Children’s vocabulary shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, says Susie Dent

Children’s vocabulary is shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, according to the lexicographer Susie Dent, who is urging families to read, talk and play word games to boost language development.The Countdown star’s warning comes as the government prepares to issue its first advice to parents on how to manage screen use in under-fives, amid concerns that excessive screen time is damaging children’s language development.“So many children are now falling behind,” Dent said. “The vocabulary gap is getting bigger and there is a real perception that vocabulary development is suffering and that impacts on learning.”Citing a 2023 Oxford University Press report that found that two in five pupils had fallen behind in vocabulary development, she said: “There is a huge perception that screen time is having a negative impact on vocabulary, and I think that’s because it is taking away from reading time

‘We’re on a cliff edge’: the struggle to keep youth services alive in Knowsley

“I feel like I’m failing because I can’t reach everyone,” said Toni Dodd, the centre manager at Karma in the Community, a youth service in Knowsley on the outskirts of Liverpool.“I’ll go over and get kids hanging outside the shops, bring them in, but it’s who am I not reaching? It just takes one thing and they’re on that track into crime, into drugs. There are kids going into school on ketamine. I do all I can but it’s so hard to keep it open and running, and you can’t meet the demand there is.”Young people in Knowsley don’t have it easy

One in 14 children who die in England have closely related parents, study finds

One in 14 children who died in England in a four-year period had parents who were close relatives, according to “stark” figures revealed by the first study of its kind.The figures, published by the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD), based at the University of Bristol, analysed all 13,045 child deaths in England between 2019 and 2023. Of these, 926 (7%) were found to be of children born to consanguineous parents, meaning the mother and father are close blood relatives, such as first cousins.Although the exact number of children with consanguineous parents across England is unclear, the data clearly shows their overrepresentation within mortality statistics and requires “urgent action”, according to researchers.The largest geographical estimate of consanguinity currently available is from a large study following the lives of 13,000 babies born in Bradford

Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%, study finds

Reading, writing and learning a language or two can lower your risk of dementia by almost 40%, according to a study that suggests millions of people could prevent or delay the condition.Dementia is one of the world’s biggest health threats. The number of people living with the condition is forecast to triple to more than 150 million globally by 2050, and experts say it presents a big and rapidly growing threat to future health and social care systems in every community, country and continent.US researchers found that engaging in intellectually stimulating activities throughout life, such as reading, writing or learning a new language, was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, and slower cognitive decline.The study author Andrea Zammit, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said the discovery suggested cognitive health in later life was “strongly influenced” by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments

Psychiatric drugs aren’t always the answer | Letter

Yes, there has been a shocking lack of progress in developing transformative psychiatric medicine (We need new drugs for mental ill-health, 5 February), but this may be because in mental health, drugs are not always the answer (see, for example, Richard P Bentall’s Doctoring the Mind).Huge progress has been made in the effectiveness of talking therapies – for example, free effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is available to all UK army veterans through the charity PTSD Resolution.What is lacking is rollout of the effective methods that now exist. This is an area where the UK is genuinely world leading. The Human Givens Institute is at the forefront of the development of effective, solution-focused, science-based therapies

MPs call on welfare bosses to speed up redress over carer’s allowance scandal

An influential MPs’ committee has urged welfare bosses to speed up redress for tens of thousands of unpaid carers who stand to have huge benefit debts written off after they were wrongly hit with carer’s allowance penalties.The public accounts committee (PAC) said management failures and “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had led to carers being incorrectly forced to repay overpayments running into thousands of pounds.The committee said a “lack of integrated, concerted leadership” allowed carer’s allowance problems to proliferate for years and the DWP must now rebuild trust with carers by giving the issue “the leadership and attention it has long deserved”.Its comments are the latest in a series of damaging official criticisms of the DWP hierarchy’s role in longstanding carer’s allowance injustices. Last week, the work and pensions committee chair, Debbie Abrahams, accused it of a “culture of complacency”