Hot car deaths How can parents forget a child in a car
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I have been studying the brain and memory since 1980, but I was baffled when a news reporter asked me in 2004 how parents can forget that their children are in the car with them. It seemed incomprehensible that parents could leave a child in a car and then go about their daily activities, as their child dies of hyperthermia in a car that reaches scorching temperatures.
My first inclination was to assume negligent parenting. Then I learned from a children's advocacy group that more than 100 children had died as a result of being mistakenly left in cars since the 1990s. None of those cases had evidence of prior abuse or neglect by their parents.
I then spoke with many of these parents. I heard the gut-wrenching 911 calls they made after their child was found dead. I have realized that, in the vast majority of cases, this was not the act of uncaring or negligent parents.
Since I began studying forgotten children in cars in 2004, more than 300 additional children have died or suffered brain damage as a result of being left in hot cars.
Deaths in hot cars nearly triple
Deaths in hot cars nearly triple
Three times as many children have died this year over last year after being left inside cars that overheat, the National Safety Council reported in early June. It's a good time to remind ourselves about the dangers of children being left in parked cars -- and also to examine what causes and what can possibly prevent these tragedies.
Memory systems of the brain compete
As a neuroscientist, I have studied this phenomenon from neurobiological and cognitive perspectives. I have interviewed parents, studied police reports, served as an expert witness in civil and criminal cases and contributed to media segments and documentaries on the topic.
Based on my research and my expertise, I have developed a hypothesis as to how this tragedy occurs. This type of memory failure is the result of a competition between the brain's "habit memory" system and its "prospective memory" system -- and the habit memory system prevails.
Prospective memory refers to the planning and execution of an action in the future, such as planning to take a child to daycare. Habit memory refers to tasks that involve repetitive actions that are performed automatically, as in routinely driving from one location to another, such as from home to work.
Prospective memory is processed by two brain structures, the hippocampus, which stores all new information, and the prefrontal cortex, which is essential to making plans for the future. The hippocampus provides access to one's awareness that a child is in the car. The prefrontal cortex enables a parent to plan a route, including the plan to bring their child to the daycare, rather than to drive straight to work.
Texas boy is 21st child to die in
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