Heard on the street

"Let's take a billion dollars and invest it in the neurosciences."

--Ken Dychtwald, PhD, author of Age Power, on the prospect of 14 million dementia sufferers in the mid-21st century (Washington Post, Sept. 16).

"There is this pervasive belief that by investing in the early years, you're going to inoculate your child against later academic shortcomings. It's an abuse of the neuroscience, and it's misleading to parents."

--John Bruer, PhD, author of The Myth of the First Three Years, on child-raising views (U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 13).

"A dozen or more years of education should yield students who can think well about the essential questions of human life: Who are we, where do we come from, what's the world made of, what have humans achieved and what can we achieve, how does one lead a good life?"

-- Howard Gardner, psychologist and educational researcher, on what should be taught in schools (New York Times, Sept. 11).

"It is a societal illusion that suicide is rare. In the United States, more teen-agers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, pneumonia, influenza, birth defects and stroke combined."

--Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, on suicide as a public health problem (Washington Post, Sept. 26).

"They're not doing it for popularity or publicity. They do it to challenge themselves physically and mentally to see if they can withstand the pressure and get in touch with who they are."

--Jennifer Taylor, Arlington, Mass. sports psychologist, on extreme sports, which are getting increasingly extreme (Boston Globe, Sept. 29).

Heard in the Monitor

"People need to start talking about alternatives so they can tell Congress what they want."

--Karen Shore, a N.Y. psychologist who is spearheading "Rescue Health Care Day" on April 1 to proclaim a vote of "no confidence" in managed care, page 20.

"You're lucky if you're a chair 10 years and you haven't been to court."

--David Martin, chair of the psychology department at North Carolina State University, on the risks that come with being a chair, page 33.



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