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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just

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Speaker 2: once answers MEW.

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Speaker 1: Today's podcast, we're diving into the latest research and talking

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Speaker 1: about what can help us as parents to raise happier families.

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Speaker 1: But I'm doctor Justin Coulson and who with my wife

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Speaker 1: and mum to our six kids, missus Happy Families Kylie

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Speaker 1: Coulson Kylie three studies. Today we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: peanut alogies. We're talking about social media because of screens,

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Speaker 1: because it's just the enduring, never ending conversation if you're

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Speaker 1: a parent of a child. In twenty twenty four, and

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Speaker 1: also a really fascinating study that I wanted to share

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Speaker 1: for our neurodivergent friends, Autism and Touch, a new study

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Speaker 1: out of Italy looking at how touch affects those who

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Speaker 1: are neurodivergent with an autism diagnosis versus those who are

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Speaker 1: neurotypical no diagnosis at all. Let's dive into it.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting when I think about my upbringing, I don't

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Speaker 2: remember ever hearing about a peanut ology. Neither do I

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Speaker 2: didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone to a peanut butter.

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Speaker 2: We hadna teller like you just I'd never heard of it,

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Speaker 2: and yet in today's world, it feels like every second

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Speaker 2: kid is allergic to something and it's altered what our

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Speaker 2: kids can even put in their lunchboxes.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So an important note as we have this conversation.

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Speaker 1: I mean, some schools are completely peanut free. There are

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Speaker 1: bands all over the place. We're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: a psychological intervention, but I want to be really clear,

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Speaker 1: if your child has a peanut allergy, please follow the

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Speaker 1: medical advice of your practitioner. We're speaking about an intervention

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Speaker 1: and some research. We're not giving advice when it comes

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Speaker 1: to your child and peanuts.

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Speaker 2: So what did they actually find?

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Speaker 1: Let me give you the I'm not going to bury

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Speaker 1: the lead here. It is right now peanut allergies could

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Speaker 1: drop by seventy one percent with a brand new intervention

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Speaker 1: developed by some researchers at King's College in London.

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Speaker 2: Seventy one percent. That's huge.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So the intervention feeding kids peanuts, I know,

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Speaker 1: I know.

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Speaker 2: Can I just say it's interesting? When can we hear

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Speaker 2: about whether it's a peanut allergy or you know, someone's

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Speaker 2: been heard in a car accident or something. It just

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Speaker 2: it changes the way we live life.

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Speaker 1: Right, so you have become really risk averse.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you hear that there's peanut allergies and all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, all the peanuts get banned, right, Or there's

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Speaker 2: a car accident down this particular road, Well that's an

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Speaker 2: unsafe road to travel on. We just we go so

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Speaker 2: polar extreme and this research studies suggesting that that may

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Speaker 2: be the case.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, here's what they did. What they basically said was

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Speaker 1: feed kids peanuts regularly from four months of age to

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Speaker 1: five years, and they're less likely to show up with

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Speaker 1: the with the allergy. Now, I need to note very

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Speaker 1: clearly when they're saying feed kids peanuts regularly from four months,

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Speaker 1: they're not saying give your four month old a peanut.

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Speaker 1: That would be potentially life altering, It could be catastrophic.

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Speaker 1: What they're saying is peanuts and peanut products. So consider

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Speaker 1: the developmental appropriateness of handing your child a peanut. If

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Speaker 1: they're too young to be able to chew, bite, swallow

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Speaker 1: a peanut, give them peanut paste, give them peanut butter,

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Speaker 1: give them some other nut oriented product. The things that

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Speaker 1: contains they're okay. And as they get older and can

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Speaker 1: suddenly and can chew those nuts. That's when you start

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Speaker 1: to give them the full monty, the whole nut. Basically,

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Speaker 1: what they found this is fascinating. This method works even

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Speaker 1: if your child never eats another peanut after the age

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Speaker 1: of five. I love this. So if you can get

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Speaker 1: your kid exposed to nuts in those first five years

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Speaker 1: and you don't have any reactions, which typically you won't

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Speaker 1: after the age of five, they made it side. I

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Speaker 1: don't like peanuts, I never want to eat another nut again,

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Speaker 1: and they'll still be okay.

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Speaker 2: So how did they actually figure this out?

