(RNN) - Flowers given on Mother's Day may be at the root of some children performing at less than their best on end-of-year school exams and may disadvantage them for the rest of their lives.
Pesticides are at fault for lowering the children's mental functions, said researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. Their study was published in the May 2017 journal NeuroToxicology.
Children associated with the peak pesticide spraying season for the Mother's Day flower harvest in Ecuador, the world's third largest producer of cut flowers, were compared to children examined later in a time of lower flower production and pesticide use. The 308 children tested were ages 4 to 9 and lived in agricultural communities, but did not work in agriculture.
Researchers described as "novel" and "troublesome" their discovery that children examined sooner after the harvest displayed lower performance on measures such as attention, self-control, eye-hand coordination and recognizing the location of objects they could see.
"This (finding) is troublesome because the altered mental functions observed are essential for children's learning, and in May-July students typically take their end-of-year exams," said the lead author of the study, Jose R. Suarez, in a news release.
"If their learning and performance abilities are affected in this period, they may graduate from high school with lower scores, which may hinder their ability to access higher education or obtain a job."
Early exposure to agricultural pesticides has been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Boys appear more susceptible than girls.
Ecuador relies heavily on agricultural pesticides in an industry that employs more than 103,000 people.
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