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
Nurse Home Visits: A Boost for Low-Income Parents [A] Nurse home visitor Tammy Ballard has had some memorable experiences in clo
Nurse Home Visits: A Boost for Low-Income Parents [A] Nurse home visitor Tammy Ballard has had some memorable experiences in clo
admin
2017-06-29
18
问题
Nurse Home Visits: A Boost for Low-Income Parents
[A] Nurse home visitor Tammy Ballard has had some memorable experiences in close to a decade of helping new mothers raising their children in poverty in Dayton, Ohio. Once, she arrived at a new client’s home to find a TV news crew waiting outside; apparently, someone fleeing gunfire had sought shelter there. Another time, she knocked on a door only to hear screaming in response, but no one would let her in. Later she learned it was the family’s parrots, which had -been trained to shout at visitors.
[B] Ballard’s job—when she can get in the house—is to try to give low-income parents a leg up. She teaches them many of the same child-rearing techniques that give the children of middle-class and educated parents an edge socially and in school—and that instruction is often eye-opening for both Ballard and her clients. You would be surprised to know what new parents don’t know, Ballard says, recalling the case of one father who thought babies couldn’t hear at birth. "He asked, ’When do their eyes open?’ He thought they were like puppies," she says.
[C] There’s no doubt that low-income parents—indeed, most new parents—could use a little guidance. In some countries, like France, that guidance is institutionalized. Nurse home visits for all pregnant and new mothers are routine and free of charge, sponsored by the government. In the U.S. the national Nurse-Family Partnership program (NFP) covers about 16,300 families living in poverty in 25 states, but President Obama has said he plans to expand the benefit, extending it to every first-time poor mother in the country—about 570,000 women each year. The President’s stimulus plan includes more than $3 billion in funding for early-childhood-intervention programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start.
[D] The question is, will the money make a real difference in children’s lives? In a recent article in The New York Times, Douglas Besharov of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute and a colleague argued that expanding pre-kindergarten programs "without demanding reforms will not help children." Other critics have also stated that funding early-childhood initiatives is just a consolation to liberal interest groups.
[E] But the science supporting warm and fuzzy early-childhood interventions is sound and is only getting stronger. "There’s converging evidence from neuroscience (神经学), social science and animal data," says Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. "If you want to invest societal resources where they will have the biggest benefit for all of us, clearly the evidence is there now that protecting children from the worst kinds of deprivation in their youngest years will result in more functional, capable, prosocial citizens."
[F] The NFP was developed in the 1970s by David Olds, a professor of pediatrics (小儿科) and preventive medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. NFP involves about 64 home visits from a nurse during the first 2.5 years of a child’s life. Many of the new mothers who receive the benefit are single, are on welfare, have low education levels and are dealing with addiction, mental illness and family violence. Nurses visit once a week during pregnancy and early infancy, answering health questions, teaching basic parenting skills and, crucially, helping moms whose own early lives were often characterized by chaos build confidence that they can do better for their children.
[G] These visits have a pretty good payoff. A recent analysis by the Rand Corp. found that for every dollar spent providing nurse visitors to high-risk families, the government could save nearly $6 in welfare, juvenile-justice and health-care costs down the line. Dividends for the families’ well-being may be even higher. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (J.A.M.A.) a few years ago found that children in the north of New York whose mothers were visited by nurses during pregnancy and two years after birth were 59% less likely to have been arrested 15 years later, compared with a control group.
[H] Another study, also in J.A.M.A., found that nurse home visits were associated with a nearly 50% drop in rates of child abuse or neglect in new families and that visits increased the amount of time between a mother’s first and second pregnancies. Rates of hypertension (高血压), which is known to interfere with fetal brain development, were also reduced. And mothers spent less time on welfare and worked more.
[I] There’s really no mystery to the program’s success, says Olds. Simple interventions, like encouraging new parents to show affection to their children or to talk to them more, result in huge rewards for babies. In poor families, adults tend to speak to babies only to issue commands, in a business-only style of parenting rather than talking to children to communicate affection, identify objects, introduce concepts or teach language—a phenomenon more common in middle-class and wealthy households. Studies have shown that by pre-school age, children whose parents gesture or talk to them less in babyhood know significantly fewer vocabulary words than children whose parents engage them more often. That deficit can affect students’ performance for years.
