


Archive for January 22nd, 2011
 
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Thursday, October 21, 2010
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The parents of an autistic 12-year-old student have filed a class action lawsuit against the Gateway School District in federal court, claiming that the district misled them about the student’s educational progress and left him nearly four years behind as he entered fifth grade.
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The plaintiffs, who are identified only by their initials, filed suit Monday on behalf of all of the district’s autistic children, claiming that several other parents have similar complaints.
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The suit accuses the district of violating several federal laws, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which mandates that schools provide disabled students with “appropriate [special] education services sufficient to address their educational needs,” the suit says.
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District spokeswoman Cara Zanella referred comment to the district’s attorneys, William Andrews and Bruce Dice, who could not be reached.
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The federal law requires, among other things, that districts provide students who have disabilities with an Individualized Education Program, a curriculum tailored specifically to their needs and abilities. It also requires that teachers set annual goals for students and advise parents as to how students are progressing toward those goals. Finally, it allows parents to participate in the process of formulating the IEP.
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According to the suit, the boy was a student at Ramsey Elementary School from kindergarten to fifth grade. During that time, his parents said, they received “reports detailing substantial educational gains in academic, functional and developmental skills.”
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Based on report cards and meetings with teachers, his parents believed he was nearly up to grade level, performing at a third- or fourth-grade level at the end of his fourth-grade year. They also participated in meetings addressing the child’s IEP.
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But as he prepared to enter Moss Side Middle School, new progress reports showed the boy was actually functioning at a first- or second-grade level. The parents confirmed this with outside professionals and concluded that “the District had misrepresented years of previous educational process.”
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They also said parents of other autistic children experienced similar problems and characterized it as “pervasive misrepresentation of students’ educational progress.”
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Read in Full:Â
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10294/1096751-298.stm?cmpid=news.xml
 
Royal College of Psychiatrists, London
Article Date: 21 Oct 2010 – 5:00 PDT
Responding to the Government’s Spending Review, Professor Dinesh Bhugra, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said:
“The ring-fencing of the NHS budget in the Spending Review is to be welcomed, as are the promises to expand psychological therapies for people with mental illness, provide treatment for mentally ill offenders in the criminal justice system, protect the medical research budget, and give an extra £2 billion for social care. However the NHS will still have to make £20 billion of savings, which will put huge pressures on services. Historically, mental health services have been an easy target for cuts because mental health has been poorly understood and stigmatised. It’s a challenge to us all to ensure this does not happen again.
“The RCPsych is most concerned that the mental health workforce should not become deskilled by a lack of training opportunities, or become demoralised by ill-thought out staffing cuts or service closures. These would have a disastrous knock-on effect on individuals, society and the wider economy.
“Efficiency savings do need to be found – but these must be informed by a robust evidence base of what really works. The RCPsych, together with other partners in mental health, will do all it can to safeguard the quality of care for those with mental illness. We will do this by seeking solutions to existing barriers to good care, and helping to identify ways of streamlining systems and reducing waste.”

