首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
It’s disturbing to picture your kindergartner in a casino, but maybe you ought to try. American kids are born into a culture tha
It’s disturbing to picture your kindergartner in a casino, but maybe you ought to try. American kids are born into a culture tha
admin
2012-12-01
59
问题
It’s disturbing to picture your kindergartner in a casino, but maybe you ought to try. American kids are born into a culture that loves its gambling, and the passion is only growing, as financial hardships sweeten the ever alluring prospect of a lucky break. The danger, of course, is that gambling can lead to compulsive gambling — and compulsive gambling can be a life wrecker. Now, a new study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that it may be possible to spot the people most at risk when they’re as young as 5 years old.
Problem gambling, like all addictions, is at least partly rooted in poor impulse control, and if there’s any place people make their want-it-now neediness known, it’s in kindergarten. Psychologist Linda Pagani of the Sainte-Justice University Hospital Research Center and the University of Montreal conducted a longitudinal study that began in 1999, when she assembled a sample group of 163 kindergartners with a median age of 5.5 years. The kids’ teachers filled out a questionnaire in which they rated each child’s degree of inattentiveness, distractibility and hyperactivity on a scale of 1 to 9. Pagani tallied the scores and then tucked the findings away.
Six years later, she conducted follow-up interviews with the same children and asked whether any of them had begun gambling. The results were surprising. Although the kids were still a long way from being old enough for Vegas or the track, many admitted that they were already playing bingo, cards, video poker or other video games for money; buying lottery tickets; or placing bets on professional sports.
"The majority of kids were not engaging in any of these activities," says Pagani, "but the fact that any of them were was unexpected."
What struck Pagani most was how predictable the identities of the gamblers were. When she referred back to the ratings from kindergarten, she found that every one-unit increase on the impulsivity scale correlated with a 25% jump in the likelihood a child would be gambling by sixth grade. "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual already refers to gambling specifically as an impulse-control disorder," she says, citing the official text that outlines diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. "And then there were our findings showing that."
Knowing early on which children are headed for trouble can pay off in a number of ways. For one thing, it can help families wise up. Some of the parents of the kids in the study saw a little gambling as a minor thing, and a number of them even bought lottery tickets for their kids as a reward for good behavior. That, clearly, sends the wrong message. "Scratch-and-win games are for adults," Pagani says flatly.
What’s more, not only can kids’ behavior benefit when impulse issues are spotted early on, so can their brains. Preschool is a time when the prefrontal lobes, which are the center of executive functions — and what Pagani and others call "effort control" — are just developing. The better the brain can be trained at this stage, the better it performs later in life. Pagan cites a 2007 study journal Science that showed that simple attention training taught in kindergarten improved focus and concentration in later years. "You can introduce a cost-effect program and reap enormous benefits," she says.
Pagani plans to check in with the kids in her survey again in another six years when they’re finishing high school and preparing to enter the larger world — with its larger temptations. Even if they were born too late to benefit from her findings, she thinks other kids can.
"We need to think of impulse-control training as a long-term investment plan," she says, "one that can lead to less addiction, less gambling, a lower dropout rate and lower unemployment." That’s a far bigger payoff than you’ll ever get playing blackjack or craps.
A suitable title for the passage would be
选项
A、Pagani’s Study on Children Gambling.
B、The Need of Impulse-Control Training.
C、Saving Our Children from Gambling.
D、Spotting Future Gamblers in Kindergarten.
答案
D
解析
主旨大意题。文章主要介绍了Pagani的研究过程和发现,研究结果是:根据幼儿园时期孩子们的表现可以发现哪些孩子未来可能成为赌徒,[D]项符合这一主题,为答案。Pagani研究的是孩子们早期的冲动性和未来的赌博行为的关系,而不是儿童赌博行为,故排除[A]。文中提到了冲动性控制训练的益处,但并没有强调冲动性控制训练的必要性,故排除[B]。文章讲述的是儿童早期冲动性和未来赌博可能性的关系,而没有提及把孩子们从赌博行为中拯救出来,故排除[C]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/DDaO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Formanyofus,petshavecometooccupycriticalrolesinourlives.Thelonelinessandisolationinsomelifestylescanbes
TheoriginalAmericanflagcontains13horizontalstripesand13whitestarsarranged______tosymbolizeunityandequalityoft
TheStockMarketWhenanewcompanyisorganizedandsharesaresold,itisnothardtodeterminethevalueofeachshare:all
"Ido."ToAmericansthosetwowordscarrygreatmeaning.Theycanevenchangeyourlife.Especiallyifyousaythematyourown
由小学到中学,所修习的无非是一些普通的基本知识。就是大学四年,所授课业也还是相当粗浅的学识。世人常称大学为“最高学府”,这名称易滋误解,好像过此以上即无学问可言。大学的研究所才是初步研究学问的所在,在这里作学问也只能算是粗涉藩篱,注重的是研究学问的方法和实
ThetradeandinvestmentrelationshipbetweentheEuropeanUnionandtheUnitedStatesisthemostimportantintheworld.Despi
AsaprobingpsychologistheistheunrivalledmasteramongalllivingBritishandAmericannovelists.Neitherdoanyofhiscol
TheAmericanFamilyWe’lllearntheAmericanfamiliesfromthefollowingfiveaspects:1.Familystructures1)Immediatefamily
In2009,Pfizerpaid$301millionsettleallegationsbytheJustice1.______DepartmentthatcompanyrepresentativesmarketedGe
我有了生命以来,在这个世界上虽然仅仅经历了二十几个寒暑,但是这短短的时期也并不是白白度过的。这期间我也曾看见了不少的东西,知道了不少的事情。我的周围是无边的黑暗,但是我并不孤独,并不绝望。我无论在什么地方总看见那一股生活的激流在动荡,在创造他自己的道路,通
随机试题
全草类药材的入药部位是()。
在研磨中起调和磨料、冷却和润滑作用的是研磨剂。()
标志着企业战略管理的研究进入能力研究新阶段的著作是()
凡士林灭菌方法,应采用
有经济全球化的大背景下,世界产业发展的主要趋势为()。
关于上市公司不得公开发行证券,下列说法错误的是()
某洗衣公司是一家私人公司,该公司既无正式的工资结构体系,也没有制定工资率或使用薪酬因素,工资水平同周围社会的平均水平持平。公司老板在制定工资制度时,并未进行正式的薪水调查。他几乎每天都在阅读求职广告,并通过他在当地洗衣工和清洁协会的朋友进行非正式的薪水调查
被告人除自己行使辩护权以外,还可以委托1~2人作为辩护人。下列不能被委托为辩护人的是()。
有以下程序#includeintfun(intn){inta;if(n==1)return1;a=n+fun(n-1);return(a);}main(){printf("%d\n",fun(5));}程序的输出结果是
First,PeterandCrystalmusthavea/an______
最新回复
(
0
)