Nursery World - 'Teach young children about mental illness'

Children aged five have a good understanding of physical illness but do not have the same grasp of what mental illness is until they are eight or nine years old, a new study has found. Researchers at Surrey University found that younger children did not always distinguish between mental and physical conditions, often considering mental illness to be contagious.

Researchers at Surrey University found that younger children did not always distinguish between mental and physical conditions, often considering mental illness to be contagious.

The study, conducted by Eithne Buchanan-Barrow and Martyn Barrett, involved 122 children aged five to 11 from Years One to Six at three schools in Warwickshire. The children were divided into three age groups - five to seven years, seven to nine years and nine to 11 years. Then they were read six vignettes, each describing an adult diagnosed with either a physical condition, including chicken pox, a broken arm and a cold, or a mental condition, such as depression, anorexia or dementia.

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