EBD Blog

Here’s a description of a highly touted intervention.

[Method X] is recognized worldwide as a general method to reinforce the body’s protective abilities for people of all ages who suffer from various disorders and pre-illness conditions, i.e. practically healthy people.

[Method X] involves the organized interaction between [therapy agent] and person, with optimal conditions to offer benefits to the person as well as the [therapy agent].

[Method X] can assist in the following tasks:

- Correction of psychological development for people with nervous system disorders
- Development of cognitive activity for people with psycho-neurological disorders
- Development of children’s speech
- Removal of chronic pain
- Reduction of neurological and vegetative-vascular reactions
- Relief from psychosomatic conditions
- Reduction of unintentional movements, tics and spasms
- Rehabilitation of people, victims of violence or other stressful situations
- Psycho-emotional training for specialists whose work is connected with extremely stressful situations
- Leisure and relaxation for healthy people–children and adults

The main component of [Method X] is the psychological effect from the interaction between [the client] and [the therapy assistant] in an unaccustomed environment and the physical therapy effect from [Y and Z] made by these [therapists].

Would you want to use this therapy for yourself or your child?

I would! But, that’s because I know what the therapy is.

According to Liz Ditz of I Speak of Dreams, Stephen Hinshaw gave the closing keynote speech at the Learning and the Brain conference in San Fransisco (CA , US). Professor Hinshaw, who chairs the Department of Psychology at the University of California—Berkeley and is an eminent psychologist with a list of accolades as long as my arm, spoke about his current book on the stigma associated with mental illness. Liz’s report starts as follows:

The closing keynote speech at the San Francisco Learning and the Brain conference was by Stephen P. Hinshaw on The Mark of Shame: Attitudes Toward Mental Illness (With Emphasis on Children). I thought it was excellent. You should read his memoir of his father’s life-long struggle with mental illness, The Years of Silence are Past: My Father’s Life with Bipolar Disorder. An interview is here; the Amazon link is here.

Continue reading ‘Hinshaw about mental illness’

Eric Fombonne has continued to voice his doubts about the putative relationship between thimerosal and Autism. In an editorial in the prestigious Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Fombonne, whom alert readers will remember was mentioned in an earlier EBD Blog post because of his research on this issue, makes a clear case about the problems with the thimerosal hypothosis. In his comments for the Archives, he is providing context for the results of another study in that journal that shows no apparent causal relationship.

Here are the first few words of Dr. Fombonne’s comments:
Continue reading ‘Fombonne on thimerosal’

As some loyal readers (if there are any) know, today is Jim Kauffman’s birthday. Because he retired, I don’t see him as often as I once did. I miss the frequent chuckles over absurd events and the chances to talk seriously about topics that really matter.

Anyway, happy birthday, buddy!

“Are we too quick to medicate children?” Melissa Healy asks this question in the headline of an article in the Los Angeles Times. She also weaves the related question—”Are we able to discriminate between normal and atypical behavior?”—into her article.

These are generally sensible questions. They reflect issues of real concern in the scientific community. But, when the headline asks whether we presrcibe medications too quickly, one can guess the answer pretty readily. Unless I’m way off base, would many readers expect the answer to be “no?”

Indeed, the article is nearly chockfull of critical concern about diagnoses, labeling, and treatment. Ms. Healy cites research results (without revealing some of the sources) and quotes at least a half dozen experts. Some of these experts would probably be consider advocates by some of the other experts.

As is de rigeur in contemporary journalism, Ms. Healy leads (and closes) with a case example. She tells the story of a 38-year-old mother who takes her 11-year-old daughter to a psychiatrist, because the girl’s “behavior and performance in school were exemplary, but an ill-tempered outburst had gotten the preteen kicked out of a Girl Scout troop she had joined at age 5. The girl was confused and heartbroken over her ejection.”

Katie’s maternal instincts tell her she must protect her child. But from what, she asks — a disease that threatens health, happiness and future? A bogus label applied to an admittedly challenging kid? Or drugs with potentially harmful and little-studied side effects?

And protect her exactly how — by resisting or by medicating?

In general, this is not a dispassionate examination of the question under which Ms. Healy’s article appears. I say this not because I disagree with her slant, but because the treatment is sensational and poorly informed. Had she gone more deeply into the topic, she would have learned about effective behavioral treatments that provide viable alternatives to medicaiton for many child behavior problems. Instead, she stuck with the hidden-mysteries view of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders of children.

Link to Ms. Healy’s article.

When should a student’s right to participate in education be denied because his or her behavior is inimical to rights of other students’ to benefit from education? When is one student’s behavior so problemsome that his “right” to be in a classroom is trumped by his peers’ right to participate in an orderly learning environment?

Most educators, I would hazard a guess, want to make it possible for students to participate in a minimally restrictive environment. Although the “least restrictive environment” clause of the US special education law is buried pretty deeply in the structural outline of legal guarantees, it is advocated strongly by many people (educators, parents, attorneys, etc.) concerned about special education. And, many advocates argue that it—the “right” to the “least restrictive environment”—is the ace of trumps.

Is it? When does the balance shift from the access rights of an individual to the access rights of the individual’s peers? When are the interests of an individual to participate in “mainstream” education of lesser importance than the interests of peer students’ access to an environment that is conducive to learning (i.e., not disrupted)?

