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  3. Children who are verbally abused may suffer lasting negative effects in their brain’s ability to process language, researchers r

Children who are verbally abused may suffer lasting negative effects in their brain’s ability to process language, researchers r

admin2013-09-16  31
问题     Children who are verbally abused may suffer lasting negative effects in their brain’s ability to process language, researchers report. They say the new findings illustrate the seriousness of this type of abuse and should encourage greater action to combat it.
    Martin Teicher at Harvard Medical School and colleagues used an exhaustive questionnaire to select 17 people who had suffered severe verbal abuse in childhood but not other forms of abuse.
    Experts define verbal abuse as frequent critical comments that are intended to diminish the victim’s self-esteem, he explains. The team recruited 17 additional participants for the trial, who had suffered no such abuse.
    Brain scans revealed that those who had experienced verbal abuse had a 10% reduction in the size of a brain region known as the right superior temporal gyras(颞上回, 形成大脑半球的组织). compared with those who had not been abused. This part of the brain contains a section responsible for auditory(听觉的)processing and is believed to help the brain understand the tone of speech.
    Teicher speculates that verbal abuse might inhibit development in the superior temporal gyrus, perhaps by triggering a pathway that stops growth hormones from reaching it.
    The new experiment does not necessarily establish a causal link: the abnormalities could be a genetically inherited trait. But Teicher suspects the relationship is causal. For example, previous research has shown that victims of sexual abuse by non-relatives have decreased development in the visual processing parts of the brain, compared with people who have not suffered such abuse.
    The brain abnormalities seen in the verbal abuse victims appear to be related to reduced language skills, Teicher adds. The subjects in the study who had experienced verbal abuse scored about 112 on a test of verbal IQ. on average, while their control counterparts had a score of about 124.
    "I think they didn’t reach their full potential, " he says of the students who suffered verbal abuse and scored lower on the test.
    The results are important because they contribute to a growing body of evidence that the stress caused by early abuse can disrupt the normal development of brain "circuits", says Barbara Rawn of Prevent Child Abuse America.
    Teicher believes that parents have begun to grasp the negative effects of physically criticising their children, but he fears that parents may feel that no harm is done by frequently criticising their children with insulting comments.
    "Verbal abuse really has a long-term effect on a child, " says Rawn. "There’s a lot of incredible anger that shows up in kids that have been told they are worth nothing. " She adds that some children who have been verbally abused sometimes develop behavioural traits such as extreme aggression, or instead become overly obedient.  
Why does Teicher think there may be a causal link between the abnormalities and verbal abuse?
选项 A、Similar relationships have been confirmed by previous research.
B、The abnormalities seem to be related to the reduced language skills.
C、The verbally-abused students scored lower in the verbal IQ test.
D、The abnormalities could be a genetically inherited trait.
答案B
解析 根据题干关键词Teicher，a casual link，abnormalities定位到原文第六段。第二、三句：But Teicher suspects the relationship is causal．For example，previous research has shown that victims of…可知，这项试验未必建立起一个因果关系。这种关系可能是一种基因上的特性。但Teicher认为这种关系是因果关系．因为有之前的例子证明。A)项“类似的关系已被之前的研究征实”为正确选项。
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