that autistics exhibit more activity in the temporal and occipital regions and less activity in frontal cortex than non-autistics,” said first author Fabienne Samson.

The temporal and occipital regions of the brain are associated with perceiving and recognizing patterns and objects, and the frontal areas deal with decision making, cognitive control, planning and execution.

Therefore, the findings indicate that enhanced perceptual process is a central feature of neural organization in people with autism, according to the researchers.

“We now have a very strong statement about autism functioning, which may be ground for cognitive accounts of autistic perception, learning, memory and reasoning,” said Dr. Laurent Mottron, of the university’s Centre for Excellence in Pervasive Development Disorders.

Based on the study results, it appears that the autistic brain adapts some of its cognitive functioning by reallocating brain areas to visual perception.  The finding may pave the way for new areas in autism research.

The study was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping.

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