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The obesity problem in the U.S. is of epidemic proportions and affects even the youngest members of society. For instance, 10% percent of U.S. infants have excess weight for length, and early onset of obesity incites later risk. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Communications and Media has linked media exposure to obesity as well as sleep, behavior issues, inattention, and decreased parent-child interaction in young children. Further, the AAP concludes that no known health benefits exist for media exposure in children under 2 and discourage use in this age range. Reading has been shown to increase secure attachment in infants and to increase the quality of parent-child interaction in addition to positive gains in child literacy. Additionally, two existing studies found that reading reduces screen time, thus serving as a healthy alternative to media exposure. Despite these findings, and the importance of anticipatory guidance in pediatric primary care for discussing shared reading, only 15% of pediatricians talk to families about media exposure. ReadNPlay for a Bright Future is a multi-disciplinary, multicomponent pilot study and healthy weight promotion initiative for families with infants aged birth to 24 months to create health-promoting home environments, set goals, and monitor progress regarding reading and active play. The setting for this study is an academic pediatric primary care practice serving a primarily Caucasian, socio-economically disadvantaged population in Southern Appalachia, with involvement from pediatricians, nurses, and a behavioral health consultant. A novel communicative tool, the ReadNPlay Baby Book, along with provider training in brief motivational interviewing, posters, social media, and participation incentives (e.g., free children’s books) are being used to improve counseling on healthy active living behaviors during infant well child visits. The current research endeavor is focused on the Play More: Shut Off the Screens aspect of the ReadNPlay initiative and utilizes data from a baseline survey completed by 40 mothers with infants aged 9-12 months and 40 mothers with infants aged 13-24 months to assess trends in one form of media exposure, television watching, and reading in this population. While the AAP recommends that children under 2 years do not watch TV, mothers in this study reported that 80% of infants 9-12 months and 87% of infants 13-24 months watched at least 30 minutes on a typical day. Sixty percent of mothers of infants 9-12 months and 82.5% of mothers of infants 13-24 months reported reading 2013 Appalachian Student Research Forum Page 71 or looking at books with their child on most days of a typical week, perhaps as a result of an existing Reach Out and Read Initiative in the practice. The current study adds to the dearth of research regarding risk factors during infancy for future development of obesity. Future research may examine whether increases in reading time may decrease time spent in media exposure.

Book Summary: While much needs to be done in order to minimize the suicide attempts and suicides of adolescents, the work of Stop Youth Suicide (SYS) campaign and the comprehensive grassroots' approach is showing signs of success in the state of Kentucky. The 2013 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) showed that for the first time, indicators of youth suicide in the state are at or below the national average, where they were previously always above. In the three rural counties where the school systems have partnered with SYS and the Division of Adolescent Medicine in Lexington, there is an actual absence of completed suicides compared to the average of three per year prior to this partnership. In order to maintain and improve that statistic, we must ensure that students do not have easy access to weapons, guns and drugs by ensuring that these items are properly stored in homes where children are present. Kentucky's educators must continue to develop ways to provide safe and supportive school environments. In this book, the authors have gathered presentations from the 2017 Annual Stop Youth Suicide Campaign Conference, which we hope will be of interest and help to the readers.

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The International Congress on Infant Studies (ICIS) joins forces with the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology (COGDOP) to provide young ICIS scholars a unique opportunity to gain advice from acting Department Chairs about how best to write cover letters, select good referees, negotiate for job offers, secure competitive start-up allowances, and manage many other elements of the very anxiety-provoking process of landing a new job. In this Q&A panel format, multiple Department Chairs representing institutions ranging in size from very small to very large, and from private to public, will answer questions and give advice based on their several decades of combined experience negotiating and making jobs offers from the other side of table. This panel symposium should be of great interest to graduate students in all years of study, post-doctoral fellows, and even more seasoned professionals who are thinking of re-entering the academic job market.

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Enabling-relation action sequences (ERASs) have long provided researchers an index of infants’ short- and long-term memories. Reproduction of these sequences demonstrates that infants are capable of attending to, encoding, retaining, and retrieving modeled actions in the sequence. Bauer and colleagues (e.g., 2000) have established considerable literature on infants’ memorial capacities using this paradigm. There is little research, however, on the extent to which infants produce primacy- versus recency-type effects in reproducing specific target actions in the sequence.Researchers have also not considered whethe exogenous and endogenous factors contribute to infants’ reproduction of target actions, or their focus on early versus late actions in the sequence. Our investigation explored whether an exogenous distracter, alone or combined with endogenous (temperament) factors, accounts for infants’ reproduction of individual steps in an ERAS. Twenty-seven 21-month olds (15 girls) observed an experimenter in our lab model a version of the “make-a-gong” action sequence, comprising five steps: 1) extend the rod, 2) lay the rod across two hooks, 3) hang the gong on the rod, 4) assemble the drumstick, and 5) strike the gong with the drumstick. Half observed the model while distracted by a peripheral “Mister Monkey” toy. Each was administered the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire, assessing three temperament dimensions: Negative Affectivity, Surgency, and Effortful Control. When distracted, infants were significantly more likely to first attempt Target Action #4 (TA4) than any other target action [c2(1) = 4.14, p = .042], suggesting that when attentional resources are compromised, as when attending to an exogenous distracter, infants are likely to attempt recently observed steps in a modeled sequence. Success at TA4 did not differ between distracted and undistracted infants; however, we found that temperament was a significant predictor of success on TA4, but not on any other target action. Specifically, Negative Affectivity (r = -.48, p = .011) and Surgency (r = .40, p = .039) were associated with successful reproduction of TA4; however, distraction condition moderated neither effect. These results show that exogenous and endogenous factors can impact infants’ reproduction of ERASs, and perhaps infants’ memory-based performance more generally. Though this conclusion awaits replications in other settings, that the presence of an exogenous distraction produced a recency effect implies that infants may allocate their attention differently according to how distracting their surroundings are. Also, that surgency and negative affectivity correlated with infants’ success on one of the steps suggests that recall may be subject to the influence of infants’ temperamental reactivity. Future research should attempt to discern whether effects linked to TA4 are unique to that specific target action, or are instead a reflection of a recency effect.

It is estimated that US children 2 to 18 years of age spend an average of 5.5 hours, daily, using media of all types. 1 During these years, it is estimated they will have viewed over 200,000 acts of violence just on television. 2 In this issue of the Southern Medical Journal, Dr. Robert DuRant and colleagues reported on their findings that an increased frequency of watching professional wrestling on television was associated with an increase in reported date fighting and other violent behaviors, risky sexual behavior, and smoking cigarettes, among a multistate random sample of adolescents aged 16 to 20 years. 3 In this cross-sectional study, 22.4% of males and 13.6% of females reported watching professional wrestling on television during the 2 weeks before the survey. Prior research, including experimental and longitudinal studies, has consistently demonstrated strong associations between exposure to media violence and desensitization to violence, greater acceptance of violence as a means of solving problems, and violent behavior, as well as depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. 4