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MRI to help unlock mysteries of teen risky behavior

February 26, 2013 By

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, February 13, 2013

Valerie Reyna

Reyna

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.7 million to Cornell to enhance understanding of why adolescents are prone to taking risks.

The study, which will compare differences in the brains of teens and adults when faced with risky decisions, will be the first to use the Cornell MRI Facility, a new, state-of-the-art center for neuroscience and other fields of research in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall.

The project will bring together a team of economists, psychologists and neuroscientists to examine decision-making processes in adolescents and adults and shed light on competing theories about how the teen brain works.

“Research suggests that adolescents differ from adults in emotional reactivity, motivation and self-regulation, but substantial ambiguities remain about how these factors determine adolescents’ risky decision-making,” said Valerie Reyna, principal investigator for the grant, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology and co-director of the Cornell MRI Facility. “Our research will disentangle these key causal factors to better understand, predict and ultimately reduce adolescents’ unhealthy risk-taking.”

The team will answer unresolved questions about how adolescents’ responses to rewards might differ from responses to losses or negative consequences and how desires, strong emotions or the way risks are presented may change responses to risk and to reward. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques performed on the 3 Tesla MRI scanner at the Cornell MRI Facility, the researchers will also look at how the adolescent brain reacts differently from the adult brain when making decisions about risks.

The universitywide facility is the newest addition to Cornell’s imaging resources and will provide detailed structural and functional images for a broad range of scientific studies involving humans, small animals, plants and biomedical materials. Physicist Wenming Luh is the technical director of the facility.

Other investigators on the grant include William Schulze, the Kenneth L. Robinson Professor of Agricultural Economics and Public Policy; David Dunning, professor of psychology; Ted O’Donoghue, professor of economics; Brian Wansink, the John Dyson Professor of Consumer Behavior; Barbara Ganzel, research scientist in human development; all from Cornell in Ithaca; and Henning Voss, associate professor of physics in radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

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Teens take risks to ‘play the odds’ but can be taught otherwise

May 22, 2012 By

Ted Boscia
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, March 15, 2012

Reyna

Professor Valerie Reyna said that teens take dangerous risks because they believe "it's worth the risk" for the perceived awards, speaking on March 13 to New York City media.

Teenagers take risks that might give most adults pause — speeding through a red light, binge drinking or having unprotected sex.

Contrary to popular belief, such behaviors are often not impulsive and don’t occur because teens think they’re invulnerable. Instead, says Cornell human development professor Valerie Reyna, her research shows that adolescents are aware of the potential dangers of their actions, but make calculated choices to “play the odds” because they believe “it’s worth the risk” for the perceived rewards.

Sharing the latest evidence on adolescent brain development, Reyna punctured this and other myths for reporters at an Inside Cornell media luncheon March 13 at Cornell’s ILR Conference Center in New York City.

Reyna’s studies have revealed that adolescents tend to reason and assess risk via “verbatim-based analysis” — where the mind focuses on precise details and facts and runs a complex comparison of the costs and benefits of a decision. Adults, on the other hand, more often use “gist-based intuition” to immediately understand the bottom-line dangers inherent in an action. Teen drivers may be inclined to race to beat a train, knowing there’s a high probability they’ll make it; adults would automatically sense that’s a bad idea, realizing that it could be deadly.

“The calculation that teens make may be technically correct, but it ignores the categorical possibility of disaster,” said Reyna of the College of Human Ecology. “If people are weighing the odds in potentially catastrophic situations, they’re already on the wrong track.”

To help vulnerable youths make smarter choices about sexual activity, nutrition and fitness, Reyna and Cornell Cooperative Extension partners are applying her research in a new extension-funded risk reduction project. Working with 189 youth ages 14-19 in Broome County, Ithaca, Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx, extension educators are teaching a gist-enhanced version of the Reducing the Risk curriculum identified as effective by the Centers for Disease Control.

Reyna developed two interventions — one to reduce risk of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy and another to promote healthy eating and physical activity — that teach teens how to apply gist thinking when temptation strikes. Through 14 one-hour lessons, students learn to quickly and automatically recognize hazardous situations and how to reflexively recall and apply their core values to sidestep such dangers.

“Even teens with strongly held values do not always retrieve those values when they need them,” Reyna said. “They retrieve them later — that’s called regret. In risky situations, teens need to respond the way troops in battle do to gunfire: Don’t reflect, just react and follow your values to get through.”

