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Biomedical subjects

W B Carey

Publications and source records attributed to W B Carey.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Temperament issues in the school-aged child.

Children's temperament continues to make a significant contribution to their physical health, development, and behavior as they progress into later childhood and adolescence. The definition of temperament as behavioral style remains the same, although the relative importance of the several dimensions shifts, factors affecting it broaden, its stability increases, and its measurement becomes more complex. An important role has been established for temperament in behavior problems through childhood but less so for new ones in adolescence, in several aspects of physical health and some other areas such as coping or adaptive style. This article stresses the strong influence that temperament has on school performance and emphasizes the probability that many children who are now said to have the disorder of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are likely to have normal neurologic function and a temperament that does not fit well with the demands of the modern school environment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Hair pulling.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Child↗
PubMed1990

Temperament risk factors in children: a conference report.

This review presents a report of an international conference and its published monograph, which dealt with three questions. What do we know about temperament risk factors that is useful? Depending on the "goodness of fit," risk factors may affect children's physical health, development, social behavior, or scholastic performance. What has been done or could be done with these findings? Practical applications have been made in pediatrics, psychiatry, and anticipatory guidance by psychologists. The greatest opportunity for wider use of temperament determinations will be in diagnosing and managing problems in behavior and scholastic performance, rather than in routine screening in the general population. What steps can we take in the future? Several are discussed, but the most obvious is further application of what we already know.

Achievement↗
PubMed1988

Temperamental factors associated with rapid weight gain and obesity in middle childhood.

Studies of the perplexing problem of childhood obesity have considered etiological factors in the child and environment, but have largely ignored the child's temperament or style of interaction with the environment. In this report, a significant relationship is demonstrated between temperament and both rapid weight gain and actual obesity in middle childhood. In a longitudinal study of 138 children, weight-for-height percentile gains between 4 to 5 years and 8 to 9 years were significantly correlated with eight of nine difficult temperament characteristics and with a cumulative "index of difficulty." A separate cross-sectional study of 21 obese (greater than or equal to the 95th percentile weight for height) 6- to 12-year-old children found them to be significantly less rhythmical/predictable and lower in persistence/attention span than matched controls. These normal behavioral style characteristics, interacting with metabolic, dietary, and environmental factors, may predispose some children to inappropriate eating habits or make it harder to maintain a dietary plan to remedy the problem.

Child↗
PubMed1985

Temperament and increased weight gain in infants.

The role of temperamental characteristics in accelerated and decelerated weight gain in normal infants has not been investigated previously except for differences in activity. The present study drew a random sample of 200 normal infants from a largely middle-class private practice. It found 24 infants who gained 30 or more percentile points in weight for length determinations between 6 and 12 months of age and 25 who lost 20 percentile points or more. These growth data were compared with contemporaneous findings on the Infant Temperament Questionnaire. Those gaining the most had significantly more difficult temperament ratings (p less than 0.05) and were perceived by their mothers as "more difficult than average" (p less than 0.001). Infants with the most decelerated growth were not temperamentally different from the general sample. Negative mood rather than low activity was the specific characteristic distinguishing the infants gaining the most (p = 0.006). Clinical experience would suggest that fussy infants are fed more to quiet them.

Body Height↗
PubMed1985

Clinical use of temperament data in pediatrics.

Temperament data can aid the clinician in fostering parent-child relationships on three levels. First, general educational discussions about temperament between the clinician and parents provide background information, which increases parents' awareness and understanding of individual differences. Second, identification of the temperament profile of the particular child provides the parents with a more organized picture of the child's behavioral style and of possible distortions in their perceptions of it. This is primarily useful to the clinician when the child is rather difficult or when, for example the mother's perception of the child makes the child seem more difficult than her own ratings suggest. This clarification process may provide parents with enough insight for them to make their own shifts in interaction patterns. Third, the clinician may attempt to influence the temperament-environment interaction, when its dissonance is leading to reactive symptoms, by suggesting alternative methods of parental management. If this is successful, the stress of the interaction should diminish and the reactive symptoms disappear. At the same time parents and teachers must learn to live in a more tolerant and flexible manner with the child's relatively less changeable temperament.

Achievement↗
PubMed1979

Differentiating minimal brain dysfunction and temperament.

After referral to a pediatric neurologist for problems in behavior and learning, 61 children aged from three to seven years were assigned to one of four diagnostic groups: (1) minimal brain dysfunction (MBD); (2) hyperactivity; (3) learning disability; and (4) other criteria. Their temperament profiles were determined by the Behavioral Style Questionnaire. The disproportionately large number of children with more difficult temperament diagnoses in the referred population indicates that teachers and physicians may have mininterpreted a less adaptive behavioral style as evidence of neurological dysfunction. Those diagnosed clinically as having MBD were less adaptable, less persistent, more active and more negative than the control population. This suggests that MBD overlaps with difficult temperament. Children in the other three groups were temperamentally similar to the MBD group, which raises doubt about the advisability of diagnosing MBD on the basis of behavior alone. A comprehensive neurobehavioral profile is necessary to separate clearly the various factors contributing to problems in school performance.

Affective Symptoms↗