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ByLindseyTanner TheAssociatedPress CHICAGO Disabilities among U.S. children have increased slightly, with a bigger rise in mental and developmental problems in those from wealthier fam- ilies, a 10-year analysis found. Disadvantaged kids still bear a disproportionate burden. The increases may partly reflect more awareness and recognition that conditions, including autism, require a specific diagnosis to re- ceive special services, the researchers said. Meantime, physical dis- abilities declined, as other studies have suggested. The study is the first to look broadly at the 10-year trend but the results echo previous studies showing increases in autism, atten- tion problems and other de- velopmental or mental dis- abilities. It also has long been known that the dis- advantaged are more likely to have chronic health prob- lems and lack of access to good health care, which both can contribute to dis- abilities. The researchers stud- ied parents' responses about children from birth through age 17 gathered in 2000-2011 government-con- ducted health surveys. Par- ents were asked about dis- abilities from chronic con- ditions including hearing or vision problems; bone or muscle ailments; and men- tal, behavioral or develop- mental problems that lim- ited kids' physical abilities or required them to receive early behavioral interven- tion or special educational services. Nearly 200,000 children were involved. Results were published online Monday in Pediat- rics. Overall, disabilities of any kind affected 8 per- cent children by 2010-2011, compared to close to 7 per- cent a decade earlier. For children living in poverty, the rate was 10 percent at the end of the period, ver- sus about 6 percent of kids from wealthy families. The overall trend re- flects a 16 percent in- crease, while disabilities in kids from wealthy fam- ilies climbed more than 28 percent, the research- ers found. The trend was fueled by increases in at- tention problems, speech problems and other men- tal or developmental dis- orders that likely include autism although that con- dition isn't identified in the analyzed data. Declines in asthma-re- lated problems and kids' injuries accounted for much of the overall 12 per- cent drop in physical dis- abilities. Better asthma control and treatment and more use of bike helmets, car seats and seat-belts may have contributed to that trend, said lead author Dr. Amy Houtrow, a pediat- ric rehabilitation specialist at the University of Pitts- burgh. Norwood thinks there is more awareness of these conditions and that some, including autism, are truly rising in prevalence. Au- tism is thought to result from genetic flaws inter- acting with many other factors. Some studies have suggested these may in- clude parents' age and pre- natal infections. PEDIATRICS Disabilities in kids rise; not physical problems By Candice Choi The Associated Press NEW YORK At a dinner McDonald's hosted for re- porters and bloggers, wait- ers served cuisine pre- pared by celebrity chefs using ingredients from the chain's menu. A Kung Pao chicken appetizer was made with Chicken McNug- gets doused in sweet and sour sauce and garnished with parsley. Slow-cooked beef was served with gn- occhi fashioned out of McDonald's french fries and a fruit sauce from its smoothie mix. For dessert, its biscuit mix was used to make a pumpkin spice "bi- znut," a biscuit-doughnut hybrid. The event, held in New York City's Tribeca neigh- borhood, was billed "A transforming dining ex- perience of 'fast food' to 'good food served fast.'" At- tendees tweeted out pho- tos and the night was writ- ten up on various websites. The evening is part of a campaign by McDonald's to shake its reputation for serving cheap, unhealthy food. At a time when Americans are playing closer attention to what they eat, the company is trying to sway public opin- ion by first reaching out to the reporters, bloggers and other so-called "influenc- ers" who write and speak about McDonald's. It's just one way McDon- ald's is trying to change its image. In the past 18 months, the chain has in- troduced the option to sub- stitute egg whites in break- fast sandwiches and rolled out chicken wraps as its first menu item with cu- cumbers. Last fall, it an- nounced plans to give peo- ple the choice of a salad instead of fries in combo meals. And in coming months, mandarins will be offered in Happy Meals, with other fruits being ex- plored as well. McDonald's declined to make an executive avail- able for this story, but CEO Don Thompson said early this year: "We've got to make sure that the food is relevant and that the awareness around Mc- Donald's as a kitchen and a restaurant that cooks and prepares fresh, high qual- ity food is strong and pro- nounced." The company faces an uphill battle, especially if the past is any indication. The salads it introduced more than a decade ago account for just 2 to 3 