Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
He jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes. be laughed at? Do you think we could stand a little discredit, making silly asses of ourselves? Because when I finish this book, we'll be laughed out of existence. There won't be any Authority in psionics for a while—and maybe that way one of the lads who's really "No. Oh, no!" "It stops things from going out." "That's right. And it stops things from going in. It's an insulator. You need it badly. It would hurt you a great deal if you took it off, away from the Farm." The boy fought back tears. "But I don't want to go back there—" The deal with this morning—the one who's threatening to upset the whole "Full psi precautions?" asked Dorffman. sure of it. If Tommy's in the trouble I think he's in, we don't dare risk a chance of Adult Contact now. We could end up with a dead boy on our hands." get back to work again. The other letter cheered him a bit more. It bore the letterhead of the International Psionics Conference: In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic earlier papers had only hinted at the direction he was going—but the book would clear away the fog. He scanned the title page proudly. "A Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development." A good title—concise, commanding, yet modest. They would read it, all right. And they would find it a light shining brightly in the darkness, a For they were floundering. When they were finally forced to recognize that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds, with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. Nothing worked, and "I'm really overwhelmed," he said after a moment. "Within the stronghold of psionic research at last. And face to face with the Master in the trembling flesh!" Connecticut and see for myself how much pressure these experimental controls you keep talking about will actually bear. But mostly, I want to see just what in psionic hell you're so busy making yourself an misdirected, is all." "According to your Theory, that is." "Wildly unorthodox approach to psionics—but at least you're energetic enough." "We haven't been energetic enough to find an orthodox approach that got why all. It's not inconceivable that the children "Yes, wasn't it," mused Melrose, scratching his bony jaw. "Only took them seventy years to climb it, thanks to a certain man's theories. I wonder how long it'll take psionics to crawl out of the pit you're digging for it?" Lessing glared at him. "When we began studying this psi-potential, we found out some curious things. For one thing, it seemed to be immensely more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults. Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We don't know what. We do know that the child's psi-potential gradually withdraws deeper and deeper into his mind, burying itself farther and farther out of reach, just the way a tadpole's tail is absorbed deeper underground? What buries it so deeply that adult human beings can't get hard grey plastic material, with a network of wiring buried in the substance, connected to a simple pocket-sized power source. "The major problem," Lessing said, "has been to shield the children from any external psionic stimuli, except those we wished to expose them to. Our goal is a perfectly controlled psi environment. The monitors are quite effective—a simple Renwick scrambler screen." "It blocks off all types of psi activity?" asked Melrose. "As far as we can measure, yes." "Which may not be very far." so far afield at that—with scholarships supported by Hoffman Center funds. Other children come to us—foundlings, desertees, children from broken homes, children of all ages from infancy on. Sometimes they stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as psionics research is concerned, we are not trying to be teachers. We are strictly observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions where they can develope what potential they have— without the presence of external psionic influences they would normally be subject to. The results have been remarkable." grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing in a large room. "They're perfectly insulated from us," said Lessing. "A variety of penetrated into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch, nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered. Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts and starts of moments. "Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually, had a fairly constant recordable psi potential of about seventeen on the arbitrary scale we find useful here. Any two of them scale in at thirty-four to thirty-six. Put the three together and they operate The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he to see what I'm driving at," he said slowly. "Yes," said Melrose. "I think I'm beginning to see." He scratched his jaw. "You think that it's adult psi-contact that drives the child's potential underground—that somehow adult contact acts like a damper, a sort of colossal candle-snuffer." "That's what I think," said Lessing. "How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?" Lessing blinked. "Why should they?" "Maybe they enjoy the crash when the blocks fall down." "But that wouldn't make any difference, would it? The blocks still fall down." an Authority in a field where the most devastating thing that could see him go, Lessing thought, and tried to force the thin, angry man firmly out of his mind. But somehow Melrose wouldn't force. "Stop worrying about it," Dorffman urged. "He's a crackpot. He's "He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after "I hurt. My head hurts. I hurt all over. Go away." "Why do you hurt?" horribly wrong—could the boy really be sensing the source of the trouble? Lessing felt a cold knot gather in the pit of his stomach. He knew what happened when adult psi-contact struck a psi-high youngster's mind. He had seen it a hundred times at the Farm. But even more—he had felt it in his own mind, bursting from the child. Like a violent physical blow, the hate and fear and suspicion and cruelty buried and repressed in the adult mind, crushing suddenly into the raw receptors of the child's mind like a smothering fog—it was a fearful thing. A healthy youngster could survive it, even though the scar remained. But an animal instinctively seeks its own protection sense of warmth—peace and security and comfort—swept in as the fear faded from the boy's face. The fire engine clattered to the floor. They analyzed the tapes later, punching the data cards with greatest before. There must be an error." "Of course," said Lessing. "According to the theory. The theory says that adult psi-contact is deadly to the growing child. It smothers their potential through repeated contact until it dries up completely. We've proved that, haven't we? Time after time. Everything goes according to the theory—except Tommy. But Tommy's psi-potential was drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the balance of his mind. Then he made an adult contact, and we saw how he

<question>:
Why will adult psi contact hurt the children?

<options>:
A Adult psi contact increases a child's psionic ability so much it can cause a psychotic break.
B Adult psi contact overwhelms the children's brains. It gives them migraines.
C Adult psi contact overwhelms the children's nervous systems. It gives them nose bleeds.
D Adult psi contact dampens the children's natural psionic abilities. Eventually, adult psi contact will snuff out a child's abilities altogether.

<answer>:

D