Teaching acceptance through Television

There’s a new kid on the block on Sesame Street and her name is Julia. Why did this make news? Because this would mark the first character with autism on the supremely successful TV show that has been running for over 35 years now. Jeanette Betancourt, Sesame Workshop’s Senior Vice President of U.S. social impact, told Aljazeera that it took three years of research and consultations with experts from institutions such as the Yale Child Study Center to bring Julia to life.  So why is this such a big deal? Well, a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that the TV show has had its fair share of positive impact on the youngest minds in the country. “It is the largest and least-costly early childhood intervention intervention that’s ever been implemented in the United States,” said Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College who co-authored the paper.

On your mark, Get set.. Wait another year?

The results of a study titled “The Gift of Time? School starting Age and Mental Health” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, states that delayed entry into Kindergarten by at least a year, would significantly help improve their academic and social skills! This paper which was co-authored by a professor from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, Thomas Dee and Hans Henrik Sieversten of the Danish National Center For Social Research, was quoted saying:  “We found that delaying kindergarten for one year reduced inattention and hyperactivity by 73 percent for an average child by the age 11 and it virtually eliminated the probability that an average child at that age would have an ‘abnormal,’ or higher-than-normal rating for the inattentive-hyperactive behavioral measure.”