Cat training program helps children with developmental disabilities

A cat-training program for children with developmental disabilities fostered healthy child behaviors, strengthened relationships between children and their family cats and improved cats’ social behavior, a new study found.

“People often underestimate what cats can contribute to human-animal interventions,” said Monique Udell, a professor at Oregon State University who studies human-animal interactions. “This study shows that cats can be active participants rather than passive companions. When children and their cats work together through training, it can strengthen their bond while supporting positive outcomes for both the child and the cat.”

The study builds on growing interest in animal-assisted interventions to promote physical, psychological and social well-being of people. The interventions are increasingly recognized as a promising approach to help children, including those with physical or learning disabilities or social, emotional or behavioral challenges.

Dogs and horses have received most of the attention. Udell wanted to explore whether cats could play a similar role. She has studied the human-cat bond for more than a decade and has found that cats, like dogs, are a social species and possess many of the same traits, such as the ability to form attachment bonds with humans and the ability to be trained.

The study also arrives at a time that Udell called a “cultural shift” involving cats. She mentioned people wanting to train their cats and the adventure cats movement, in which people increasingly want to take their cats on walks, camping or even kayaking.

The researchers also examined cat attachment to the child and cat sociability in the presence of the child by videotaping the standardized training sessions and assessing the video for certain behaviors. For example, sociability was measured by how much time a cat had at least one paw within a taped semi-circle encompassing a 1-meter radius around the child.

Findings included:

• Children in the training group demonstrated a significant increase in a cat care responsibility survey while those in the control group reported a decrease.
• Children in the training group who reported teaching their cats new things increased from 44% before the training sessions to 94% post-training, and the proportion who walked their cats increased from 28% to 78%.
• Children consistently attended the training sessions and completed the homework, both signs of the program having a stronger impact, the researchers noted. All participants attended all six training sessions, and there was a mean homework completion rate of 81%.

“This helps demonstrate that when we provide the right opportunities and guidance on how children and adolescents can improve their relationships with their cats, we can see positive changes happen,” Udell said. “The cats are becoming more confident. They're becoming more social. And they're developing stronger bonds that the children are benefiting from too. They're seeing these cats now as partners; a source of motivation to take on more responsibility and engage in healthy behaviors. 

All 50 states have introduced bills to regulate digital media for kids

 

 — a new database tracks them

As of March 2026, every U.S. state had introduced at least one bill seeking to regulate social media or other digital platforms for people younger than 18. The wave of legislation would be difficult for anyone to keep track of, whether they’re a researcher, parent or policymaker. Researchers at the University of California, Davis have built a public database to help. 

The Youth Digital Policy Repository categorizes state legislation by location, year and topic, including age verification, parental consent and targeted ads. The database, available to the public, lists researchers who can provide expertise to policymakers working on future legislation. 

“Adolescent mental health and well-being is such an important outcome,” said Samantha Vigil, the database project lead and a Ph.D. candidate in communication at UC Davis. “This repository provides a centralized source of regulations, both attempted and passed, to inform future legislation.”

Vigil developed the tool in the UC Davis Human Development and Media Lab with primary investigator Drew Cingel, an associate professor of communication. The researchers describe the database and the legislative landscape behind it in Journal of Children and Media. 

Supporting action on social media risks

The database compiles introduced, passed, failed and enacted legislation. It currently includes 379 pieces of U.S. legislation that date back to 2022, and the research team plans to expand its coverage globally. 

Undergraduate research assistants helped compile the repository’s contents by identifying, reading and coding all digital-media related legislative bills at each step of the lawmaking process from introduction to passage or failure. The repository will be updated twice yearly in June and November. 

“We hope that it helps politicians and policymakers in state governments across the United States to be aware of what other states are doing to help shape our own local and state laws,” Cingel said.

The social media regulation landscape

The growth in proposed U.S. social media regulations reflects concerns from both teens and parents about the technology’s risks. A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that 48% of American 13- to 17-year-olds called social media harmful to people their age and 44% of parents identified social media as the leading harm to their child’s mental health. 

Cingel said that research has implicated social media in poor mental health among U.S. children and teens, driven in part by platform features such as infinite scrolling and content-recommending algorithms.

Other countries have already enacted legislation to curb access to social media for minors. In 2024, Australia passed a law banning access to social media for those 16 years and younger. It took effect in December of 2025. This June, the U.K. government announced a similar ban to begin in 2027.

