Archive for the 'Acting in' Category

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TECBD 2007

Published on 28 August 2007 in Acting in, Acting out, ADHD, Assessment, Autism, Behavior management, Bi-polar, Bullying, Causes, Conduct disorder, Depression, Families, News, Policy, Research, Schizophrenia and Treatment. 0 Comments

The annual meeting of Teacher Educators for Children with Behavioral Disorders (TECBD), now named after Rob Rutherford who founded it, will be held 15-17 November 2007 in Tempe (AZ, US). Steve Forness, Cheryl George, and John Maag are among the people who’ll be speaking this year.

Every year, EBDBlog has announced the call for papers, so this is nothing new. There is still time to propose a presentation for this year’s meeting. Potential presenters may submit proposals for sessions using the TECBD site.

Link to the Web site for TECBD. Link for proposing presentations.

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Cog-mod for adolescent depression

Published on 6 July 2007 in Acting in, Depression, Research and Treatment. 2 Comments

The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy released a report endorsing the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy for preventing depression in youths at risk for this problem. The report covers the results of two well-conducted studies of the intervention.
Continue reading ‘Cog-mod for adolescent depression’

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NARSAD 2007

Published on 24 May 2007 in Acting in, Acting out, Assessment, Autism, Behavior management, Bi-polar, Causes, Conduct disorder, Depression, Families, News, Policy, Research, Schizophrenia and Treatment. 0 Comments

NARSAD: The Mental Health Research Association announced its grants for 2007, including 23 Distinguished Investigators and 222 Young Investigators. The awards represent more than $15 million in grants, and many of them are relevant to Emotional and Behavioral Disorders among children and youths.
Continue reading ‘NARSAD 2007′

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EBD goes to college

Published on 8 December 2006 in Acting in, Bi-polar, Depression, Families and News. 0 Comments

For students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders who make the transition to post-secondary education and for their families, the challenges are substantial, according to a story entitled “Off to College on Their Own, Shadowed by Mental Illness” by Lynette Clemetson of the New York Times. Ms. Clemetson uses two separate cases to illustrate her observations.

Her mother called it a negotiable proposition. But to Jean Lynch-Thomason, a 17-year-old with bipolar disorder who started college this fall, her mom’s notion to fly from their home in Nashville to her campus in Olympia, Wash., every few weeks to monitor Jean’s illness felt needlessly intrusive.

“I am so totally aware of the control you have over me right now,” Jean said, sitting in her parents’ living room one evening last June, before coolly reminding her mother of her upcoming 18th birthday. “In a few months the power dynamic is going to be different.”

For Chris Ference, 19, who is also bipolar, the fast-approaching autonomy of his freshman year held somewhat less appeal. His parents had always directed every aspect of his mental health care. Last summer, over Friday night pizza at his home in Cranberry Township, Pa., he told them that assuming control felt more daunting than liberating.

“If it was up to me, I would just have it so you could make those decisions for me up until I was like, 22,” he said. “I mean, you’ve raised me well up to now. You know me better than anyone.”

This is an important topic, so I’m glad that Ms. Clemetson brought it to the fore. Follow this link (free subscription required) to read Ms. Clemetson’s story. Fortunately, there are resources on which college students with EBD can depend; learn more about some of them at these sites:

  • Active Minds on Campus is a national (US) organization that Ms. Clemetson mentioned; Active Minds encourages student-managed groups on college and university campuses to promote awareness of mental health issues, advocate for mental health and mental illness resources, encourage fellow students to seek help when it is needed, and establish relationships with the mental health community. (I’m glad to note that there’s a chapter at U.Va., the institution where I am employed.)
  • The American Psychological Association provides a special section of its outreach Web site devoted to college mental health.
  • APA’s college mental health section.
  • Cope.Care.Deal, which is funded by the Annenberg Foundation Trust a Sunnylands, provides resources for adolescents.
  • Colleges and universities that receive US federal funds are required to provide services for individuals with disabilities, and this requirement goes beyond ensuring that campuses have wheelchair-accessible facilities; search for “disability” at any school’s Web site.

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10 December 2006 Update: On Psych Central, John Grohol covered this story, too. Here’s a link to his entry.