“The students really responded to [the approach] and said how they had learned many of these things in health class but not in this way,” said Eduardo Gonzalez Jr., a Cornell University Cooperative Extension-New York City (CUCE-NYC) educator who has taught the curriculum and who also attended the media session two other CUCE-NYC educators.

Initial findings support Gonzalez’s impressions: Compared with control groups, students educated about gist principles were more likely to limit their sexual intentions and behaviors and number of partners, Reyna said.

Reyna also spoke about “The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning and Decision Making,” a new book she edited that collects research from neuroscientists, educators and psychologists on how the teen mind develops.

The stakes, she said, are incredibly high when it comes to risky decision-making by teens. A wrong choice could lead to death or destroyed potential.

“But teens are not fated to negative outcomes from risky behaviors,” she said. “We can give them strategies to avoid risk and turn around their life trajectories.”

View the video of Reyna’s Inside Cornell presentation

Ted Boscia is assistant director of communications for the College of Human Ecology.

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New Book on teen brains can help improve reasoning, decision making

February 27, 2012 By

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, December 15, 2011 

Reyna

Reyna

Teenage brains undergo big changes, and they won’t look or function like adult brains until well into one’s 20s. In the first book on the adolescent brain and development of higher cognition, a Cornell professor helps highlight recent neuroscience discoveries about how the brain develops and their implications for real-world problems and how we teach young people and prepare them to make healthy life choices.

For the new book, “The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making” (APA Books), Valerie Reyna, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology and co-director of Cornell’s Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research, brought together an interdisciplinary group of leading scientists to focus on brain development and higher cognition, which is necessary for students to learn math and science and make good decisions. Higher cognition is the set of thinking skills students use to manipulate information and ideas in ways that lead to problem solving and new insights.

“A major implication of the provocative research highlighted in this book is the contrast between adolescents’ cognitive skills, which are at a lifetime peak, and their frequent inability to use this competence in everyday decision making,” said Reyna, who co-edited the volume with Sandra Chapman, director of the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas; Michael Dougherty, professor of psychology at University of Maryland; and Jere Confrey, professor of mathematics education at North Carolina State University.

“But the evidence suggests that the way young people learn, reason and decide changes [during this period] and can be changed,” said Reyna. “We must move education beyond rote learning to fostering the cognitive skills essential for academic achievement and economic well-being in our knowledge-based economy. Higher cognition is a foundation critical for individuals and our country to be competitive. This volume introduces a new framework for interdisciplinary collaboration among scientists in neuroscience, psychology and education.”

“The Adolescent Brain” addresses the major changes in memory, learning and decision making experienced by adolescents as they mature, beginning with a review of the changes in brain anatomy and physiology based on extensive neuroimaging studies. The ensuing chapters examine the developing capacity of the adolescent brain, covering such topics as the underpinnings of intelligence and problem solving, strategies for training teen reasoning abilities, effectively teaching mathematical concepts, the effects of emotion on reasoning, and factors that promote teen engagement in health-related behaviors.

The book wraps up with a chapter by Reyna and Ph.D. student Christina Chick that integrates the behavioral and neuroscience evidence in a process model of adolescent risky decision making. Chick and Reyna explain, for example, how massive pruning of gray matter in late adolescence fits with the growth of adolescents’ ability to connect the dots and understand the underlying meaning of situations. This gist thinking facilitates recognition of danger and protects against unhealthy risk-taking, they say.

The book is intended for researchers, students and professionals in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and psychology and for education policymakers and educators, especially in mathematics.

Reyna will present a talk on the “Adolescent Brain” March 1 at 4-5:30 p.m., 160 Mann Library.

Karene Booker is extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

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Videos Now Online from Bronfenbrenner Neuroscience of Risk Conference

February 27, 2012 By

 

Videos are now online from the 2011 Bronfenbrenner Conference, “The Neuroscience of Risky Decision Making.”

At the conference, neuroscientists, neuroeconomists and social scientists explored scientific theories about the brain mechanisms underlying risky decision-making, paving the way for translation of basic science into policy and practice.

The conference, co-organized by Valerie Reyna, professor of human development and co-director for Cornell’s new Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility, and Vivian Zayas, assistant professor of psychology, drew scholars from as far away as Europe to share research on such topics as brain maturation, neural responses to rewards and punishments at different ages, emotional regulation and self-control. Many of those who participated are founders in their field.

