On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Tasha Howe wrote:
> Beth, thanks for bringing our attention to the brain study. Since I
> haven't seen his work, I can't be sure, but there was no mention of in
> utero exposure to drugs. Many abused children exhibit similar
> neurological problems because they were exposed to drugs in utero. Bruce
> Perry at the Child Trauma Academy has done quite a bit of this work. And
> many nonabused children who were only exposed to drugs do as well. So if
> he compared them to a group of "normal" kids, that might not be the best
> comparison group to tease apart these findings. Interesting though.
I'm with Tasha on this one. In addition to prenatal damage,
abused children may differ from non-abused on many factors,
including genetics, malnutrition, drug abuse, poverty, low
education, peer influence, and my number one choice, actual
physical damage to the brain caused by the abuse. So suggestions
in the press releases I've seen that the route is from
psychological effects of abuse to physical brain changes is a
mighty tenuous one. As usual, it's a correlation, but that
doesn't stop journalists (and even the researchers themselves)
from jumping to unwarranted causal conclusions.
I also have questions about the way in which the brains were
examined for signs of abnormality. It's important for
believability that this be done blindly, with non-abused cases
mixed in, and with no knowledge beforehand which was which. From
the press releases, it seems unlikely that this was done.
The press release from McLean Hospital is at:
http://www.mcleanhospital.org/PublicAffairs/20001214_child_abuse.htm
In the light of the above, consider this restrained statement
from the study author:
"A child's interactions with the outside environment causes
connections to form between brain cells," Teicher explains. "Then
these connections are pruned during puberty and adulthood. So
whatever a child experiences, for good or bad, helps determine
how his brain is wired."
There's more. I tried to get an abstract of the paper, but
discovered that the journal (called Cerebrum) isn't indexed in
PubMed, not a good sign. This may be because it's too new
(publishing since the Fall of 1998) but, more likely, because
it's not up to their standards.
I found them at : http://www.dana.org/books/press/cerebrum/
where the journal is put out by an organization called the Dana
Foundation. On the plus side, it carries an enthusiastic blurb
from Floyd Bloom, eminent former editor of Science, and the
journal itself publishes essays by some very eminent people.
However, the Teicher article has not yet appeared there.
Moreover, it seems to be a review paper rather than an
experimental paper, which leads to further concerns about whether
adequate peer review was carried out for the studies that Teicher
reports there.
Caveat emptor.
-Stephen
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
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Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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