Vigil said that U.S. social media regulation is more fragmented, which is partly why a tracking tool is needed. U.S. lawmakers, she said, are more hesitant to propose outright bans for children and teens. Other advocates seek to increase media literacy so young people can be safer online.

Instead of bans or placing the burden of safety on children and parents, Vigil said the platforms themselves should be designed in a way that makes them safer to use.

“Social media and AI and other technologies are so ingrained in the world that children are growing up in, so to close the door and say you don't get to use this because it's not safe takes away a lot of opportunities and some of the potential benefits,” said Vigil.

Co-authors include Matthew Shawcroft with UC Davis; Sarah Coyne with Brigham Young University; Sonia Livingstone with the London School of Economics and Political Science and Jane Shawcroft with The Ohio State University. 

Visit the Youth Digital Policy Repository.

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Journal

Journal of Children and Media

DOI

10.1080/17482798.2026.2698291 

Social bonds, recognition linked to reduced suicidal thoughts in teens

 

Actions taken by parents, schools and neighbors can reduce suicidal thoughts and behavior among Pennsylvania teens, according to a new study by Penn State researchers

Nearly one in five teenagers has suicidal thoughts, and suicide is the second most common cause of death for that age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Social bonds and social recognition, however, could reduce the risk of adolescent suicide, according to a new study by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.

Suicide and suicidality are complex. To determine how young people’s interactions with others connected to higher or lower suicidal thoughts, actions or risk factors, the researchers examined data from nearly 200,000 Pennsylvania teenagers.

Overall, the team found that personal connections and public recognition for achievements at the family, school and community levels were related to reduced suicide risk, either directly or through lower levels of depression, substance use or bullying. They also found that rural students face greater risk than urban students. Published online in Journal of Adolescent Health, study results indicate how parents, schools and neighbors can help reduce suicide risk in their families and communities.

“We found that strong social bonds help decrease teen suicide risk in every circumstance,” said Xue Zhang, assistant professor of biobehavioral health and lead author of the study. “While there is no single solution to preventing adolescent suicide, strengthening social bonds is a strategy that can benefit all young people.”

The researchers analyzed data from 190,151 students in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 who participated in the Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS), a long-running survey of behavior and attitudes related to violence and the use of intoxicating or addictive substances. PAYS includes questions about substance use, depression and experiences of being bullied, factors shown to increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Students also answer questions about several factors that are known to reduce suicide risk, including their relationship with parents or caregivers, their engagement in and perceived value of school and how much they want to leave their community.

“At the highest level, these results are clear: strong relationships are key protective factors in youth suicide prevention,” said Jonathan Wright, assistant research professor in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and co-author of the study. “And when you dig into the data a little deeper, there are nuanced results that might help parents, towns and school districts keep their children safe.”

Teenagers who reported a stronger attachment to their immediate family demonstrated the greatest reduction in suicide risk. In the survey, study participants indicated whether they felt low, moderate or high attachment to their families. Those who reported one higher level of attachment — from low to moderate or from moderate to high — had one-third less suicide risk than peers.

“This is great news because it means there is something families can do,” said Zhang, a Penn State Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member. “Building a closer relationship with a teenager may not always feel easy, but it is possible. Research has identified many ways that parents can connect with their adolescent children. Listening to teens without judgment, taking an interest in topics that matter to them, and doing fun things together are great places for parents to start.”

Other results indicated that engagement in school decreased not only suicide risk but also depression, substance misuse and bully victimization, which are independent risks for suicide.

“This study and other research have shown that after-school programs are extremely valuable to both a child’s education and their mental health,” Wright said. “These programs help adolescents get involved and interact more with other youth, faculty and staff. This builds a sense of belonging and commitment, which reduces suicidal thoughts and behaviors.”

At the community level, recognition of accomplishments — like newspaper stories about academic achievements or sports successes — can increase both teens’ familial bonds and their commitment to school, bolstering the effects of those protective factors.

“Preventing adolescent suicide is a shared responsibility, and adults at home, in schools, and across communities all have an important role to play,” Zhang said.

The researchers identified one risk factor that cannot easily be modified — rurality. In the study, teens in rural counties were 7% more likely than their urban counterparts to have a plan for or to attempt suicide. Though the researchers said this was troubling, they noted that rural communities also had higher levels of community recognition for teens, which is protective.