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Speaker 1: Okay? Professor Gideon Lack is a King's College, London research

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Speaker 1: He published this research in the New England Journal of

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Speaker 1: Medicine and what he found basically is avoiding So the

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Speaker 1: old story was avoid nuts. As you said, avoidance is necessary.

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Speaker 1: What he found in his study was that avoiding nuts

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Speaker 1: increases the risk of allergy. Doesn't reduce the risk. It

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Speaker 1: increases the risk of allergy. They had six hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty participants. They gave half of them nuts during the

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Speaker 1: first five years of their life. They gave the other

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Speaker 1: half nut all that. Sorry, they didn't give the kids nuts.

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Speaker 1: They instructed parents to either give or not give their

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Speaker 1: children peanuts, and then they tested them at age five

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Speaker 1: to see if they had the allergy. There was an

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Speaker 1: eighty one percent reduced risk of allergy in the nut

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Speaker 1: group versus the no nut group. What's fascinating to me, though,

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Speaker 1: is that they followed up at the age of thirteen,

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Speaker 1: So from this point on there's no direction given whatsoever

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Speaker 1: about whether you should or should not eat nuts. Fifteen

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Speaker 1: point four percent fifteen and a half percent of those

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Speaker 1: people who were avoided nuts in those first five years

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Speaker 1: were allergic to nuts. Wow, whereas only four point four

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Speaker 1: percent of nut eaters were allergic. So to be clear,

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Speaker 1: feeding your child nuts in the first five years does

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Speaker 1: not absolutely guarantee they will not have the nut allergy,

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Speaker 1: but it reduces the likelihood of the peanut allergy by

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Speaker 1: seventy one percent. That's huge, It's enormous. So that's our

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Speaker 1: study Number one. Feed your kids nuts. Nuts are good.

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Speaker 2: I couldn't imagine looking right without nuts.

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Speaker 1: Get in the nuts.

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Speaker 2: All right.

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Speaker 1: Study Number two, Social Media use and the mental health

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Speaker 1: of children and adolescents.

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Speaker 2: I feel like every doctor's desk has a social media

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Speaker 2: or screen aspect to it. What's different about this study.

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Speaker 1: This is a smart study. It's been preregistered. There's a

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Speaker 1: control group who lives life as normal, and then there's

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Speaker 1: an intervention group. In the intervention group, we've got one

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty one children and adolescents in a Danish

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Speaker 1: study and their job is to do a two week

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Speaker 1: screen media reduction intervention. Okay, so basically the children and

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Speaker 1: adolescents hand in their smartphones and their tablets and they're

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Speaker 1: not allowed more than three hours of screens per week

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Speaker 1: per person.

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Speaker 2: You know, you say that and that just sounds like bliss.

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Speaker 1: You almost fluttered away as you said it. Your eyes

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Speaker 1: started to flutter, and you're like, ah, so would you

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Speaker 1: like me to tell you what they found? Of course?

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Speaker 1: Of course, fewer emotional symptoms. That is, children were better regulated.

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Speaker 1: There was less disregulation in the intervention group compared to

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Speaker 1: the control group.

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Speaker 2: I kind of want to say, d I know, I

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Speaker 2: really like this is it's so obvious.

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Speaker 1: Fewer peer problems. In other words, the children were just

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Speaker 1: better at social stuff and I won't say it again,

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Speaker 1: and more pro social behavior. Ah, kids are nice to

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Speaker 1: each other and they manage their emotions better when they

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Speaker 1: don't have as much access to screen.

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Speaker 2: Is amazing. I feel like we got a really huge

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Speaker 2: sense of this during COVID when everything shut down and

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Speaker 2: we just were able to kind of really tap into

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Speaker 2: family life together.

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Speaker 1: Well some people did, but some people went the other direction,

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Speaker 1: and screens became their lives, especially around schooling right, And

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Speaker 1: some people said this is killing us, got to get

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Speaker 1: off the screens, whereas as you said, for us, we

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Speaker 1: were really conscious of bringing it down.

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Speaker 2: So what's your take on this?

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Speaker 1: My take, in a nutshell, Mike Zuckerberg and his colleagues

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Speaker 1: are colleagues. That's just far too polite a word for

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Speaker 1: who they are and what they are. Are responsible for

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Speaker 1: more unhappiness in our young people, and on a larger

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Speaker 1: scale than perhaps anyone else in human history. That's my take.

