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(Ivanhoe Newswire) Could pathological gambling have its roots in kindergarten?
Canadian researchers offer compelling evidence that might be the case. In 1999 they interviewed teachers about the behaviors of 163 children just beginning school. Six years later they conducted phone interviews with the same kids, asking how often they played cards or bingo, bought lottery tickets, played video lottery or other video games for money, or made sports bets.
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For every one unit increase on a scale to measure impulsivity in kindergarten, the investigators found a 25 percent increase in these gambling behaviors in the sixth grade.
The finding held true even after the results were adjusted to take other factors, such as parental gambling history, into account.
Our results suggest that behavioral features such as inattentiveness, distractibility and hyperactivity at school entry represent a vulnerability factor for precocious risk-oriented behavior like gambling in sixth grade, write the authors. It is very plausible that these childhood characteristics snowball into cumulative risks for youngsters who do not eventually outgrow the distractibility and inattentiveness from early childhood and become involved in gambling as a typical pastime for many youth.
Since gambling in adulthood is linked to a range of problems, including substance abuse and suicide, the researchers believe these findings suggest training young children in methods to achieve self control could go a long way to ensuring what starts in kindergarten actually ends up staying there.
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SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, published online March 2, 2009
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