per- cent of sales. And the chain last year discontinued its Fruit & Walnut salad and premium Angus burgers, which analysts said were priced too high for McDon- ald's customers at around $5. In some ways, the im- age McDonald's is battling is ironic, given its reputa- tion for exacting standards with suppliers. Thompson has also noted the ingre- dients tend to be fresh because restaurants go through them so quickly. "The produce and the products that we have at breakfast and across the menu are fresher than — no disrespect intended — what most of you have in your refrigerators," he said at an analyst conference in May. But even that reputation for supply chain rigor was recently tarnished when the chain's longtime sup- plier was reported to have sold expired meat to its restaurants in China. Thepriceconundrum The low-cost burgers, ice cream cones and other food that made McDon- ald's so popular since it was founded in 1955 have come to define it. And some people can't get over the idea that low prices equal low quality. "It's the whole percep- tion people get when you sell something cheaply," said Richard Adams, who used to own McDonald's restaurants in San Diego and now runs a consulting firm for franchisees. Anne Johnson, for in- stance, said she eats at Mc- Donald's because she can get a burger, fries and drink for about $5. But Johnson, a New York resident, doesn't think there are any healthy options there. "Basically, it's junk food," she said. Adding to its challenge, McDonald's can't seem to raise prices without driv- ing people away. Pressured by rising costs for beef and other ingredients, the chain tried to move away from the Dollar Menu in 2012 with an "Extra Value Menu" where items were priced at around $2. But customers are ap- parently righteous about the $1 price point, and the strategy was scrapped. Last year, McDonald's changed its tactic a bit, hoping not to turn off cus- tomers. It tweaked the name of the "Dollar Menu" to the "Dollar Menu & More." McDonald's low prices also are part of what keeps it from competing with places such as Chipotle, which is touting the re- moval of genetically mod- ified ingredients from its menu, and Panera, which recently said it will elim- inated all artificial ingre- dients by 2016. Such moves would be Herculean feats for McDonald's, given its pricing model and the complexity of its menu. Meanwhile, the com- pany acknowledges there are problems with how people perceive its food. "A lot of our guests don't be- lieve our food is real," said Dan Coudreaut, director of culinary innovation at Mc- Donald's, in an interview last year. Control of narrative The image of McDon- ald's food is a growing con- cern for the company at a time when U.S. sales have been weak for two years. The last time McDon- ald's managed to boost a monthly sales figure at home was in October, and the company warns its per- formance isn't expected to improve anytime soon. McDonald's has said it has other problems, in- cluding slow and inaccu- rate service at its restau- rants. But improving per- ceptions about its food is also a priority. Following the dinner in New York last fall, the company hosted a similar event last month for re- porters covering the Es- sence Festival in New Or- leans. Beignets filled with grilled chicken and dusted with sugar were served alongside a packet of Mc- Donald's honey mustard sauce. Other "chef events" in local markets are planned for coming months, ac- cording to Lisa McComb, a McDonald's spokeswoman. She declined to provide de- tails but said the events will be a spin on a re- cent contest between two friends to make a gourmet dish out of a Big Mac meal. McComb said McDon- ald's wasn't associated with that particular con- test, which was posted on- line. The company continues to tweak the menu, too. The new Bacon Club burger McDonald's is promoting comes on a brioche bun and looks more like some- thing that might be found at a trendy burger joint. It costs $5 or $6, depending on where you live, making it the most expensive sand- wich on the menu. In Southern California, McDonald's also is test- ing a "Build Your Own Burger" concept, with the patties being cooked to or- der more slowly on a sepa- rate grill. Beyond the menu, the company is determined to take control of its nar- rative. "We're going to start re- ally, really telling our story in a much more proactive manner," said Kevin New- ell, U.S. brand and strategy officer for McDonald's said late last year. FAST FOOD Mc Do na ld 's c on fr on ts i ts j un k fo od i ma ge Inanefforttochangeitsreputationthefastfoodchaintransformsitsmenuforgourmetevent By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press WASHINGTON Sometime in elementary school, you quit counting your fin- gers and just know the an- swer. Now scientists have put youngsters into brain scanners to find out why, and watched how the brain reorganizes itself as kids learn math. The take-home advice: Drilling