Chancellor George Osborne
Disabled people among the hardest hit by spending review
Osborne limits employment support allowance to one year
guardian.co.uk Wednesday 20 October 2010 21.55 BST
Disabled people will be among the hardest hit by the comprehensive spending review. The chancellor announced savings of £2bn by limiting to one year the length of time people can claim the contributory element of employment support allowance (ESA).
ESA was brought in to replace incapacity benefit and supports people who are unable to work because of ill health or disability. These cuts mean that people who moved on to ESA and who previously worked will only be able to claim it for one year. At the moment, there is no time limit and people can claim ESA until they find another job.
After one year, people with assets, savings or partners who work will no longer receive benefits. Single people with no assets may be able to qualify for a means-tested safety net, but everyone else will have to manage on their husband or wife’s salary – no matter how low it may be – or dip into any private savings they may have.
The change will affect hundreds of thousands of people, as 1.7 million Britons have moved from incapacity benefit to ESA. Many of them are likely to have been put on the contributory version of the benefit.
Critics said the announcement penalised people who had paid national insurance contributions for years precisely to cover them in the eventuality that they are unable to work through sickness or incapacity. They also said that the decision would make it much harder for disabled people to find jobs.
Those entitled to ESA get access to specialist support to help them find employment, such as advice on CVs and interviews.
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, said: “The government has not delivered on its promise to support disabled people into work, penalising those on ESA and jobseekers’ allowance who have worked and paid national insurance in the past and who now cannot rely on getting the support they need when they need it, in an increasingly difficult employment market. Disabled people and their families do not have ‘broad shoulders’, so why are they bearing the brunt of these cuts?”
The spending review also hit benefits for the 380,000 disabled people living in care homes. The government intends to save £135m by cutting the mobility component in disability living allowance for people in residential care.
This is the money that helps disabled people get to the shops or visit their families. With no mobility funding, disabled people with no family or friends nearby will in effect become prisoners in their care homes, unable to get out at all.
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/20/spending-review-disabled-people
21 October 2010 Last updated at 09:54
Spending Review 2010: Key points at-a-glance
Here are the key points of Chancellor George Osborne’s Spending Review.
- *About 490,000 public sector jobs likely to be lost
- *Average 19% four-year cut in departmental budgets
- *Structural deficit to be eliminated by 2015
- *£7bn in additional welfare budget cuts
- *Police funding cut by 4% a year
- *Retirement age to rise from 65 to 66 by 2020
- *English schools budget protected; £2bn extra for social care
- *NHS budget in England to rise every year until 2015
- *Regulated rail fares to rise 3% above inflation
- *Bank levy to be made permanent
Listed below are details of what each department will spend between 2011 and 2015 based on government figures.
Current spending includes items such as salaries, hospital medicines, and school text books. Capital spending includes assets such as school buildings, roads and bridges.
Business, Innovation and Skills
Annual budget: £21.2bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 25%; capital spending down 52%
Administration costs to be cut by £400m with 24 quangos axed. Train to Gain programme to be axed. University teaching budget to be cut by 40% and further education budget to fall by 25%. The science budget to be frozen – in cash terms – rather than cut as had been feared. Funding for 75,000 adult apprenticeships a year.
Cabinet Office
Annual budget: £2.6bn
What’s being cut: Current spending up 28%; capital spending down 28%.
Support for citizenship and “big society” projects. Cabinet Office officials to move into Treasury. Civil List cash funding for Royal Household to be frozen next year. New system of funding for Royal Household from 2013.
Communities and Local Government
Annual budget: £33.6bn
What’s being cut: Local Government – current spending down 27%; capital spending down 100%: Communities – current spending down 51%; capital spending down 74%
Councils will see a 7.1% annual fall in their budgets. But ring-fencing of local authority revenue grants will end and councils will have freedom to borrow against their assets. Funding for social housing to be cut by more than 60%, with new tenants having to pay higher rents. But the government hopes these changes will free up funds to build 150,000 new affordable homes over the next four years.
Culture, Media and Sport
Annual budget: £2bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 24%; capital spending down 32%
Administration costs to be cut 41% while core arts programmes will see a 15% fall in funding. Free museum entry to remain in place. BBC licence fee to be frozen for next six years. Corporation will also fund World Service and BBC Monitoring. Adds up to equivalent of 16% savings over the period.
Watch: Osborne on museum funding
Defence
Annual budget: £46.1bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 7.5%; capital spending down 7.5%
