Nature Deficit
By Richard Louv, Orion Magazine, July/August
2005
As any parent or teacher probably knows, the number of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has skyrocketed—by 33 percent from 1997 to 2002.
Prescriptions of stimulant medications such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and
amphetamines (Dexedrine) have risen as well, especially for preschoolers. From
2000 to 2003, spending on ADHD drugs for children under five rose 369 percent.
Scientists have yet to definitively explain the trend. Some critics say the
reporting might be skewed—that ADHD may have been with us all the time but
called by other names or missed entirely. Another theory is that the disorder
might be over diagnosed; pharmaceutical companies have intensely marketed
medications, and school officials often urge parents to seek treatment for
disruptive children.
Still, the disorder is real. One suspected cause of ADHD symptoms is over
stimulation, especially from television viewing. But another significant factor
in the ADHD phenomenon—and a potential treatment—could be as close as our own
backyards.
Children diagnosed with ADHD have trouble paying attention, listening,
following directions, and focusing on tasks. They may also be aggressive,
antisocial, and susceptible to academic failure. Based on high-tech images of
the brain, some scientists report that ADHD children show altered levels of
some neurotransmitters and slight shrinking in the part of the cerebral cortex
that governs attention and impulse control. But scientists are not clear
whether those differences indicate a cause for the disorder, perhaps due to a
genetic defect, or are simply manifestations of another cause or causes.
In ongoing studies by
the Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois,
researchers have discovered tantalizing evidence for a new view of the
syndrome. In a 2004 study published in the American
Journal of Public Health, the laboratory found that children as
young as five showed a significant reduction in ADHD symptoms when they engaged
with nature.
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Researchers have found that engagement with nature buffers
against life stresses, which otherwise could aggravate ADHD
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Parents and guardians
were asked to identify after-school or weekend activities that left their
children functioning particularly well or poorly. The study measured responses
to two types of activities: those in green landscapes—such as grassy backyards,
parks, and farmland—and those in indoor playgrounds and paved recreation areas.
The researchers designed the study to account for any effects of physical
exercise so they could measure only the influence of green settings. They also
factored out age, gender, family income, geographic region, size of community,
and the severity of diagnosis.
In fifty-four of fifty-six
cases, outdoor activities in more natural settings led to a greater reduction
in ADHD symptoms than activities in less natural areas. The only instances when symptoms
worsened occurred in the artificial environments. In a related experiment, the
laboratory found that children could focus on specific tasks better in green
settings.
Other researchers have found that engagement with nature buffers against life stresses, which otherwise could aggravate ADHD.
Although most of their studies focus on adults, an increasing number gauge the
impact of green settings on children. A 2003 Cornell University study reported
that the more nature a child encountered at home—including exposure to indoor
plants and window views of natural settings—the less he or she was affected by
negative stresses.
A 2003 study by researchers at the New York State College of Human Ecology
reached similar conclusions. Nancy Wells, the lead researcher, said that exposure to nature resulted in
"profound differences" in children's attention capacities and that
"green spaces may enable children to think more clearly and cope more
effectively with life stress."
That, in turn, could strengthen a child's attention and potentially decrease
the symptoms of ADHD.
It's not
clear why exposure to nature would have such an apparently powerful influence
on brain functions related to attention. One theory
is that the experience simply engages a child mentally and physically in a
"natural" way, consistent with how humans have evolved. In an earlier hunting and gathering or agricultural
society—which is to say, during most of humankind's history—young people were
more likely to engage in physically demanding, mentally relaxing activities
that immersed most of their sensory receptors: climbing, hunting small animals,
baling hay, splashing in the swimming hole.
As recently as the 1950s, most U.S. youngsters still had some kind of
agricultural connection. Even in towns or cities, kids played ball in sandlots
or spent hours building forts in tangled and wild "vacant" lots.
Their unregimented play was steeped in nature. That kind of exposure to nature
has faded dramatically in recent decades, but our need for nature—possibly
physiological—has not. "Neurologically, human beings haven't caught up
with today's over-stimulating environment," says Michael Gurian, a family
therapist and author of The Wonder of Boys.
"The brain is strong and flexible, so 70 to 80 percent of kids adapt
fairly well. But the rest don't."
If ADHD has something to do with a lack of nature, the neurological mechanics
could be explained by the attention-restoration
theory developed by Stephen and Rachel
Kaplan, husband-and-wife environmental psychologists at the University of
Michigan. The Kaplans have taken their inspiration from philosopher and
psychologist William James, who, in 1890, described two kinds of attention in
adults: directed and involuntary.
In the early 1970s, the Kaplans studied the impact of a range of activities and
found too much directed attention (this could include computer tasks, homework,
studying for a test) leads to what they call "directed-attention
fatigue," marked by impulsive behavior, agitation, irritation, and
inability to concentrate. Directed-attention
fatigue occurs because neural inhibitory mechanisms become overstressed by
blocking competing stimuli. Subsequent research, including more than one
hundred studies linking exposure to nature to stress reduction, has supported
the Kaplans' theory—and the salutary influence of what they called "the
restorative environment." According to the
Kaplans, nature can be the most effective source of restorative relief.
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If a greener environment can play a
role in curing ADHD, few if any studies have explicitly examined whether the
converse is also true: that ADHD may be a set of symptoms initiated or aggravated
by lack of exposure to nature
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The University of Illinois team, while
not questioning the effectiveness of current ADHD treatment methods, has also
suggested that nature therapy could be a third
option, after prescription medications and behavioral therapy. They recount how one parent began taking her son to the local
park for thirty minutes each morning before school, which she indicated reduced
his ADHD symptoms. "Come to think of it," she told the researchers,
"I have noticed his attitude toward going to school has been better, and
his schoolwork has been better this past week." Another parent of a boy
with attention-deficit symptoms began engaging him regularly in outdoor
activities like fishing, with similar results. "When I read the results of
your study," he reported to the researchers, "they hit me in the
face. I thought, yes, I've seen this!"
If a greener environment can play a role in curing ADHD, few
if any studies have explicitly examined whether the converse is also true: that
ADHD may be a set of symptoms initiated or aggravated by lack of exposure to
nature. By this line of thinking, many children may benefit from medications,
but the real disorder lies in the society
that has disengaged children from nature and
imposed on them an artificial environment for which they have not evolved.
Viewed from this angle, children and adults alike would suffer from what might
be called nature-deficit disorder, not in
a clinical sense, but as a condition caused by the
cumulative human costs of alienation from nature, including diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher
rates of physical and emotional illnesses.
If that's the real ailment, a walk in the woods would be the ideal treatment:
it's not stigmatizing, has no serious side effects, and it's free. But such
reliance on greenery would underscore the need to scale back industrialism,
redesign homes, schools, and cities, and expand access to nature—which can't be
encapsulated in a pill, but could be equally powerful medicine.
Richard
Louv has written for the New York Times
and the Christian Science Monitor,
and is a longtime columnist for the San
Diego Union-Tribune. He is the author of seven books, including Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from
Nature-Deficit Disorder, published in April by Algonquin Books of
Chapel Hill. He lives in San Diego.
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-4om/Louv.html
Related
(Orion will feature this author next issue as
how computers affect learning in children)
Lowell Monke The Human Touch http://www.educationnext.org/20044/10.html