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Preventing depression

Published on 8 July 2006 in Acting in, Depression, News and Research. 0 Comments

Some methods of addressing depression in children are more effective than others, according to an analysis of the research literature reported by Jason L. Horowitz and Judy Garber of Vanderbilt University in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Although the overall effect sizes Professors Horowitz and Garber report are small, there are worthwhile findings. Effects were generally larger when interventions targeted particular groups than when provided to all children (often in hopes of avoiding stigma) and when the samples studied included more girls and adolescents. Here’s the abstract:

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
2006, Vol. 74, No. 3, 401– 415

The Prevention of Depressive Symptoms in Children and Adolescents: A Meta-Analytic Review
Jason L. Horowitz and Judy Garber
Vanderbilt University

Research on the prevention of depressive symptoms in children and adolescents was reviewed and synthesized with meta-analysis. When all 30 studies were included, selective prevention programs were found to be more effective than universal programs immediately following intervention. Both selective and indicated prevention programs were more effective than universal programs at follow-up, even when the 2 studies with college students were excluded. Effect sizes for selective and indicated prevention programs tended to be small to moderate, both immediately postintervention and at an average follow-up of 6 months. Most effective interventions are more accurately described as treatment rather than prevention. Suggestions for future research include testing potential moderators (e.g., age, gender, anxiety, parental depression) and mechanisms, designing programs that are developmentally appropriate and gender and culturally sensitive, including longer follow-ups, and using multiple measures and methods to assess both symptoms and diagnoses.

Link to download a PDF of the article.

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Bullying study

Published on 5 July 2006 in Acting in, Acting out, Bullying, Conduct disorder, Depression, News and Research. 0 Comments

Just in case someone forgot or didn’t understand in the first place, bullying has nasty consequences.

PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 1 July 2006, pp. 130-138 (doi:10.1542/peds.2005-2388)

Bullying Victimization Uniquely Contributes to Adjustment Problems in Young Children: A Nationally Representative Cohort Study

Louise Arseneault, PhDa, Elizabeth Walsh, MDb, Kali Trzesniewski, PhDa, Rhiannon Newcombe, PhDa, Avshalom Caspi, PhDa,c and Terrie E. Moffitt, PhDa,c

a Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre
b Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, United Kingdom
c Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin

OBJECTIVE. It has been shown that bullying victimization is associated with behavior and school adjustment problems, but it remains unclear whether the experience of bullying uniquely contributes to those problems after taking into account preexisting adjustment problems.

METHODS. We examined bullying in the Environmental Risk Study, a nationally representative 1994–1995 birth cohort of 2232 children. We identified children who experienced bullying between the ages of 5 and 7 years either as pure victims or bully/victims. We collected reports from mothers and teachers about children’s behavior problems and school adjustment when they were 5 years old and again when they were age 7.

RESULTS. Compared with control children, pure victims showed more internalizing problems and unhappiness at school when they were 5 and 7 years. Girls who were pure victims also showed more externalizing problems than controls. Compared with controls and pure victims, bully/victims showed more internalizing problems, more externalizing problems, and fewer prosocial behaviors when they were 5 and 7 years. They also were less happy at school compared with control children at 7 years of age. Pure victims and bully/victims showed more behavior and school adjustment problems at 7 years of age, even after controlling for preexisting adjustment problems at 5 years of age.

CONCLUSIONS. Being the victim of a bully during the first years of schooling contributes to maladjustment in young children. Prevention and intervention programs aimed at reducing mental health problems during childhood should target bullying as an important risk factor.

Link to the Pediatrics abstract.

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Parasuicidal behavior

Published on 19 June 2006 in Acting in, News and Research. 0 Comments

Sheila Crowell, a doctoral student at the University of Washington (Seattle, WA; US), and several colleagues have found that “cutting,” a parasuicidal behavior that has been much in the news lately, may have biological markers, according to a press release written by Joel Schwarz.

University of Washington psychologists have discovered that adolescent girls who engage in behaviors such as cutting themselves have lower levels of serotonin, a hormone and brain chemical, in their blood. They also have reduced levels in the parasympathetic nervous system of what is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a measure of the ebb and flow of heart rate along with breathing.

Link to Mr. Schwarz’s story.

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Literacy and behavior problems

Published on 26 May 2006 in Acting in, Acting out, Autism, Depression, News and Research. 0 Comments

Here’s an abstract from PubMed discussing links between behavior disorders and literacy problems.

Literacy and mental disorders.

Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2006 Jul;19(4):350-354

Authors: Maughan B, Carroll J

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review examines recent evidence on the comorbidity between literacy problems and psychiatric disorder in childhood and discusses possible contributory factors. RECENT FINDINGS: Recent studies confirm the substantial overlap of literacy problems with a range of emotional/behavioural difficulties in childhood. Literacy problems and inattention may share genetic influences, contributing to associations with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. To an extent, links with conduct problems may be also mediated by attentional difficulties. In addition, findings suggest bidirectional influences whereby disruptive behaviours impede reading progress and reading failure exacerbates risk for behaviour problems. Associations between literacy problems and anxiety disorders are not entirely mediated by inattentiveness. Rather, comorbid anxiety disorders seem likely to arise from the stressors associated with reading failure. Findings in relation to depression are less consistent, but suggest that poor readers may be vulnerable to low mood. Children with autism seem more likely to face problems in reading comprehension than the decoding difficulties more prominent in other disorders. SUMMARY: Literacy problems are associated with increased risks of both externalizing and internalizing disorders in childhood, with different mechanisms likely to be implicated in each case. When comorbid problems occur, each is likely to require separate treatment.