Presenters:

Antoine Bechara, University of Southern California
Eveline Crone, Leiden University
Paul Glimcher, New York University
Jay Giedd, National Institute of Mental Health
Scott Huettel, Duke University
Brian Knutson, Stanford University
Beatriz Luna, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Kevin Ochsner, Columbia University
Philip Zelazo, University of Minnesota

Links:

Presentations, discussions, Q & A, and panel conversations

Article: Experts explore links between risk-taking, brain mechanisms

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Experts explore links between risk-taking, brain mechanisms

November 1, 2011 By

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, October 7, 2011

Anthony Bechara

Conference participants Antoine Bechara and Kevin Ochsner. Photo by Jason Koski, University Photography

Most diseases people die from are those borne of bad choices. Whether the decision is to have unprotected sex, smoke, drink and drive, not save for retirement, or to eat fries with that burger, risky decisions permeate our lives, sometimes with disastrous consequences, which is why researchers gathered on campus Sept. 22-23 to better understand risk-taking.

At the Third Biennial Urie Bronfenbrenner Conference, “The Neuroscience of Risky Decision Making,” neuroscientists, neuroeconomists and social scientists explored scientific theories about the brain mechanisms underlying risky decision-making, paving the way for translation of basic science into policy and practice.

“From neurons to basic psychological processes, such as memory and meaning, to complex social and economic behavior, we need to build a dialogue across disciplines,” said Valerie Reyna, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology and co-director for Cornell’s Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research. “We need a common language and collaboration to improve educational and health outcomes and to advance neuroscience research.”

The conference, co-organized by Reyna and Vivian Zayas, Cornell assistant professor of psychology, drew scholars from as far away as Europe to share research on such topics as brain maturation, neural responses to rewards and punishments at different ages, emotional regulation and self-control.

Many of those who participated are founders in their field. Paul Glimcher, a professor in New York University’s Center for Neural Science and of psychology and economics, for example, literally wrote the book on neuroeconomics in 2003 when he released his seminal work on the biological foundations of economic behavior. At the conference, he reported on some of his findings, such as work that suggests that neural networks are connected — hungry people, for example, make riskier decisions not just about food, but also about money.

Antoine Bechara, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California, researches the decision-making capabilities of patients with brain damage, such as the case of the 40-cigarette-a-day smoker who no longer had the urge to smoke after suffering a stroke. Bechara’s findings shed light on the workings of the brain systems involved in decision-making and addiction.

One of the developmental neuroscientist pioneers, University of Pittsburgh’s Beatriz Luna, focuses on the transition from adolescence to adulthood. She reported that incentives have a magnified effect on cognitive control in adolescents, compared with adults. Adolescents performing a particular cognitive control task seem to require incentives in order to succeed, she said, suggesting immaturities in their reward system.

Participants, including program officials from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, also debated core assumptions about reward sensitivity and self-control, and their implications for practice and policy.

“There is such tremendous synergy among fields,” said Reyna. “Collaborating and thinking together is important for setting a research agenda that will shape the field and have big payoffs in terms of public health and well-being.”

The event was the kickoff to multiple interdisciplinary initiatives on campus, including the acquisition of a new neuroimaging facility to be housed in the College of Human Ecology. The American Psychological Association plans to publish a book based on the papers presented at the conference.

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research, and Institute for the Social Sciences, all at Cornell, co-sponsored the conference.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

Related Links:
The Neuroscience of Risky Decision Making
College of Human Ecology
Valerie Reyna
ISS Judgment, Decision Making and Social Behavior

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Students head up research and outreach projects across NYS

October 28, 2011 By

By Karene Booker

Anna Zhu practices teaching an experimental curriculum

Nine undergraduate students from the College of Human Ecology serving as extension interns spent their summer engaged in everything from teaching teens how to make better decisions to playing games with toddlers in order to answer key child development questions. Four of the internships were led by faculty in the department of human development.

The interns worked with faculty and community collaborators, particularly Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) associations, on creative projects that embody the college’s research, education and outreach missions and benefit communities throughout New York State. “CCE internships provide excellent opportunities for undergraduate students to learn first-hand about the ways research, education, and outreach complement each other,” said Jennifer Tiffany, associate director for extension and outreach in the College of Human Ecology.

