Young Children Exposed To Drugs

Outline of the Paper

Introduction and Background: The abuse of drugs and alcohol to children causes much alarm to society. A lot of crimes, violence, and mental retardation and physical defects result from the abuse.

Literature: Pro-life organizations and advocates, doctors and medical researchers have tried to work hand in hand to study and expose the ill effects of pre-natal exposure to drugs. More are concerned with the physical and psychological effects of drugs and alcohol on children.

Findings: In the past it had been thought that young children cocaine exposure has severely harmful effects on all aspects of mental functioning, however, recent studies have shown that this exposure does not have as bleak and far reaching negative effects as was previously thought.

Introduction and Background

Recently researchers have pinpointed certain aspects of mental functioning which seem to be altered by this young children exposure. One of these mental areas is that of selective attention, and this paper will summarize and review two empirical studies which examine the relationship of young children cocaine exposure to selective attention early in life.

Literature

Children entering preschool and elementary classrooms bring with them a wide range of behaviors, dispositions, and learning styles. Some of these pose problems, both for the children's healthy development and educational outcomes, and for classroom management (Griffith 93-144). Many strategies for managing classrooms with children with cognitive and developmental challenges have been developed and used successfully throughout the country. In addition, a number of specialized programs are developing and refining approaches dealing with children whose development and educational success are threatened by prenatal drug and alcohol exposure, as well as the other risk factors outlined in this monograph. Careful assessment techniques, tailored educational interventions, opportunities for individual attention, and small class size can contribute to the healthy development of children and mediate the effects of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems, whatever their etiology.

Young children Cocaine exposure impairs Selective Attention: Evidence from serial reversal and extra dimensional shift tasks (Barr et al 56-97) was an animal study (conducted with rats) which examined the effects of young children cocaine exposure on the learning and attention of young rats. This study built upon recent research and asked the question; “Which cerebral tasks does young children cocaine exposure disrupt?” The major goal of this study was to clarify the ways in which the thinking of young rats exposed to cocaine young childrenly, differed from unexposed rats.

The researchers expected that both learning and attention would be affected by the young children exposure, and anticipated using in depth analysis to determine the precise cognitive processes which were interfered with.

To accomplish this two groups of rats were created; half were surrogates (rats who were not operated upon) and half were catheterized (surgically altered to allow regular, intravenous injection). All rats were impregnated by a male. Of the catheterized group half were administered cocaine (at a dose equal to a low, human recreational dose) daily, whilst the other half were injected with saline. After the babies were all born the ...