your kids on sim- ple addition and multipli- cation may pay off. "Experience really does matter," said Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the Na- tional Institutes of Health, which funded the research. Healthy children start making that switch between counting to what's called fact retrieval when they're 8 years old to 9 years old, when they're still working on fundamental addition and subtraction. How well kidsmakethatshifttomem- ory-basedproblem-solvingis known to predict their ulti- mate math achievement. Those who fall behind "are impairing or slowing down their math learn- ing later on," Mann Ko- epke said. But why do some kids make the transition easier than others? To start finding out, Stanford University re- searchers first peeked into the brains of 28 children as they solved a series of sim- ple addition problems in- side a brain-scanning MRI machine. No scribbling out the an- swer: The 7- to 9-year-olds saw a calculation — three plus four equals seven, for example — flash on a screen and pushed a but- ton to say if the answer was right or wrong. Scien- tists recorded how quickly they responded and what regions of their brain be- came active as they did. In a separate session, they also tested the kids face to face, watching if they moved their lips or counted on their fingers, for comparison with the brain data. The children were tested twice, roughly a year apart. As the kids got older, their answers relied more on memory and became faster and more accurate, and it showed in the brain. There was less activity in the pre- frontal and parietal regions associated with counting and more in the brain's memory center, the hip- pocampus, the researchers reported Sunday in Nature Neuroscience. The hippocampus is sort of like a relay station where new memories come in — short-term working mem- ory — and then can be sent elsewhere for longer- term storage and retrieval. Those hippocampal con- nections increased with the kids' math performance. "The stronger the con- nections, the greater each individual's ability to re- trieve facts from mem- ory," said Dr. Vinod Me- non, a psychiatry professor at Stanford and the study's senior author. But that's not the whole story. Next, Menon's team put 20 adolescents and 20 adults into the MRI machines and gave them the same simple addition problems. It turns out that adults don't use their mem- ory-crunching hippocam- pus in the same way. In- stead of using a lot of ef- fort, retrieving six plus four equals 10 from long-term storage was almost auto- matic, Menon said. In other words, over time the brain became increas- ingly efficient at retriev- ing facts. Think of it like a bumpy, grassy field, NIH's Mann Koepke explained. Walk over the same spot enough and a smooth, grass-free path forms, mak- ing it easier to get from start to end. If your brain doesn't have to work as hard on simple math, it has more working memory free to process the teacher's brand-new lesson on more complex math. "The study provides new evidence that this experi- ence with math actually changes the hippocampal patterns, or the connec- tions. They become more stable with skill develop- ment," she said. "So learn- ing your addition and multi- plication tables and having them in rote memory helps." Stanford's Menon said the next step is to study what goes wrong with this system in children with math learn- ing disabilities, so that sci- entists might try new strate- gies to help them learn. EDUCATION Childrens' brains reorganize when learning math "We've got to make sure that the food is relevant and that the awareness around McDonald's as a kitchen and a restaurant that cooks and prepares fresh, high quality food is strong and pronounced." — Don Thompson, McDonald's CEO "It's the whole perception people get when you sell something cheaply." — Richard Adams STEVERUARK—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Third grade teacher Melissa Grieshober teaches a math lesson at Silver Lake Elementary School in Middletown, Del. Sometime in elementary school, you quit counting your fingers and just know the answer. Now scientists have put youngsters into brain scanners to find out why, and watched how the brain reorganizes itself as kids learn math. www.redbluff.mercy.org redbluff.mercy.org Childbirth Class (8/7-9/11) 6:30pm-8:30pm Thursdays Columba 888-628-1948 redbluff.mercy.org/classes_and_events Grief Support Group 3pm-5pm 8/28 Thursdays Coyne Center 528-4207 Healthy Living Chronic Disease Management Class begins September 16. Call 888.628.1948 to register or for class information. PHYSICIAN REFERRAL AFREESERVICE PROVIDED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE 888-628-1948 New physicians arriving every month 365S.MainSt. Red Bluff www.lariatbowl.com 527-2720 FALL LEAGUES NOW FORMING HEALTH » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, August 19, 2014 MORE ATFACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4