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Speaker 1: I absolutely cannot comprehend the pure mendacity, the deceitfulness, and

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Speaker 1: their ongoing manipulation of our families and our children and

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Speaker 1: young people's lives in search of attention economy dollars. They

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Speaker 1: are just absolutely, absolutely disgrace. I blame the system, I

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Speaker 1: blame the politicians. But because nothing is happening, unfortunately, as parents,

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Speaker 1: it lands on us, and if we're not doing something

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Speaker 1: about it, we are also unfortunately responsible. I was at

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Speaker 1: an event just the other day. I was giving a

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Speaker 1: talk and somebody told me that they're seven year olds

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Speaker 1: on Snapchat. Why because they're big brothers and sisters are

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Speaker 1: on Snapchat. And I just said no, Like, as a parent,

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Speaker 1: you've got a responsibility. Get your seven year old off Snapchat.

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Speaker 1: They don't need to be on roadblocks, they don't need

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Speaker 1: to be on Minecraft. More and more evidence is coming

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Speaker 1: out telling us that we at the very least need

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Speaker 1: to be breathtakingly cautious. But I think when you look

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Speaker 1: at a study like this one out of Denmark, we're

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Speaker 1: seeing really clearly just get the kids outside, get them

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Speaker 1: being physically active, have them involved in play, especially in

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Speaker 1: risky play, and get them involved with other people. Children outside,

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Speaker 1: not in the house, not with the screen. They're going

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Speaker 1: to be so much better off, better emotionally regulated, more

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Speaker 1: physically capable, also going to be more pro social as

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Speaker 1: a general rule.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to lower your blood pressure because I

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Speaker 2: feel like it's gone on our last study, we're talking

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Speaker 2: about autism and touch. This is quite intriguing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so most people, most people do better with touch.

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Speaker 1: We had a doctor's desk episode month and a half

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Speaker 1: two months ago where we talked about the importance of touch.

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Speaker 1: You got very excited in that one. You got because

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Speaker 1: if you're neurotypical and you get touched, as long as

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Speaker 1: it's consensual and it's the kind of touch that you

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Speaker 1: would like, oh gosh, it just feels good. Right. Italian

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Speaker 1: researchers have looked at the difference between neurotypical responses to

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Speaker 1: touch and neurodivergent responses to touch with people who are

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Speaker 1: diagnosed autistic and what did they find? In a nutshell,

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Speaker 1: lower physiological responses to touch, but higher ratings for both

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Speaker 1: pleasant and unpleasant touch. So, in other words, it's really complicated.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of sensory issues around this, and I

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Speaker 1: think we probably need to dig deeper, especially for any

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Speaker 1: parent of autistic child, or maybe maybe even for any

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Speaker 1: autistic parents who listen to the pod, this will probably

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Speaker 1: resonate and there will be a few ah kind of moments.

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Speaker 2: So why does touch actually matter?

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Speaker 1: Okay, so touch matters. We did discuss this briefly in

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Speaker 1: that last podcast, but let's talk about it. Number one,

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Speaker 1: it's really important to help establish and maintain relationships before

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Speaker 1: verbal skills have developed. Okay, so when you've got a

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Speaker 1: brand new baby, it's all about touch. Crucial role in

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Speaker 1: human communication, crucial role in social interaction, and it conveys

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Speaker 1: so much emotional and social meaning. It promotes attachment, social affiliation, bonding,

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Speaker 1: and we know, especially if touch is consensual and it's

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Speaker 1: the kind of touch that somebody wants, there are really

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Speaker 1: pleasant effects, like we feel we just feel really good

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Speaker 1: about that. The question about autism though not particularly well answered,

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Speaker 1: and this study helps us to answer it.

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Speaker 2: So what do they do in this study?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, forty eight participants, twenty four with ASD and twenty

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Speaker 1: four typically developing controls participants.

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Speaker 2: They quite a small group.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is twenty four INACH, but that's enough. That

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Speaker 1: is enough for us to get something meaningful here. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: participants they sat down, put their left arm on a table.