[J] What happens early has a long-term impact, says Olds. Indeed, about 90% of a child’s brain growth takes place before kindergarten, so it’s critical to teach new parents what to expect as a child develops not only during pregnancy and early childhood but also as the child matures. A large part of nurse home visits are designed to teach parents how to respond to their children as they age and help them manage the extra burden of parenting with few resources. Says Olds: "Learning to understand children’s motivations and abilities helps parents treat them more sensitively and responsively, and that makes it easier for children to accept guidance and not respond provocatively."
[K] It also creates a less stressful environment and protects against child abuse and neglect, and those reductions can in turn cut children’s risks of later engaging in crime and suffering from addiction, mental illness, obesity and cardiovascular (心血管的) disease. The key, according to Olds’ research, begins with properly trained nurses; home visits by paraprofessionals (专业人员的助手) aren’t as effective. Despite the current shortage of nurses in the U.S., Olds says his program is ready to grow. "The NFP is ready for substantial expansion, as long as we recognize that serving 500,000 new families per year will take time." But it’s an investment that self-propagates. Once the nurses have educated new moms, says Ballard, the mothers start educating one another. "It’s so neat to watch," she says. "We give information to our clients, and they share with neighbors. One client was the go-to person for everything. She’d say, ’Talking to your babies makes them smart.’ And the other moms would always come to her."
Encouraging parents to express affection does good to babies.
选项
答案
I
解析
根据Encouraging和parents to express affection定位到I段。原文说,简单的干预,像鼓励初为父母的人向孩子表达情感,或者与孩子多说话,会使婴儿得到巨大的益处。本题句子的does good to对应原文的result in huge rewards for。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/LjU7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Bloggingisapastimeformany,evenalivelihoodforafew.Forsome,itbecomesanobsession(着迷,使人痴迷的事物).Suchbloggersoften
Inmanystressfulsituationsthebody’sresponsescanimproveourperformance.Webecomemore【B1】______,morealert,betterabl
TheAmericantraditionalpatternofclassroomexperienceatthecollegelevelbringstheprofessorandagroupof20-30students
MostvolcanoesarequietTheyrestpeacefullyforhundredsofyears.Noonepaysmuchattentiontothem.MountStHelenswasone
A、Englanddidn’thaveprivateuniversitiesasAmericadid.B、Americanhighereducationwasbetterinquality.C、Englandhadmore
Receivingvisitorsandguestsisanimportantpartofthesecretary’sdailyroutineintheoffice.Thereisacertain【B1】______
舞狮(liondance)是一种由一人或两人身披狮型服装(lioncostume)进行表演的民间表演艺术。据记载,舞狮有两千多年的悠久历史,在唐朝时被引入皇室,成为皇室的娱乐项目。舞狮最注重的是技巧,舞狮者要以夸张的方式模仿狮子的各种表情和动作。经过几
中国移动通信集团公司(ChinaMobileCommunicationsCorporation),简称“中国移动”,于2000年成立,是一家国有移动通信运营商。它有许多为普通大众所熟悉的服务品牌。动感地带(M-Zone)是中国移动面向年青时尚人群的品
A、Drinkingaddiction.B、Gamblingaddiction.C、Internetaddiction.D、Drugaddiction.C录音中提到,如同过量饮酒和沉迷赌博一样,人们滥用互联网,这个现象被称为网络成瘾症(In
A、Fromhisfather.B、FromAT&T.C、Fromhisuniversity.D、FromCNNreport.A
随机试题
据统计,2016年共有来自205个国家和地区的442773名各类外国留学人员在31个省、自治区、直辖市的829所高等学校、科研院所和其他教学机构中学习,比2015年增加45138人。(一)按洲别统计(二)按国别排序前15名:韩国705
普通发动机可以使用高压试火的方法检查高压电路。()
符合体外循环后低心排综合征的表现是()
男性,22岁,农民,水样便1天入院,起病后无发热和里急后重,大便含少量粪质,每日10余次,无腹痛,3小时后出现喷射性呕吐,且为连续性。临床拟诊为霍乱。该患者临床病程属何期
下列属于基本行针手法的是
风险识别的方法有()。
我国对外贸易管制的法律渊源包括()。
以下属于基金运作费的有()。
判定一个公司是否属于一国法人居民的一般判定标准包括()。
信访:指公民、法人和其他组织采用书信、电话、走访等形式,向行政机关或其他社会组织反映情况,提出意见、建议和要求,依法应当由有关行政机关或组织处理的活动。根据定义,下列选项中,不属于信访活动的是()。
最新回复
(
0
)