Multisystemic Therapy, on which I’ve reported previously, received another boost recently. Over on Social Programs that Work, a new study was added to the corpus of studies supporting the efficacy of Multisystemic Therapy. The new study by Jane Timmons-Mitchell and colleagues extends the literature about the value of this method for addressing Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
Continue reading ‘MST redux’
Archive for the 'Acting out' Category
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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′
In an article entitled “City special-ed lapses increase school violence,” Martha Woodall and Susan Snyder of the Philadelphia (PA, US) Inquirer describe how the local education agency’s failure to provide appropriate services to a student with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders played a role in that student’s beating of a teacher. On 23 February 2007 in a hallway outside Frank Burd’s algebra class, student Donte Boykin pushed his teacher (Mr. Burd) into another student, James Footman. Mr. Footman punched Mr. Burd in the face repeatedly, and Mr. Burd fell, breaking his neck.
Continue reading ‘Schools failed’
A school board in Milwaukee (WI, US) voted to develop a policy that would allow schools to permit the use of handcuffs on students. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commented on this issue in an editorial in late April. Here’s the beginning of that editorial:
Continue reading ‘Handcuffs in school’
The Incredible Years programs, which comprise a coordinated set of (a) parent training programs and individual family counseling, (b) teacher training and school consultation, and (c) group child training in social skills, problem-solving, and anger management, are in the news again. The IY programs are aimed at reducing conduct problems in young children. They have been researched extensively.
Continue reading ‘Incredible Years’
Sphere: Related ContentAccording to a story carried by CBS 3, a Philadelphia (PA, US) television station, authorities have charged a 12-year-old student with disabilities with disorderly conduct after she urinated in her pants at school. The CBS 3 report is based on a report published 20 December 2006 by the Danville (PA, US) Press Enterprise under the headline “Danville pupil charged with wetting her pants: Angry parents say police shouldn’t have been called” and with the lead, “A sixth-grade girl was charged by police with deliberately wetting her pants at Danville Middle School. (The Press Enterprise article requires a paid subscription, so I’m basing my coverage on an AP article carried by CBS 3. Continue reading ‘Conduct disorder?’
Sphere: Related ContentUnder the title “Troubled Children: Parenting as Therapy for Child’s Mental Disorders” in the New York Times, Benedict Carey has an extended article about parents using behavioral techniques to address the problems experienced by children with ADHD, acting out, Tourettes, and other Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Mr. Carey focused his article on a family, the Popczynskis, who successfully learned to employ management procedures by working with William Pelham and his colleages at the the University of Buffalo.
Continue reading ‘Family therapy’
Sphere: Related ContentOver on Mentor Matters Mrs. Ris has reported on her efforts to help a child with some substantial Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Mrs. Ris is an experienced teacher who’s seen some difficult students, but she’s decided that this particular boy needs something more than what she and her team can provide. Having had to make similar recommendations, I know how difficult it is to make such decisions. But, for some children, the plain fact is that sometimes more help is needed. Mrs. Ris explains this well.
I’m not sure if this is the same child to whom she referred when she welcomed a sixth child to her classroom, but there are two recent posts—relief and the waiting game—that tell the current story.
Sphere: Related ContentSometimes I just don’t get it.
The following abstract (from PubMed) describes research on use of medications as a treatment for preschoolers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, disruptive behavior disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. I suspect that the article reports on prior interventions that have been tried in most of the cases described in the study, but I have to wonder whether those interventions were well-conceived and -executed. Afterall, preschoolers are little kids. Most all of them are very susceptible to differential reinforcement. Did anyone test a carefully implemented time-out program with these kids (and I don’t mean one of the bogus take-time-to-get-yourself-together practices that are often labeled “time out”)?
There are surely a few preschoolers who will not respond to effective behavior management practices, and for those children and their families we must turn to additional means of therapy. But, I hope professionals concerned with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders among young children are using well-documented behavior modification procedures as a much earlier line of therapy.
Sphere: Related ContentProg Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2006 Sep 26; [Epub ahead of print] Related Articles, Links
Psychopharmacologic treatment of aggressive preschoolers: A chart review.
Staller JA.
Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, SUNY Upstate Medical University, 750 East Adams Street, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA.
Very young children with severe aggression are a growing focus of care in child psychiatry. Notwithstanding diagnostic uncertainties in this age group, medication, not usually considered a first-line intervention, is becoming a treatment option for a growing number of clinicians in spite of a dearth of research in this area. This chart review assessed the patient characteristics, diagnoses and treatment responses of aggressive preschoolers who were treated in a university child psychiatry outpatient clinic from 2001-2004. The most common diagnoses were Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Disruptive Behavior Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medication was prescribed for a majority of the children with prominent aggression; atypical antipsychotics were prescribed with the greatest frequency, followed by stimulants and then alpha agonists-treatment response ratings indicated moderate to marked improved in a majority of the preschoolers who received one or a combination of these medications. Findings support the need for controlled trials of medication in preschoolers with severe aggression.
Over at Soapy Water molly_g has been documenting the joys and travails of having a child who “didn’t come out of the cookie cutter.” “The Kid,” as she calls him, is going on 7 years old (I think) and having a difficult go at this time, behaving aggressively and experiencing what molly_g calls “a seasonal disorder.” There are issues of many stripes in this story (medication, insurance, etc.), and now she’s struggling with the schools about appropriate placement. It’s a story the deserves following and molly_g and The Kid deserve support. Go read “Rock bottom” and the rest of the entries recounting the story.
Sphere: Related Content
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