The RAF and navy will lose 5,000 jobs each, the Army 7,000 and the Ministry of Defence 25,000 civilian staff. The Harrier jump jets and the Ark Royal aircraft carrier are being axed while the planned Nimrod spy planes will be cancelled. Key spending decision on Trident to be delayed until 2016.
Watch: The Chancellor on defence cuts
Education
Annual budget: £57.6bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 3.4%; capital spending down 60%
Five quangos to be abolished. But direct funding to schools in England is to be protected. Their budget will rise 0.1% in real terms each year, taking funding from £35bn to £39bn. But spending on school buildings to fall 60%. Confirmed £2.5bn “pupil premium” for teaching for disadvantaged pupils. Educational Maintenance Allowances to be replaced. Sure Start budget to be protected in cash terms.
Watch: Osborne on schools budget
Energy and Climate Change
Annual budget: £3.1bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 18%; capital spending up 41%
Plan for tidal barrage on the Severn estuary scrapped. But £200m funding for wind power development and £1bn for green investment bank.
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Annual budget: £2.9bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 29%; capital spending down 34%. Investment to continue in flood defences – £2bn over period to 2015.
Foreign Office
Annual budget: £2.2bn
What’s being cut: Current spending down 24%; Capital spending down 55%. Number of Whitehall-based diplomats reduced.
Health
Annual budget: £106.4bn
What’s being cut?: Current spending up 1.3%; capital spending down 17%
The NHS in England will see its budget rise by 0.4% over the next four years, fulfilling a Conservative election pledge to protect spending. New cancer drug fund to be provided. But £20bn in efficiency and productivity savings sought in NHS by the end of the parliament. An extra £2bn for social care by 2014-15.
Home Office
Annual budget: £10.2bn
What’s being cut?: Current spending down 23%; capital spending down 49%
Police budget cut by 4% a year, focused on bureaucracy rather than manpower. Aim to maintain “visibility and availability” of officers on beat. But some experts believe 18,000 police jobs could be lost. UK Border Agency budget to fall 20%. Counter-intelligence budget to fall 10%.
International development
Annual budget: £7.7bn
What’s being cut?: Current spending up 36%; capital spending up 20%
The overseas aid budget is to be protected from cuts but not the department’s other costs. Budget to rise to £11.6bn over four years to meet UN aid commitment. But aid to China and Russia is to stop and there will be a reduction in administration costs.
Justice
Annual budget: £9.7bn
What’s being cut?: Current spending down 23%; capital spending down 50%
Plan for new 1,500-place prison to be dropped. 3,000 fewer prison places expected by 2015. £1.3bn capital investment in prison estate.
Northern Ireland/Scotland/Wales
Annual budget: £55.5bn
What’s being cut?: Scotland’s block grant to fall by 6.8% by 2014-5. SNP ministers have said that cuts to the Scottish budget will threaten 12,000 jobs. Central funding for Wales is to be cut by 7.5% – the Welsh Assembly Government says its budget will be cut by £1.8bn in real terms over four years. Northern Ireland funding to be reduced by 6.9% over four years, First Minister Peter Robinson has said cuts to be implemented in Northern Ireland are worse than he had anticipated.
Transport
Annual budget: £13.6bn
What’s being cut?: Current spending down 21%; capital spending down 11%
£30bn set aside for capital spending, including £500m for Tyne and Wear Metro and Tees Valley bus network. Crossrail project to go ahead in London. Rise in regulated cap on rail fares to 3% above inflation for three years from 2012.
Treasury
Annual budget: £4.4bn
What’s being cut?: Treasury spending hard to quantify as current year’s spending is expected to be negative as a result of repaid loans to the banks. Current spending to be cut by 33%, capital spending to be cut by 30%.
Bank levy to be made permanent. £900m to target tax evasion. £1.5bn in compensation to Equitable Life policyholders hit by its near collapse. 15% cut in funding for Revenue and Customs.
Watch: The Chancellor on the bank levy
Work and Pensions
Annual budget: £9bn in departmental spending
Separate welfare and pensions budget: £192bn
Outcome: State pension age for men to start rising from 65 in 2018 – six years earlier than planned – and reaching 66 by 2020. Rise in retirement age for women to accelerate, also reaching 66 by 2020. The measures combined will save £5bn a year. Reform of public sector pensions to save £1.8bn by 2015, with employees likely to contribute more. Winter fuel allowance, free bus passes and TV licences for 75-year-olds protected. Cuts to child benefit for higher rate taxpayers to generate £2.5bn. £2bn investment in new universal credit. Weekly child element on child tax credit to rise by £30 in 2012 and £50 by 2012.
What’s being cut?: A further £7bn in welfare savings planned on top of £11bn already announced. A new 12-month time limit on the employment and support allowance could see an estimated 200,000 claimants moved onto jobseekers allowace and see their support reduced. Proposed 10% cut in council tax benefit budget. Under-35s only able to claim housing benefit for a room rather than a whole property. Maximum savings award in pension credit to be frozen for four years. Increased working hours threshold for working tax credits for couples with children. New total benefits cap per family.
Watch: Osborne on welfare changes
Source:Â http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11569160

