Thinking About The Children of Kauai

Child under tree, Kauai, HI

I am frequently reminded of Socrates' famous quote that "the only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing".  

For instance, I was in our faculty library a few days ago when I spied a blue volume called "The Children of Kauai" by Emmy Werner. I grabbed it with curiosity, and packed it in my Kauai bound suitcase.

Although I am familiar with research that has replicated the findings of the Kauai Longitudinal Study described in this serendipitously noticed book...I had not known about this particular pioneering study: a landmark prospective developmental epidemiology study to be precise. It is a landmark study because it broke ground in the study of resilience, a concept which is particularly easy for me to reflect on, as I am experiencing the enchanting weather, fauna and flora of Kauai.

A very brief summary of this study, which has yielded key insights about resilience to adversity; insights that raise more questions than they answer but insights nevertheless.

698 diverse children born on Kauai in 1955 including 30% born and reared in conditions of socio-economic poverty (a prospective community birth cohort in epidemiological linguo) were enrolled into a study with assessment points at ages 1, 2, 10, 18, 32 and 40.  This number represents all the children born on Kauai in 1955, so a quintessential birth cohort. At every point, key factors were measured that were assumed to potentially confer risk or protection.  The book I cited describes the period from birth to 10 but here I am also alluding to findings from the total follow up period through middle-age; for details see Dr. Werner's paper Vulnerable but invicible: high-risk children from birth to adulthood.

Here is what I think we all need to at least know about this study:

1-(A well replicated finding): Children who are at very "high-risk" by virtue of multiple clustered risk factors such as perinatal complications, familial dissolution or severe discord, parental psychopathology etc..,  e.g., children growing up in conditions of severe adversity, very disproportionately experience learning/behavioral and emotional disorders throughout childhood and adolescence. About 2/3 of the very high risk children experience those problems. A 66% risk of such juvenile problems is not destiny but it is nothing to relax about. Doctors give advice about putting babies on their backs, ask parents to put helmets and seat belts on children and discourage adults from smoking around children, but do not routinely screen for post-partum depression, also an ominous risk factor for infants (in fact a risk factor that can directly impact a mother's ability to follow up with seat belt and many other recommendations). This was recently discussed in this New York Times piece, which my colleague Cynthia Rogers sent me. Cynthia directs our perinatal mental health services.


2-A very important finding raising many questions: 1/3 of very high risk children are highly resilient even before adulthood and many children initially suffering from difficulties manage to recover by mid-adulthood. Although Dr. Werner classifies the resilience factors as Individual, Familal or Community factors, it would be hard for a Behavior Geneticist to not hypothesize that the main ingredients are correlated, e.g., highly correlated to individual factors based on the findings.  Those individual factors may be particular important to catalyze resilience or to benefit from or seek family and community protective ingredients. However, this really needs further studies not just speculations.

So here is what is clear (and please forgive my simplifications if you are very familiar with the many nuances of this study findings):
 a-an affable/amicable/affectionate temperament (present in infancy and typically reasonably stable over time) is a very good thing to be blessed with. Whether it is largerly or somewhat a passport to endearing others to oneself and benefitting from the support of more easily attuned family members (even when primary caretakers are otherwise too preoccupied or unable to serve in that function) needs to be studied more.

b-Also.. problem solving skills are key powers...and can be acquired at any number of ages. So...can we teach them much more systematically to our children in the process of parenting? At school?

c-Support and/or educational resources are good whether they are familial or community resources. Of course, the capacity to utilize, seek out and avail oneself of extant resources is not uniformely distributed but...the effects there could well be bi-directional no matter what temperamental endowment exists in the fist place.

Thinking about Children, including the children of Kauai...

Till Later, Anne