Lifespan Issues

Topic Areas

Adult Development & Aging

The High Costs of Caregiving: Caring for loved ones with chronic disease such as dementia can be exhausting. Health-care and social-services providers have turned their attention to helping caregivers stay healthy and strong.

Emotional Fitness in Aging: Ongoing psychological research is painting a new and reassuring picture that older adults actually appear to enjoy pleasant emotions and recall more positive images than do younger adults.

The Role of Psychology in End-of-Life Decisions and Quality of Care: Psychologists can contribute to end-of-life care before illness strikes, after illness is diagnosed and treatments begin, during advanced illness and the dying process, and after the death of the patient, with bereaved survivors.

Thinking About Retirement? Time to Think About Your Psychological Portfolio: Psychologists help people prepare for the retirement transition.

Marital Education Programs Help Keep Couples Together: In the United States, couples marrying for the first time have approximately a fifty percent chance of divorcing. Psychologists are helping couples' "I do" last a lifetime through development and application of scientifically tested relationship education programs.

Memory Changes in Older Adults : For the human brain, there's no such thing as over the hill. Psychologists researching the normal changes of aging have found that although some aspects of memory and processing change as people get older, simple behavior changes can help people stay sharp for as long as possible.

Adolescence

Have Your Children Had Their Anti-Smoking Shots?: Attitude inoculation dramatically reduces teenage smoking rates.

School Bullying Is Nothing New, But Psychologists Identify New Ways to Prevent It: Systematic international research has shown school bullying to be a frequent and serious public health problem. But psychologists are using this research to develop bullying prevention programs that are being implemented in schools around the world.

Schoolyard Blues: Physical and verbal bullying can be serious problems in children's social lives, but psychologists are finding that other, more subtle forms of peer maltreatment can also wreak havoc on adjustment.

Children

Early Intervention Can Improve Low-Income Children's Cognitive Skills and Academic Achievement: National Head Start program conceptualized while psychologists were beginning to study preventive intervention for young children living in poverty.

Even a Bit of Lead Is Bad for Kids' Psychological Development: Superman couldn't see through lead, but doctors and psychologists did, exposing lead's damaging effects on children's psychological development.

Family-Like Environment Better for Troubled Children and Teens: The Teaching-Family Model changes bad behavior through straight talk and loving relationships.

Lessening PKU's Damaging Effects on Children: Much of the neurological havoc wreaked by the rare genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) can be prevented through early, thorough, and continuous care.

Playing Make-Believe Prepares Kids for the Real World: "No playing untill you've finished your homework!" We've all heard that before. New research suggests, though, that imaginative play actually increases children's academic success.

Problem-Solving Program Teaches Kids How To Use Their Heads Instead of Their Fists: The path to world peace may begin in preschool, when children learn how to think their way through interpersonal challenges.

School-Based Program Teaches Skills That Stave Off Depression: Roll over Prozac! Nipping depression in the bud by teaching thinking and problem-solving skills to children may be the wave of the future.

Undoing Dyslexia via Video Games: Psychologists and neuroscientists are using new techniques to identify the source of language and reading problems such as dyslexia in the brain and create neural processing exercises disguised as computer video games to significantly improve children's language learning and reading.

Violence in the Media - Psychologists Help Protect Children from Harmful Effects: Decades of psychological research confirms that media violence can increase aggression.

Violent Video Games - Psychologists Help Protect Children from Harmful Effects: Psychological research confirms that violent video games can increase children's aggression, but that parents moderate the negative effects.

When Psychologists Teach Coaches How to Coach, Young Athletes Feel Better and Play Longer: A scientifically developed and evaluated training program shows youth sports coaches how to create positive and supportive experiences for their young athletes.

Infants

Massage Therapy May Heal What's Ailing You: A caregiver's touch can put preemies on the road to normal development and also relieve adult's suffering.