IFS graph of the distributional impact of the Comprehensive Spending Review. From:
www.ifs.org.uk/projects/346
Jan
22
 
Dear Readers,
Taking a little time out for some R & R. Will return to regular postings from the 16th November. Apologies for any inconvenience.
Till Then,
Julie
xx

Warning: Facebook May Be Hazardous to Your Relationship
There are more than 400 million active users on Facebook. It has grown into a huge social networking site. While it is useful in that it gives you access to all your networks of friends and family and helps you stay in touch, there are some dangers to be aware of. In my practice, I have had a steadily increasing number of couples with complaints that Facebook has become an issue in their relationship. It doesn’t have to be, but if you are not careful, it can certainly wreak havoc.
Infidelity happens at the place where vulnerability meets opportunity and a choice is made. Anyone can be vulnerable to an affair. It is a dangerous thing to think your relationship is affair-proof. Vulnerability can result from issues in the relationship: poor communication, disconnection, or lack of intimacy. Vulnerability can result from external circumstances such as grieving the death of a loved one, loss of a job, birth of a child, anything that causes undue stress. Vulnerability can result from personal issues such as lack of self-worth, fear of intimacy, or substance abuse.
Opportunity for an affair can come in different forms. It can come in the form of a friend, a co-worker, or friendly neighbor. In recent times, the Internet has broadened the depth of opportunity that is out there for an affair to occur.
Here is where Facebook becomes a threat. This is where people connect with ex-lovers, ex-flames, an ex-crush, or even with an old friend, and it might feel nostalgic to reminisce. This nostalgia can be mistaken for love interest. This may be innocent on the surface, but to the couple who is struggling, it becomes a great threat.
Here are some boundaries that may reduce the threat of Facebook on your relationship:
- *Be each other’s “Friend†so that nothing is hidden.
- *Do not connect with an old flame on Facebook unless you talk about it openly with your spouse and your spouse is comfortable with you doing so. But if you are having any difficulties in your relationship, avoid this at all costs.
- *Do not discuss any marital problems with people on Facebook. This is where the potential to share and relate opens the door to a deeper connection that threatens your relationship.
- *Make clear on your profile page that you are married or in a relationship.
- *If members of the opposite sex begin inappropriate sexual or flirtatious banter, put an end to it immediately and share it with your spouse.
Read in Full: http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=40915&cn=289

An Education for Marriage: Pew Report Confirms a College Degree Helps Relationships Succeed
For years, newspapers and magazines have run stories about the so-called plight of the educated woman. The conventional wisdom was that women with a college or graduate degree were overqualified for love and unattractive to men. Social critics worried about this “success penalty” and predicted a crisis of smart but unhappy spinsters.
Fast forward to 2010 and think again: College-educated women under the age of 40 are just as likely to marry as their less educated sisters, according to a Pew Research Center’s Social and Demographic Trends project analysis of sixty years of Census data released this week, and researchers are waiting for the “crossover” in the next few years where the marriage rates of these female college grads will surpass those of women with less education.
I predicted this demographic change in 2006 in Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, arguing that the success penalty was a thing of the past for young women. More than 90% of men 25-40 say they are seeking — or already married to — a woman as or more intelligent, according to a nationally representative survey commissioned for my research. Forget what your grandmother told you: Smart is sexy.
Indeed, good news for educated Americans abounds in this week’s Pew report. Men and women of all educational backgrounds are delaying marriage, but college-educated young adults are slightly more likely to marry by age 30 and significantly more likely to marry by age 40. Among 35-to-39 year-olds, four-fifths of college-educated adults have married but only three-quarters of less educated adults have married. Perhaps most importantly, college graduates are more likely to be financially stable within those unions and less likely to divorce.
A college degree is a desirable trait in a mate, both as an investment in future earnings and in interesting dinner conversation. In mate-preference rankings, education/intelligence is in the top five most essential qualities in a mate — ranked with love, maturity and dependability — for both men and women, while in the 1930s it ranked 11th for men and 9th for women, according to research I’m conducting with Christie Boxer at the University of Iowa.
Read in Full:Â http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-101/201010/education-marriage-pew-report-confirms-college-degree-helps-relationships-succe