“Rural communities face unique challenges, in part because there are fewer opportunities to participate in programs that engage — and therefore protect — adolescents,” Wright said. “The suicide risks faced by rural teens differ in small but important ways from the risks faced by urban teens. Schools and communities in any location should be acutely aware of what opportunities and programs youth can access and what may be missing from their teens’ lives.”

To illustrate risk, Wright used the metaphor of a stream, which carries a risk of drowning, flowing through the middle of a town. Even though the stream cannot be removed, people’s risk of drowning can be changed. The community could erect fences where people often fall in, and they could identify the best places along the river to pull people out before they drown.

“We can erect upstream protective ‘fences’ that keep people from falling into the river of suicidal thoughts and behaviors,” Wright said. “This study identified social connections and forms of recognition that could serve as fences to make youth safer. Other programs — like the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and local community-based programs — are designed to pull people out of that river. Together, we can help adolescents thrive and grow into a safe, healthy future.”

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Journal

Journal of Adolescent Health

DOI

10.1016/j.jadohealth.2026.06.005 

Good sleep may help adolescents thrive in school

 

A new UC Davis Health study published in Psychological Medicine suggests that when it comes to helping adolescents succeed in school and maintain healthy friendships, sleep may matter more than screen time, exercise or diet. This was particularly true for youth experiencing anxiety, depression or other mental health challenges.

Researchers examined how four lifestyle factors — sleep quality, screen time, physical activity and diet — influenced the relationship between mental health symptoms and academic and social functioning in children ages 10 to 13. They found that sleep was the strongest factor associated with better grades and fewer social problems. Screen time was the second strongest factor.

"This finding surprised us," said Jason Smucny, the study's first author and a computational neuroscientist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. "We expected sleep to be important, but we didn't expect it to stand out so clearly above other lifestyle factors, particularly screen time.”

Mental health concerns can emerge in adolescence

Adolescence is a critical developmental period when mental health concerns often emerge. Globally, about one in seven adolescents experience a mental disorder, and depression and anxiety are the leading causes of illness and disability among young people.

"Parents, educators and clinicians understandably focus on symptoms like anxiety and depression," said senior author Tara Niendam, professor of psychiatry and executive director of the UC Davis Early Psychosis Programs. "But what often matters most to young people and their families is how those symptoms affect everyday life — how they perform in school, connect with friends and navigate daily challenges. This study suggests that sleep may be one pathway linking mental health to those real-world outcomes."

Better sleep may help youth with mental health problems

Using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, researchers found that healthy lifestyle habits explained a substantial portion of the relationship between mental health symptoms and school performance.

Sleep was the strongest lifestyle factor linking mental health symptoms to lower grades, accounting for 18.5% of the association with depression, 36.3% with anxiety and 8.3% with psychotic-like disturbances.

Screen time was the second strongest lifestyle factor, accounting for 5% of the association with anxiety, 6.3% of the association with depression and 6.2% of the association with psychotic-like disturbances. Exercise and diet had smaller effects.

The researchers emphasize that healthy lifestyle habits are not a substitute for professional mental health care. However, the findings suggest that sleep may be an important and often overlooked target for helping young people experiencing mental health symptoms.

"What is encouraging is that sleep is something parents and families can address," Niendam said. "While it won't solve every mental health challenge, healthy sleep routines are a practical way to support a child's emotional well-being and day-to-day functioning."

• Read the study

Incentives to sleep boost college students’ grades

 

A study published in the Journal of Political Economy, one of the world’s top economics journals, provides the first causal evidence that improving sleep can directly enhance academic performance. 

In a large-scale field experiment involving more than 1,100 university students in the United States, researchers Osea Giuntella (Pitt), Silvia Saccardo, Carnegie Mellon (CMU), and Sally Sadoff, (UC San Diego) tested whether small monetary incentives could help students build better sleep habits, and whether those habits would translate into higher grades. 

Students Were Severely Sleep-Deprived 

At baseline, students slept an average of 6.6 hours per night. Only 43% met the recommended minimum of seven hours on weeknights. More than 85% of participants failed to get seven hours of sleep on at least one school night each week. About half of students went to bed after 1:00 a.m. on average, and one in four went to bed after 2:00 a.m. 