These and some other matters are the likely subjects of discussion at a forthcoming meeting on classroom disruptions. Suitably scheduled for Hallowe’en, the meeting will be held in Washington (DC, US). here’s the basic info:

Class Disrupted: Disorder and Its Effects on Learning and School Culture

October 31, 2007

Location: Washington, DC

Many teachers and principals struggle to create and maintain positive classroom and school cultures–free of disruption, disrespect, bullying, intimidation, and violence. While public school systems are rightly focused on meeting AYP and the other requirements of No Child Left Behind, they must also address the fact that without order and respect, little learning and progress can be achieved. Student misbehavior that goes unaddressed in the hallways and the classroom undermines instruction, stifles the development of character and social skills, and contributes to teacher burnout. This forum will:

* Examine disorderly conditions in schools, including factors contributing to the problem, looking beyond traditional concerns about safety and violence, to acts of disrespect, disregard for school rules, and disruptive behavior;
* Highlight the consequences of disorder in schools, specifically on learning and culture;
* Present new ideas on how law impacts student discipline at the school level; and
* Share key perspectives on what must be done to help restore respect and order and maintain safe and productive schools.

Date: October 31, 2007
Time: 8:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Registration begins at 8:00 a.m.
Lunch will be provided
Location:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C.

If you’re interested in this topic, contact RSVP@cgood.org. (or for more information, contact Ali Kliegman at akliegman [at] cgood.org or 212.681.8199 x14.

Flash of the electrons to Elona Hartjes of Teachers At Risk whose post, “Class Disrupted: Disorder and Its Effects on Learning and School Culture” brought this to my attention.

How many students have Emotional and Behavioral Disoders? Is it 1%, 5%, 10%, or even more? What is the true prevalence of EBD?

Some children and youth with problems in the emotional and behavioral area have difficulties that do not rise to the level of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Reasonable adults know that every individual experiences bumps along the road. But what counts as a legitimate Emotional or Behavioral Disorder, not just a bump in the road?

This begs the question of how we define EBD. That’s a serious issue, one that policy makers should examine. And they should turn to the extant data about what’s normal. There are plenty of data that address this point.

The philosophical side of the question about what is normal turns, in part, on the question of whether “normal” is defined as what’s “right” or what’s “average” (borrowing from Ullman & Krassner). Some behavior among children and youth (say, sexual contact with peers) may be common (i.e., average) but not socially acceptable (i.e., ideal). Societies must wrestle with this matter, and social mores (e.g., religious views) often enter in the discussion.

But, another way to examine this matter is to ask how often people (parents, teachers, and individuals themselves) report that children and youth display behaviors that are so unusual that they are abnormal. Is, for example, Jim’s nosepicking such a problem (he really gouges the nostrils all day long!) that it’s more frequent and more severe (deeper pentration) than 99% of other children? Well, if the answer is “yes” and we consider nosepicking an inappropriate behavior, then it’s a problem. It’s abnormal.

It turns out that researchers have lots of data about the important others’ (parents, teachers) ratings of of children and youths’ behavior. Some kids do things that are generally out of the range or normal often and over extended periods of time. Sometimes, multiple raters—parents and teachers or teachers over several years—give similar ratings to the same youths.

If there is convergence among these ratings, wouldn’t one think that they represent problems worth examining? I’d say, “Yes.”

My colleagues and I are examining all the empirical studies we can find that report data about the prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems among school children. If we find that scientifically trustworthy studies show a higher prevalence of EBD among school children than the percentage of students identified by the research samples, we’ll have to suggest alternative explanations for the findings.

What might those explanations be? Why are more (or fewer) students with EBD identified in the US schools than are pesent in the population, according to prevalence research?

Altough I’ve only recently skimmed it, Erica Westly has a blog that appears to have some relevant content. Readers might wish to take a peek at Adolescent Psych. I saw content on many topics that overlap with those we cover here at EBD Blog.

What happens when a child with Autism grows up? In “Raising Adam,” Charlene Arsenault explores this issue by examining the case of Adam Davis and his family. Ms. Arsenault’s article, which appeared in the Worchester Magazine (published by Worcehster State College, MA, US) 09 August 2007, has a good combination of tugs on the heartstrings and the difficult real-life problems encountered in providing care for adults with disabilities.

But Adam’s 27 now, and Nancy finds herself stepping toward the most major decision of her life. For parents with severely handicapped children, there usually comes a time where they’ve got to put their faith in another caregiver — when their “kids” have got to move to another living situation for everyone’s sanity. Adam has to move on so that Nancy herself can finally live. He is so ingrained in her daily existence that she has little separation from him; and he is an integral part of his sister Sarah’s and father Rich’s lives as well.

Although the problems are substantial—they must sometimes be overwhelming—for the individuals and their families, there are also problems for public policy. Contemporary emphasis on de-institutionalization, normalization, community services, inclusion, and other similarly widely championed movements add to the problems. Is an in-home placement the appropriate one for everybody? Is a community living environment right for individuals with the most substantial needs for help?

Ms. Arsenault does not directly address these and other related questions, but her story does provide a valuable glimpse at some of the problems that lie just beneath the stories of individuals like Adam and their families. Read the article here.

Caution: Irreverant humor ahead.

The Onion, which publishes (sometimes scatological or profane) humor about nearly anything, has a parody of the person-in-the-street poll under the headline “202 Chemicals Linked To ADHD, Autism.”

Earlier this week, the Charleston (WV, US) Daily Mail carried a story entitled “Black children with autism diagnosed later” that reported about the problem of false negative identifications by ethnicity. The story recounts the case of a boy named Ronnie who went through a string of other diagnoses before being identified as having autism.
Continue reading ‘Ethnicity and diagnosis’

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’