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Speaker 1: It was hidden from view by wooden panel so they

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Speaker 1: couldn't see it, and then each participant was touched on

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Speaker 1: their left forearm different types of touch. There was what's

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Speaker 1: called affective touch, which is slow, gentle strokes and controlling

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Speaker 1: kinds of touch. So that was lots of tapping. That's

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Speaker 1: how you would characterize it. Just tap tap, tap, tap, tap,

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Speaker 1: so i'man kind of annoying and not at all like

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Speaker 1: the affective slow gentle strokes. The experimenter delivered the HEWLD

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Speaker 1: I say, the experimental delivered the touch stimuli and record.

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Speaker 1: They had it all set up so they could record

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Speaker 1: the physiological responses of the participant using a device that

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Speaker 1: measured skin conductance, which is a pretty good way of

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Speaker 1: identifying whether or not there's any autonomic nervous system activity.

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Speaker 1: And in addition to having that skin conductance recorded, each

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Speaker 1: participant also rated the touch on how pleasant or unpleasant

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Speaker 1: it was, just using a numerical scale, so pretty basic,

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Speaker 1: really flexible. Allows participants to applause if they don't like it,

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Speaker 1: if they're overwhelmed, if they're feeling fatigued, and that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing.

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Speaker 2: And what was the outcome of the study?

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Speaker 1: In a nutshell, Individuals with ASD showed lower overall skin

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Speaker 1: conductance compared to neurotypical participants, which means that there's a

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Speaker 1: lower autonomic response. And this is where I think gets

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Speaker 1: really interesting. Well, typically developing participants had a higher physiological

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Speaker 1: response to effective touch compared to the controlling tapping touch.

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Speaker 1: That wasn't shown in the ASD group. In other words,

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Speaker 1: people with ASD did not show a distinct autonomic response

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Speaker 1: to the two different kinds of touch. It was basically,

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Speaker 1: you're touching me right, full stop end. Sorry, you're touching me. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there is a difference, but you are touching me, whereas

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Speaker 1: neurotypical people were like, I like that one. I don't

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Speaker 1: like that one. Here's something really interesting though, Despite the

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Speaker 1: lack of that physiological differentiation, individuals with ASD rated both

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Speaker 1: the affective and the control touch higher than typically developing participants.

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Speaker 1: By our neurotypical participants, which means that they subjectively are

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Speaker 1: experiencing the touch more intensely on both the positive and

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Speaker 1: the negative scale. I think this is fascinating to look

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Speaker 1: at and it highlights.

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Speaker 2: But not at a physiological level like this is.

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Speaker 1: It's really curious, isn't it. So if you're a parent

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Speaker 1: of an autistic kid, I think what I would be

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Speaker 1: saying really is do you like it when I touch you?

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Speaker 1: How do you like to be touched? I think that

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Speaker 1: it just requires x oration with an acknowledgment that touch

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Speaker 1: can for a child who has any kind of sensory issues,

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Speaker 1: it can be overwhelming and frustrating and just too much.

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Speaker 1: So again my main emphasis based on what this study

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Speaker 1: is showing is consent. Consent and conversation around touch are

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Speaker 1: going to be your best friends.

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Speaker 2: So three big studies today, we've talked about how to

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Speaker 2: lower our kids possibility of having a nut allergy by

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Speaker 2: actually exposing them to it from as four months early as.

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Speaker 1: Just don't give them whole nuts at four months.

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Speaker 2: Please, Reducing screen use with our families is going to

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Speaker 2: deeply enhance.

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Speaker 1: We're going to have better kids, your.

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Speaker 2: Family connections and everything else that goes with it right,

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Speaker 2: and autistic children in touch. This is really intriguing.

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Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you enjoyed our doctor's desk you

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Speaker 1: normally complain about it, looks like you actually got something

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Speaker 1: out of this one. Each of these studies will be

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Speaker 1: linked in the show notes so that you can get

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Speaker 1: the details. For those of you who are curious about

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Speaker 1: learning more, we will link to the actual scholarly article.

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Speaker 1: The Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from

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Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Hey, if you would like to help your

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Speaker 1: children to do better with their big emotions, felt Fostering

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Speaker 1: emotional learning together is the brand new bonus as part

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Speaker 1: of our Happy Families Membership so cheap, so valuable Activities

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Speaker 1: that you can do with your kids to help them

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Speaker 1: to be more regulated. Check out everything that you need

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Speaker 1: to know about it via the Memberships tab at happyfamilies

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au. And we'll be back tomorrow with

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Speaker 1: I'll do Better Tomorrow