An Ambitious, Technology-Enabled Design 

The study combined objective sleep tracking using Fitbits with a custom-built smartphone app that delivered bedtime reminders, real-time feedback, and immediate digital payments. The app allowed the researchers to monitor engagement, track syncing behavior, and test how different combinations of cues, feedback, and incentives affected both short-term sleep and longer-term habits. 

In addition, participants completed weekly surveys on time use, mental health, and cognitive performance, including tests of creativity and quantitative problem-solving. This rich dataset allowed the researchers to identify how changes in sleep patterns affected students’ daily routines, stress, and academic productivity. 

“This was one of the most comprehensive behavioral field experiments ever conducted on sleep,” said Giuntella. “By integrating wearable technology, real-time incentives, and psychological measures, we were able to observe both the formation of sleep habits and their educational impact.” 

The project builds on the work of the Behavioral Economics Design Initiative (BEDI) and the Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Laboratory (PEEL) at the University of Pittsburgh—two research hubs that bring behavioral insights and experimental methods to real-world challenges in health, education, and technology. 

Incentives for Sleep Work—and Pay Off 

Participants were randomly assigned to receive personalized bedtime reminders, morning feedback, and small cash rewards (about $4.75 per night) for meeting a seven-hour sleep goal, verified through Fitbit trackers. 

The intervention increased the share of nights with seven or more hours of sleep by 26% (about 19 additional minutes of weeknight sleep), with smaller but lasting gains of about 8 minutes per night even after incentives ended. 

Students in the incentive group also earned 0.075–0.089 higher grade points that semester—a 0.10–0.11 standard deviation improvement, equivalent to roughly doubling the impact of traditional financial-aid incentive programs, but at less than one-quarter of the cost. 

Freshmen and STEM Students Benefited Most 

The effects on sleep and academic performance were driven primarily by freshmen—a population suddenly out of their parents’ control, and for the first time in charge of managing their time. The benefits were strongest in STEM courses, and in classes held around midday, suggesting that well-rested students perform better in the most cognitively demanding contexts. 

Better Routines, Less Screen Time, Lower Stress 

The program helped students build more regular sleep schedules and cut back on nighttime screen use, including time spent watching videos or browsing the internet. Total study time remained unchanged, but students shifted some studying from late evening to morning hours. 

The intervention did not significantly change average physical activity or end-of-semester mental health scores, but participants reported feeling they were better able to cope with stress during the treatment period. This is consistent with improved sleep quality and regularity. 

A New Model for Supporting Student Success 

“Our results show that helping students sleep more—and sleep better—can boost academic performance just as effectively as traditional academic interventions, but at a fraction of the cost,” said Giuntella. 

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Journal

Journal of Political Economy

DOI

10.1086/740221 

Struggling adolescent readers left behind: Evidence of post-COVID-19 declines

Using data from the MAP Growth National Dashboard, this research brief highlights an urgent challenge in academic recovery: middle school reading.  On average, 6th graders lost ground between 2019 and 2021, during the height of COVID-related school disruptions. But after that, achievement trends began to diverge for students who were already stronger readers before the pandemic began, and students who were struggling.

Despite these encouraging signs of progress, there are consistent and alarming signs that middle school reading test scores have continued to decline following the pandemic. In this brief, the authors dig into the most recent data on adolescent literacy, focusing specifically on how struggling readers have fared compared to higher-achieving students. These persistent declines suggest that recent literacy reforms, which have largely focused on early grades, may not adequately support students whose reading difficulties extend into middle school. 

The authors conclude by highlighting some promising state policies that build on successful early literacy reforms and extend supports into the middle school grades.

Screen use and emotional, behavioral, and social development in children

 Are there cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of screen use with child and adolescent psychosocial development? In this cohort study of 3786 children, after adjustment for family functioning, no significant associations were found between screen use and developmental difficulties at 5 or 10 years of age, and an association with higher difficulties score at 15 years of age were only seen for very high use of electronic games and not other forms of screen use. Early high screen use was associated with greater difficulties at 10 years of age, but this association was not sustained at 15 years of age. Increased screen use was not consistently associated with poorer development, highlighting the limitation of current guidelines solely focusing on duration of screen use.

The full study: 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.26804?guestAccessKey=72cdb23e-762b-4f66-a42a-69ca47969aca&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=080326