PMID: 16721162 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Link to the PubMed source.

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Adolescent depression

Published on 4 January 2006 in Acting in, Depression, News and Research. 1 Comment

Depression continues to be a common problem among adolescents in the US, and it also continues to go untreated, according to a report based on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health released by the Office of Applied Studies in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) late in December. The proportion of adolescents reporting depression increases with age (see Figure 1).

  • In 2004, 9.0 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 17 (an estimated 2.2 million adolescents) experienced at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year
  • Among adolescents aged 12 to 17 who reported having experienced an MDE in the past year, less than half (40.3 percent) received treatment for depression during that time
  • Adolescents who had experienced a past year MDE were more than twice as likely to have used illicit drugs in the past month than their peers who had not (21.2 vs. 9.6 percent)

Pardon my choice of words, but these data are pretty depressing. I am not sure whether educators can reduce the proportion of adolescents who experience a MDE, but at the least we ought to be do a better job of helping those who do experience depression. We need to develop and implement a program that helps educators spot the signs of depression among adolescents and sensitively refer those with symptoms for services. We need to provide support and appropriate services.

Link to HTML or PDF summary of the report

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Dolphins redux

Published on 27 December 2005 in Acting in, Depression, Musings and Research. 2 Comments

In November of 2005 I covered a report from the British Medical Journal about a study of so-called “dolphin therapy.” In brief, the researchers solicited people with depression to travel to a tropical area where they were promised the opportunity to swim with dolphins. As people arrived, some were diverted into a control group that simply went swimming and others actually got to swim with dolphins. When asked to complete a self-report inventory about depression after a couple of weeks, those who swam with dolphins gave answers showing lower levels of depression than those who did not swim with dolphins. I previously enumerated problems with this study.

Welp, I learned that Eric Nagourney of the New York Times has covered the same study, though less critically, in an article entitled “Therapies: A Dose of Dolphins for Moderate Depression.” Mr. Nagourney noted another concern about the therapy: “Some conservationists, however, frown on swim-with-dolphin programs, contending they are stressful to the animals.”

John Grohol’s Pysch Central blog reprinted part of Mr. Nagourney’s article. Psych Central offered no further analysis of the study.

Intrigued by the spread of the story, I used “dolphin therapy depression ‘British Medical Journal’” as a search term in Google and Yahoo. Whew! It appears this study has legs! There were 1000s of hits (~2400 in Yahoo; ~12000 in Google). To be sure, not all of the hits will link to uncritical reports of the study, but there’s enough buzz clearly hooked to the study that its results will probably become accepted as fact. Sigh.

This seems to me to be another instance of the appeal of a novel therapy causing people to accept results from a study that we might otherwise question strongly. Perhaps I’m being hypercritical…. I sure would like to see the invitation that went to the people who participated in the therapy; it would tell a lot. How were the people recruited? I do not recall that the study documented this clearly. Oh well. The study will be a good example to use in research classes.

Have you ever touched a dolphin? I have and I am not depressed. So there! It must work.

Link to Mr. Nagourney’s article and a link to Psych Central’s entry.

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Dolphin therapy

Published on 29 November 2005 in Acting in, Depression, News and Research. 2 Comments

People with depression who spent an hour a day for two weeks in water with dolphins reported lower levels of depression than others who have spent comparable time in water without dolphins, according to a report by Christian Antonioli and Michael A. Reveley published in the British Mental Journal. The study, which was conducted in Honduras primarily with 40-year-old women, employed a single-blind design with random assignment to conditions.

Although this report will provide great encouragement to advocates of so-called holistic approaches to therapy, it will also provide multiple opportunities to discuss the potential for research to overlook the obvious. I’ll leave the detailed analysis for another day, but note in passing that factors such as (a) recruiting people for a given experience and then redirecting those in the control group to a different treatment, (b) using self-report data as the dependent variable when reporters know what therapy they are getting and even sought it, and (c) capitalizing on the temporary benefits of just about any therapy call these results into question. Furthermore, as the wonderful folks at Annals of Improbable Research have noted, this study illustrates the Gillinov Effect: Commenting on a different study, Marc Gillinov said, “I’m not surprised at all that something that makes people feel good also makes them feel less anxious, has measurable physiological effects.”

Link to an HTML version of the BMJ article by Mr. Antonioli and Mr. Reveley.

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