 
by David DiSalvoÂ
Jan
22
 
Last year, a study reported that despite the improvement in women’s lives, their happiness relative to men has declined since the ’70s, when the reverse was true. This held true across racial and socio-economic lines in several industrialized countries. Women’s happiness also declines with age. In contrast, men’ happiness has increased and increases with age.
Some attribute this change to the demands of work and motherhood, but as discussed in my last post, working women and working mothers are happier. Research shows that work outside the home provides stimulation and another identity that protects against depression.
Another theory suggests that the women’s movement raised women’s expectations, and reality has failed to deliver. Today, many more women are college-educated and seek professions previously reserved for men, but then hit the glass ceiling. Moreover, old cultural beliefs that undermine women’s self-esteem haven’t changed very much. Women are more highly educated now and jobs may have opened up, but most women lack the instrumental qualities of self-efficacy, assertiveness, and autonomy that lead to self-esteem and professional success. It’s not surprising that independent and assertive women are less depressed. Some women incorrectly believe that being assertive and autonomous will jeopardize their relationships, a priority for women. Yet, women who suppress their anger are more subject to depression.
I believe that current culture contributes to our unhappiness. A recent University of Michigan study found that college students are about 40 percent less empathic than were coeds 20-30 years ago. Social networking, new technologies and speed, though affording many benefits, have also decreased the amount of time people spend with each other-dancing, socializing, and even watching television together. More time online means less time with others, in nature, or pursuing crafts and hobbies. Innovations and gadgets that feed men starve the feminine. Picture Aphrodite online!
Not surprisingly, women are twice as likely as men to experience depression. After heart disease, depression is the most debilitating illness for women, while it’s tenth for men. The signs of depression are feelings of sadness, worthlessness, and/or guilt, crying, loss of interest in usual activities, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, social withdrawal, and changes in sleep, weight, or appetite. Ten to 25% of women will experience major depression in their lifetime. Each depressive episode makes another more likely. Rather than building resilience, we become more vulnerable and sensitive. Depression may be acute, lasting several weeks, or it may be less severe but chronic, lasting years, called dysthymia. Risks for depression among women include the following:
1. Passive, dependent, and pessimistic personality traits.
2. Sexual or physical abuse.
3. Having several, young children.
4. Poverty.
5. Inability to have children that they want.
6. Homosexuality.
This gender difference with males first appears at puberty, arguably due to hormonal changes. But Harvard professor Ronald Kessler attributes the shift to girls’ lower self-esteem, described in my earlier blog on “Self-Criticism-Self-Esteem’s Saboteur.”
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=40698&cn=5
 
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 21, 2010Â
A provocative new theory from researchers at Tel Aviv University suggests untreated strep throat can affect the brain compromising motor and mental functioning.
According to the researchers, this can lead to syndromes such as attention deficit disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Scientists have known that strep throat can lead to problems with a child’s heart, joints or brain if left untreated.
However, scientists have speculated on a link between OCD and childhood infections like strep.
Prof. Daphna Joel and her team of researchers at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Psychology believe they have now scientifically demonstrated that strep can lead to brain dysfunction and OCD.
Dr. Joel says their breakthrough could lead to new drugs for treating OCD, and may in the future prevent the psychiatric disorder altogether.
“It’s almost impossible to show how strep can lead to OCD in humans ― almost all of us, even very young children, have been exposed to the bacterium at one time or another,†says Prof. Joel.
“But childhood seems to provide a distinct window of opportunity for the disorder to take root through strep infection,†she warns.
Working with the world’s leading specialist in strep-related heart disease, Prof. Cunningham, the researchers developed a new animal model to show how exposure to strep affects the brain and leads to a number of physical and mental ailments.
In her Tel Aviv University laboratory, Prof. Joel and Brimberg created an animal model using rats exposed to the strep bacteria. Comparing them to a strep-free control group, Prof. Joel measured a distinct difference in behavior in the strep-exposed animals.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/21/can-strep-throat-lead-to-ocd/19918.html
 
