Education

Most studies of behavioral/developmental effects of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) or iron supplementation in infancy have found social-emotional differences. Differences could relate to behavioral inhibition or lack of positive affect and altered response to reward. To determine long-term behavioral effects, the study was a follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of behavioral/developmental effects of preventing IDA in infancy. Healthy Chilean infants free of IDA at age 6 mo were randomly assigned to iron supplementation or no added iron (formula with iron/powdered cow milk, vitamins with/without iron) from ages 6 to 12 mo. At age 10 y, 59% (666 of 1123) and 68% (366 of 534) of iron-supplemented and no-added-iron groups were assessed. Social-emotional outcomes included maternal-reported behavior problems, self-reported behavior, examiner ratings, and video coding of a social stress task and gamelike paradigms. Examiners rated the iron-supplemented group as more cooperative, confident, persistent after failure, coordinated, and direct and reality-oriented in speech and working harder after praise compared with the no-added-iron group. In a task designed to elicit positive affect, supplemented children spent more time laughing and smiling together with their mothers and started smiling more quickly. In the social stress task they smiled and laughed more and needed less prompting to complete the task. All P values were <0.05; effect sizes were 0.14-0.36. There were no differences in behaviors related to behavioral inhibition, such as anxiety/depression or social problems. In sum, iron supplementation in infancy was associated with more adaptive behavior at age 10 y, especially in affect and response to reward, which may improve performance at school and work, mental health, and personal relationships. J. Nutr. 144: 838-845, 2014.

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Medical students (N = 117) were surveyed and compared regarding their attitudes toward the elderly on four separate occasions in their medical school careers: (a) a baseline measure before an educational intervention interviewing the elderly in their 1st year, (b) after the intervention, (c) at the end of their 2nd year, and (d) at the end of their 4th year. Results indicated that (a) students whose educational intervention occurred in nursing homes (low independent-living facilities) showed no significant attitude changes after the intervention, (b) students whose experiences occurred in residential facilities (high independent-living facilities) did show significantly more positive increases in attitudes immediately after the course, (c) however, by the end of their fourth year, students' attitudes dropped back to the baseline level. Implications for programs attempting to enhance long-term attitudinal change in the medical school curriculum are addressed.