Distenfeld poster

Shelby Distenfeld's presentation poster

Human development major Shelby Distenfeld ’13, traveled to Tioga and Seneca counties to recruit rural and low-income children for a study about how factors such as income and parenting influence children’s concept of choice. The project, under the direction of Tamar Kushnir, assistant professor of human development, “was very rewarding because I was able to play a role in many aspects of research from administrative duties and participant recruitment to collecting data,” Distenfeld said. “The opportunity to work with the mothers and children and see first-hand the differences in development among the children was eye opening.”

“An important lesson I learned is how research is actually conducted and how to successfully run a research project,” said Hemavattie Ramtahal ‘13. As a human development major, she dedicated her summer to investigating the relationship between poverty, emotion, and cognitive development in young children with Marianella Casasola, associate professor of human development. Ramtahal worked in Tompkins, Cortland, and Yates counties recruiting families for the study, conducted the experimental tasks or “baby games” with the children, trained other research assistants and analyzed data.

“My burning curiosity about risky decision making started in high school,” said Anna Zhu ’14.  She wondered why teens make bad choices that jeopardize their health, future, or lives, and how to help them. A Human Biology, Health & Society major, she tackled these questions as part of her internship with Valerie Reyna, professor of human development. Zhu taught the experimental risk reduction curriculum in CCE’s 4-H Career Exploration program, prepared data for analysis, and worked with local partners and extension staff in New York City and Broome counties to administer follow-up surveys. “From this experience,” she said “I’ve already gained valuable skills in teaching, statistical analysis, and social science research – tools I expect to use in my career in public health.”

Sarah Dephtereos ’13 spent her summer exploring how 4-H educators use research. A policy analysis and management major, she worked with Steve Hamilton, human development professor and associate director for youth development at the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, to review the literature on research utilization and draft a guide to youth development websites for 4-H educators. Her review identified common problems practitioners experience with accessing research. “I saw these issues reflected in the youth development websites I assessed,” Dephtereos said.”

Other extension internships in the college included teaching new immigrants ways to maintain a healthy diet, creating gardens at low-income schools, developing a high tech fabric class for girls, piloting nutrition and parenting education program, and researching child custody decisions in low-income families.

Information for faculty about applying for the 2012 CCE internship program will be available in December.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the department of human development.

Related websites:
Jennifer Tiffany:
CCE Summer Internship Program

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Helping teens make better decisions

July 25, 2011 By

   
By Anna Zhu 

My burning curiosity about risky decision making started in high school.  I witnessed some of my brightest friends make bad choices, slack off in school, and lose their way. I wondered, why do teens make these decisions that jeopardize their health, future, or lives, and how can we help them? I’m tackling these questions as part of an internship with Dr. Valerie Reyna, professor in the department of human development, College of Human Ecology.

One month into the internship, I taught a workshop on Reducing the Risk in Adolescence at the 4-H Career Explorations Conference, along with other members of Dr. Reyna’s lab. We gave the students a tour of our lab, offered advice on how to get involved in research and in college, and discussed the critical thinking and commitment involved in planning and carrying out a good research study.

The students in our workshop got to see social science research in action. We randomly assigned each student to one of two curricula being studied in Reyna’s lab – EatFit, a program promoting healthy eating and fitness or the Gist-Enhanced Reducing the Risk (RTRgist), a sexual health program based on Reyna’s research on adolescent memory and decision making. According to this research, when teens focus on details and statistics – a common feature of traditional health classes – they are more likely to make risky choices compared to when they focus on the overall meaning or “gist” of a situation.

As one of the EatFit teachers, I found the 4-H students incredibly enthusiastic about the hands-on activities. For example, students were shocked when we demonstrated exactly how many tablespoons of sugar are in a bottle of soda. The material we taught in both the RTRgist and Eatfit classes seemed to make a strong impression, but without further research, the results would be purely anecdotal. To test the effectiveness of the classes, the research team will conduct follow-up surveys with the students over the next 12 months and analyze results to identify changes in risky behaviors.

It’s exciting to look at the data analyses and realize that the work we do with teens can positively affect their behavior and lifestyle! I hope that one day health classes around the nation will benefit from the lessons we’re learning about how teens make decisions.

From this experience, I’ve already gained valuable skills in teaching, statistical analysis, and social science research – tools I expect to use in my career in public health. I’m excited to continue working with Dr. Reyna to increase my knowledge of risky decision making in adolescents.