Article Date: 22 Oct 2010 – 1:00 PDT
After the campus shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008, hundreds of affected students turned to social media websites to share their grief and search for solace. A new study of these students found that their online activities neither helped nor harmed their long-term psychological health.
The study, which appears in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, gives a first-of-its-kind portrait of student reactions to shootings on their campuses. It also documents the (online and off-line) activities they engaged in to memorialize and recover from these events.
“After the shooting at Virginia Teach I noticed immediately on my Facebook account that my friends were changing their pictures to memorial ribbons or they were joining groups to support the students at Virginia Tech,” said Amanda Vicary, a doctoral student who conducted the study with University of Illinois psychology professor R. Chris Fraley. “I started looking (for studies on this topic) and realized that no research had been done looking at how people use the Internet specifically to grieve or investigating how students responded psychologically to these shootings.”
Two weeks after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Vicary sent an e-mail to 900 Virginia Tech students with Facebook accounts inviting them to participate in an online survey.
One hundred twenty-four of those students chose to do so. The survey assessed the students for symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and asked them about their participation in online and off-line activities related to the shootings.
Vicary conducted a second survey of many of the same students six weeks later (two months after the shootings).
After a gunman killed five and injured 18 people at Northern Illinois (10 months after the shootings at Virginia Tech), Vicary conducted a similar survey there, with 160 NIU students responding.
The combined results from both campuses revealed that 71 percent of the respondents suffered from significant symptoms of depression and 64 percent had significant symptoms of PTSD two weeks after the shootings on their campuses.
Many respondents reported that they had participated in online memorials, texted, sent e-mails or instant messages or posted comments about the tragedies on social networking sites such as Facebook. Nearly 90 percent had joined at least one Facebook group concerning the shooting. More than 70 percent had replaced their profile pictures with a Virginia Tech or NIU memorial ribbon, and 28 percent had posted a message on a memorial website.
“It was fascinating from my point of view to see how grief and mourning plays out on the Internet and to learn that it works in a way that’s very similar to the way it would if we were doing this outside of a digital framework,” Fraley said. “People were sharing their thoughts and feelings with their friends on Facebook. They were attending virtual vigils, joining groups, doing many of the same kinds of things they would do in the non-digital world.”
“Two months later, a fair amount of students were still suffering from significant symptoms, but many had recovered pretty considerably,” Vicary said. Depressive symptoms still affected 30 percent of respondents (down from 71 percent), and PTSD was still an issue for 22 percent of them (down from 64 percent).
Most of the students reported that their online activities related to the shootings made them feel better, Vicary said. But the analysis revealed that the degree to which students engaged in online activities or communications about these tragedies had no discernable effect on their ultimate recovery from depressive or PTSD symptoms.
Read in Full:Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/205389.php
 
Article Date: 22 Oct 2010 – 0:00 PDT
Long derided as mere entertainment, new research now shows that organizations using video games to train employees end up with smarter, more motivated workers who learn more and forget less.
A University of Colorado Denver Business School study found those trained on video games do their jobs better, have higher skills and retain information longer than workers learning in less interactive, more passive environments.
“Companies have been designing video games for employees for years but so far it has all been done on a hunch. They suspected the games helped but they could never actually prove it,” said Traci Sitzmann, PhD, assistant professor of management at the Business School whose study will be published in the winter edition of Personnel Psychology. “We now know video games work, and we know why they work.”
Sitzmann spent over a year examining 65 studies and data from 6,476 trainees and discovered those using video games had an 11 percent higher factual knowledge level, a 14 percent higher skill-based knowledge level and a 9 percent higher retention rate than trainees in comparison groups.
The research validates the time and the millions invested by businesses to develop video games for trainees.
Organizations have tried for years to devise entertaining, interactive and engaging ways to provide employees with a solid grasp of how to do their jobs.
Cold Stone Creamery, after losing money on workers serving up too much ice cream, created an interactive video game that taught them how much should go into each scoop. Miller Brewing Company is developing a game called Tips on Tap that shows bartenders how to pour the perfect glass of beer. They lose points if the mug hits the tap where it could become contaminated.
The U.S. Department of Defense uses a wide variety of video games for soldiers, sailors and Marines and local emergency departments use them to simulate disaster scenarios.
But until now, no one really knew how well any of these games actually worked.
“This is the first time anyone has looked across all of the trends and crunched the numbers,” Sitzmann said. “The study gives us an overall, comprehensive look at the effectiveness of video game training.”
She said games work best when they engage the user, rather than instruct them passively. She found 16 percent of the games she studied were too passive and no more effective than other teaching methods.
Second, employees should have access to the games whenever they like.Â
Read in Full:Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/205255.php


