Teachers' ratings of children's behaviour in relation to blood lead levels

Abstract

Teachers rated the behaviour of 166 children whose blood lead levels had previously been determined. Ratings were made on the Conners Scale, the Rutter Scale B(2), and Needleman's Scale. The results broadly replicated the findings of Needleman et al. (1979) in so far as they indicate a relationship between difficulties in attention and increased blood lead levels over the normal range of blood lead values. 'Hyperactivity' on the Rutter and Conners scales were found to be significantly related to children's blood lead levels, independent of chronological age. Social factors remain uncontrolled in this pilot study.

Behavioral effects of lead: commonalities between experimental and epidemiologic data.

“…These findings were replicated using the same rating scale on a population of children in London (33). Yule et al (33) reported a significant increase in hyperactivity, conduct problems, and inattentive/passive behavior on the Conners scale in these same children who were also impaired on the WISC-R (34). In the prospective study in children in New Zealand, Fergusson et al (62) reported increased inattention and restlessness, short attention span, and increased distractibility as functions of dentine lead in children at 8 and 9 years of age ( Table 2).…”

“…In the Port Pirie study (52), all scales of the WISC-R were affected when the children were 7 years old, although the information and block design were the most sensitive. (18,28) (29) (30,31) (32) (33)(34)(35) (45), while performance at 10 years of age was most associated with lead levels at 2 years (47). Similarly, early measures in the Port Pirie study were associated with early blood lead levels (51), while performance on the MSCA at age 4 was associated with blood lead at 2 and 3 years of age but not earlier (53).…”

“…(30) Much of the earlier work in animal (36) models assessed the effects of high doses of (34139) lead on simple learning problems. Studies (48) in which rats were exposed prenatally plus (49) postnatally usually produced positive 189) results on simple discrimination problems (18,33) (76-78), while rats exposed postnatally or during adulthood generally showed no impairment on simple learning problems even at high doses (79)(80)(81)(82)(83). However, ie 1970s and even on these simple problems there was n high-dose some indication that spatial problems odents, with might be more sensitive to disruption by 7 measures as lead exposure than simple discrimination Results were tasks (81,84,85).…”

The effect of lead exposure on behavior problems in preschool children.

“…As is typical in studies of childhood lead exposure, blood lead was log transformed (natural log) owing to its skewed distribution. For each subscale, a regression analysis was conducted for each blood sampling time point (umbilical cord and at 6,12,18,24,30, and 36 months). In each case, sociodemographic variables (town, residence type, child's sex and ethnicity, maternal education, and sum of the 2 HOME subscales) were first entered together.…”

“…Subsequent studies in children selected for either high lead exposure or behavior problems showed inconsistent findings; these inconsistencies likely resulted from failure to adequately control for sociodemographic variables, such as family poverty and parenting practices, that are associated with both lead exposure3 and behavioral disturbances4 (e.g., see Needleman et al5 and Yule et al 6). …”