Friday, June 10, 2005

Oxytocin nasal spray for attachment disorder?

Hormone oxytocin makes you trust strangers more with your money

I'm not sure "attachment disorder" is a useful classification, but it's popular in the special needs and adoption worlds. Whatever the fundamental pathophysiology, I wonder how long it will be before we start seeing therapeutic trials using oxytocin nasal spray. It will be a long time, however, before such a treatment would get FDA approval...
The hormone, oxytocin, produced during childbirth and lactation - encourages us to trust strangers, it is also a hormone which gets mammals to mate. Swiss researchers have found that when people are given some of this hormone they trust people who are handling their money much more.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Another study on the superiority of phonics

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Primary reading lessons reviewed

A stuck clock tells time twice a day, and social conservatives are not always wrong:
In a project in Clackmannanshire, all children were exposed to synthetic phonics throughout primary school - almost to the exclusion of other methods.

When tested at age 11, they were found to be three years ahead of their contemporaries across Scotland in reading.