Anna Zhu, ‘14, is a Human Biology, Health & Society major in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. This summer she is participating in an extension internship with Dr. Valerie Reyna sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension.

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Research-extension project teaches CU students and teens

April 22, 2011 By

 

Reyna Lab

Reyna Lab 2011

Students from Valerie Reyna’s Laboratory for Rational Decision Making have been working in collaboration with New Roots Charter School in Ithaca as well as Cooperative Extension offices in New York City and Broome County to offer innovative curricula to teens.

The goal of the project is to reduce adolescent risk taking by providing effective interventions in the areas of sexual health as well as nutrition and fitness, while also gathering research data to improve the interventions. By working with Cornell Cooperative Extension, the team is assessing how best to move this program beyond the laboratory team and into the community.

The project is proving rewarding, not only for the youth who are taking the classes, but for the Cornell students involved in the research and teaching.

 “Teaching health education to teenagers has also helped cement my interest in pursuing adolescent medicine as a career,” said Claire Lyons, ’12. Graduate student Anna Kharmats added, “the students [at New Roots] inspired me to apply to the New York City Teaching fellowship program to which I have been accepted.”

Read more in this newsletter the students created about their activities at New Roots.

See a poster the students created about the Reducing the Risk intervention and work with Cornell Cooperative Extension.

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Researchers and Extension Educators Collaborate on Reducing the Risk in Adolescence

September 8, 2010 By

By Karene Booker

This summer a high energy team of Extension Educators and student researchers touched the lives of nearly 100 high school students in New York City and Ithaca.

The project integrates laboratory and field research conducted by Dr. Valerie Reyna, Professor of Human Development and Outreach Extension Leader, Cornell University with extension programming. It is not only Dr. Reyna’s research, but also her vision for engaging community partners in it that drives the project. The research examines factors associated with adolescent risky decision making. The translation of the research into programming aims to promote adolescent health.  Collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension and community agencies is bringing this project to young people in New York City, Ithaca, and this fall to Broome County. 

With greater freedom and independence, adolescents face new risks. We know poor choices can have long-lasting consequences for individuals, families, and society.  The project offers two interventions, which serve as control groups for each other. One, Gist-Enhanced Reducing the Risk (RTR+) is targeted at reducing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and the other, EatFit, is targeted at promoting healthy eating and fitness. The project combines empirical research with practical knowledge gained through implementation of the two curricula to inform and facilitate future replications of the programs. 

The RTR+ project arm has already proven effective at promoting sexual health. Continued research and enhancement of the program will strengthen the intervention and add to scientific knowledge. Although supported by the research literature, the obesity reduction curriculum is less highly researched. There is a dearth of research on interventions to reduce obesity in adolescents even though obesity is a major health problem in America. The healthy lifestyles and obesity reduction arm of the research is thus groundbreaking and will serve as a basis for future work. Both curricula incorporate hands-on skill building and experiential activities.

Here’s a look at the team members and what they are doing.

The NYC Cooperative Extension team is ably led by Family and Youth Development Program Leader, Jackie Davis Manigaulte. Extension Educators Michele Luc and Eduardo Gonzalez Jr. recruited community partners, recruited students, completed consents from parents and students for the research, taught the curricula, administered surveys, and much more. The Cooperative Extension team was joined for the summer in NYC by graduate student Chrissie Chick and undergrad Claire Lyons. The students assisted with the research and co-facilitated the curricula with the NYC staff at the four partner sites: Central Queens Y; Groundwork, Inc.; Child Center NY; and NYC Mission Society.

Jackie Davis-Manigaulte“CUCE-NYC’s Family & Youth Development program area is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Reyna and her staff to pilot new and modified evidence-based educational resources on topics of such importance to the health and well-being of adolescents in New York City and throughout the state and country,” said Jackie.

Michele Luc“The RTR+ curriculum provided the participants with so many opportunities go beyond the traditional messages they’ve received in typical sex education classes by teaching them how to put refusal skills into action, said Michele. “As one student at the Forest Hills site put it: ‘I wish we learned this stuff earlier because no one ever teaches us how to say no effectively and mean it.’”

Eduardo Gonzalez Jr.“We worked with diverse populations of youth in East New York, Harlem, Jamaica and Forest Hills neighborhoods,” added Eduardo.”In each of the sites, project participants spoke favorably of their overall experiences and highlighted how the hands-on activities made the sessions both informative and engaging.”

