Archive for the 'Prevention' Category

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Healthy youth

Published on 23 June 2009 in Acting in, Acting out, ADHD, Assessment, Bi-polar, Conduct disorder, Delinquency, Depression, Families, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Even though many schools in the US have closed for the summer or are about to do so, I want to remind folks that this is not a good time to take a break from considering the mental health needs of children and youth. Although they are likely to wax and wane over time, mental health problems don’t take many vacations.

Learn more about US resources for individual children and youths who have emotional and behavioral disorders by surfing the rich resources assembled by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Although some of the materials may be a tad out of date (e.g., prevalence figures have been updated for some disorders such as Autism), there are still plenty of valuable materials available from SAMHSA.

Go there! Compare what you see learn there with what’s available at other trustworthy sites. Learn what to do and from whom help is available.

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Sleep predictors of later depression

Published on 15 June 2009 in Acting in, Assessment, Causes, Depression, Families, News, Prevention, Research and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Adolescents who are at risk for later episodes of major depressive disorders differ from their peers who are not at risk on multiple measures of rapid eye movement (REM) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity during sleep, according to a study by Uma Rao and colleagues that appeared this fall in Neuropsychopharmacology . Early depressive episodes that occur during adolescence are strongly associated with other later problems in other areas such as interpersonal relationships, pregnancy, educational attainment, employment, and suicidal behavior; finding predictors of later problems is important for primary and secondary prevention.

Rao and colleagues compared youths at risk for major depressive disorder with peers using electroencephalographic (EEG) and HPA measures. They then followed the youths for 5 years and correlated their EEG and HPA measures with the chances of later episodes of depression. Here’s the abstract:
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Stanford Medicine Magazine

Published on 20 April 2009 in Autism, Musings, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The spring 2009 issue of Stanford Medicine Magazine, a publication of the Stanford University School of Medicine, examines the turmoil swirling around vaccines. In “Hot Shots: Vaccines under the gun” one can read any of ten articles (not counting an introductory comment by Rosalyn Carter):

  • The demonization of immunization: Shots get the once-over
  • What is a vaccine? Immunization demystified
  • Asking How: Vaccine Side Effects Probed
  • When science gets hijacked: NBC News chief medical editor tells why she broke her silence
  • Insourced to India: A vaccine for a scourge of the developing world
  • Peet’s passion: The medical education of Amanda Peet
  • Field yields: Can genetically engineered plants provide vaccines?
  • Shoot it, don’t smoke it: An injectable tobacco-grown vaccine
  • Golden needles: Vaccines for seniors
  • Grow up: Can vaccines built for kids work in older immune systems too?

Few of the folks who ardently oppose vaccines will likely be swayed by the content provided here. However, this magazine provides an excellent broad-brush treatment of the topic for those who are curious, savvy, and vulnerable to reason.

Link to the issue on the Web. Flash of the electrons to Liz Ditz for alerting me to this excellent resource.

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Lest we forget about teaching academics

Published on 27 March 2009 in Musings, News, Prevention, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I’ve harped on this a couple of times before, but I’m returning to it because it is very important. We have to resist the sirens’ call to ignore academic instruction for students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Just as much as their peers who do not have disabilities, these pupils need to learn the skills and content that will allow them to have a reasonable chance at success in life. Reading competence is critical.

Watch this video as a refresher course:

Link to the video and to the Children of the Code Web site. Explore there.

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Gorski: “bad year for antivaccinationists”

Published on 23 February 2009 in Autism, Causes, Families, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Over on Science-Based Medicine, Dr. David Gorski has an extended entry entitled “2009: Shaping up to be a really bad year for antivaccinationists.” Dr. Gorski, who has repeatedly written on the topic of putative causes of Autism, connects lots of dots in this piece.

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New prevention book

Published on 13 February 2009 in Acting in, Acting out, Bi-polar, Bullying, Causes, Conduct disorder, Delinquency, Depression, Families, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

The US National Academies Press announced the publication of a book entitled Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities that discusses prevention of problems during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Edited by Mary Ellen O’Connell, Thomas Boat, and Kenneth E. Warner, the book represents the work of the Board on Children, Youth and Families. It is available in hardback, as a PDF, or online (the last option is free).

Mental health and substance use disorders among children, youth, and young adults are major threats to the health and well-being of younger populations which often carryover into adulthood. The costs of treatment for mental health and addictive disorders, which create an enormous burden on the affected individuals, their families, and society, have stimulated increasing interest in prevention practices that can impede the onset or reduce the severity of the disorders.

Prevention practices have emerged in a variety of settings, including programs for selected at-risk populations (such as children and youth in the child welfare system), school-based interventions, interventions in primary care settings, and community services designed to address a broad array of mental health needs and populations.

Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People updates a 1994 Institute of Medicine book, Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders, focusing special attention on the research base and program experience with younger populations that have emerged since that time.