Christina ChickThe team was quick to troubleshoot and find solutions to the challenges encountered in this first replication at multiple sites throughout New York City,” said Chrissie. “It’s been a pleasure working with and learning from Eduardo and Michele. Their dedication is striking.”        

Claire Lyons

“Through my involvement on this project, I have observed the synergy of theory, research, and extension efforts in the community,” said Claire.  “It has helped me see how all of the individuals and groups involved in a community-research partnership can work together to achieve a mutual goal.”

Seth PardoHuman Development graduate student Seth Pardo is laboratory manager and project supervisor. He works closely with Dr. Reyna and the research team to develop additional enhancements to curricula based on evidence gathered on the nearly 900 youth in Reyna’s earlier National Institutes of Health funded study of the curriculum. He also implements the project in Ithaca, recruiting partner sites and participants, training personnel, delivering the curriculum, and analyzing data.

“Over the past 2 years on this project, I have learned a great deal about how judgment and decision making change over the life course,” noted Seth. “Adolescents are at a crucial juncture in their behavioral and cognitive development; this evidence-based intervention can  have an incredibly positive influence on their future.”

Gabrielle Tan

“I learned a lot about people and teaching and got a lot of practice perfecting such skills as perseverance, proactive behavior and teamwork” added undergraduate student Gabrielle Tan who assisted Seth with the Ithaca implementation.

Travis GetzkePartner sites in Ithaca included Ithaca High School and TST-BOCES. The two courses were taught to students enrolled in the regional summer school health education class. Travis Getzke and Nikki Fish, experienced Health Educators for TST-BOCES Summer School and enthusiastic accomplices, helped teach the curriculum. This coming school year, Travis will be teaching RTRgist and the EatFit curriculum for the TST BOCES Community School.

Nikki Fish“I loved the EatFit curriculum!” said Nikki who taught that component of the project.  “It was goal oriented, incorporated both nutrition and fitness, and involved the students in a lot of hands on activities. During class, I overheard one of my students comment to another student about half way through the curriculum: ‘This was the best Health class ever.’ When I asked her why, she responded: ‘because in our regular Health class we never got the chance to do any activities like this!’”

Behind the scenes but still essential to the project, many dedicated staff handle human resources, finances, technology issues, and administration. Chief among them is Extension Support Specialist Karene Booker who adds her own brand of project management glue to keep the fast-paced operation on track.

The project has been beneficial to everyone involved. The theory and research behind the intervention allows communities to provide their youth with a highly effective intervention to reduce risk taking and improve health. By participating in the research project, youth gain the benefits of the intervention and also provide valuable information that can enhance both scientific knowledge and future interventions targeted to protect youth. Simultaneously, the project is a learning ground for the next generation of researchers and practitioners.

Thanks to all of the people and partner organizations who are making this initiative possible through their daily efforts and ongoing commitment to improving the health of young people.

For more information, please visit our website.

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Internship on Reducing Youth Risk

July 7, 2010 By

Claire Lyons, an undergraduate student in the Department of Human Development, was one of sixteen students who participated in the CCE Summer Internship Program which seeks to engage undergraduate students in outreach. Claire worked in Dr. Valarie Reyna’s lab on the Reducing the Risk in Adolescence project. Her account follows.

My CCE summer internship provided me with an incredible learning experience. My big assignment for the summer was creating a complete up-to-date manual for the RTR+ sexual health curriculum. It was an exciting and fascinating project.

The RTR+ curriculum is a version of the standard RTR (Reducing the Risk) curriculum which is enhanced to emphasize the gist of risk and protection rather than precise, numeric facts.Evaluations of the RTR+ curriculum show that individuals in that intervention have better scores on a large number of measures of knowledge and risk taking.

My job this summer was to get the RTR+ curriculum ready to be taught again, and bygroups outside of our lab. This project involved updating facts, adding elements to furtherenhance the curriculum, and compiling information into a comprehensive manual. I also helpedcreate a video version of the manual. I learned so much through the process, about adolescentrisk taking, Dr. Reyna’s fuzzy-trace theory, and sex education programs. I also learned abouthow effective outreach interventions are developed and evaluated. I am continuing to work in Dr.Reyna’s lab and am excited for the curriculum to be taught again and evaluated.

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