Researchers, such as those involved in prevention science, mental health, education, substance abuse, juvenile justice, health, child and youth development, as well as policy makers involved in state and local mental health, substance abuse, welfare, education, and justice will depend on this updated information on the status of research and suggested directions for the field of mental health and prevention of disorders.

Link to the press release or the ordering page.

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Tantrum management

Published on 31 January 2009 in Acting out, Autism, Behavior management, Causes, News, Prevention, Professsional development and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Over on FAQAutism, Cathy Knoll has a pair of posts advising a student teacher about handling outburst by a student with Autism. The student teacher described the situation in this way:

The student teacher wrote that she is in an elementary classroom this semester, and is concerned about a youngster in the class. The student teacher reported the details of an episode that involved changing the regular classroom routine. She said, “One day I let the class vote on our reading activity. Their choices were (1) I would start a new book for our regularly scheduled ‘Read Aloud’ time, or (2) the students would read their new Scholastic News magazine independently at their desks. The class voted to read at their desk and finish a writing project for our bulletin board from earlier in the day. The girl with autism had voted for me to read aloud like I normally do at that time of day. However, the majority won. She couldn’t handle it and started yelling. I asked her quietly and calmly if she would like me to show her the new book that I would start reading to the following day. She screamed at me, ‘No. Never in a million years will I look at that book. I never want to hear you read anything ever again!’ Then she ran across the room and hid in a corner and started rocking back and forth.”

Ms. Knoll characterized the situation in terms of inflexibility and anger management. After remarking that she would not have students vote on activities, she makes a couple of sensible suggestions: (a) “The most effective way to prevent emotional meltdowns for an inflexible student is to develop a regular, predictable classroom routine” and (b) “Jot down quick notes every time he has a tantrum: the time it starts and the time it stops.”

I was pleased to see this tip-toe toward an antecedent-behavior-consequence analysis. Too bad that the recommendations do not go all the way to a functional behavior analysis. There are plenty of good resources on how to affect such analyses. It would be helpful to guide teachers to these methods of ascertaining what environmental features are sustaining a students “tantrums.”

Link to the two posts (#1 and #2) on FAQAustim advising a student-teacher about addressing tantrums.

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Gun safety at home

Published on 23 December 2008 in Families, Musings, News, Prevention and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The combination of a child and a gun is frightening to me. Although guns are certainly not involved in all of them, “In the United States, unintentional injury, homicide, and suicide are the first, second, and fourth leading causes of death among persons aged 1–19 years, respectively,” according to Stephanie J. Bernard, Leonard J. Paulozzi, and L. J. David Wallace, of the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (U. S. Center for Disease Control).

When one adds into the kids-guns mix the variable of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, the situation becomes even more concerning. Some children with EBD may lack the ability to discriminate between a real and a toy gun; others may not have the impulse control to defer acting like they are shooting a gun upon picking one up; clowning around might lead to an accident. And none of those examples even begin to consider the possibility of premeditated actions.
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Effective delinquency treatment

Published on 13 August 2008 in Acting out, Behavior management, Conduct disorder, Delinquency, Families, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Wednesday Social Programs that Work, an organization dedicated to , recognized the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MFTC) program as having strong evidence of its benefits for youths who have many strongly delinquent behavior problems. The developers of the MTFC program include Patricia Chamberlain, Ph.D., John Reid, Ph.D., Philip A. Fisher, Ph.D., and Gerard Bouwman; they are closely associated with the Oregon Social Learning Center (a long-time resident of EBD Blog’s Web resources list). Over the last ~10 years the researchers have conduct multiple randomized clinical trials testing the intervention, and they have consistently found positive outcomes for the youths and their families.

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (A foster care intervention for severely delinquent youths)

Randomized controlled trials show sizable reductions in youths’ criminal activity.

Description of the intervention: The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care program provides severely delinquent youths with foster care in families trained in behavior management, and emphasizes preventing contact with delinquent peers. Typical community treatment for such youth, by contrast, often involves referral to a group care facility with other troubled youth.

As an example of the program’s behavior management techniques, foster parents track and regulate the youths’ behaviors using a point system, with youths receiving points for positive behaviors (e.g., completing chores, attending school regularly), and losing points for negative behaviors (e.g., not completing homework, or not listening to an adult). As youths accumulate more points, they are afforded more freedom from adult supervision.

The program provides the youths and their families with individual and family therapy during their participation in the program, and program case managers closely supervise the youths/families through daily phone calls and weekly foster parent group meetings. The average length of stay in the program is 6-7 months. The average cost is about $3,600 per month (2008 dollars), which is 30 to 50 percent lower than the cost of residential group care (the typical alternative treatment, in which youths are placed in group homes with other offenders, and often provided family therapy.)

Link for the SPTW Web page about the evidence for MFTC (source for the quoted material) and to the Web site that supports adoption of the program.

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Hinshaw about mental illness

Published on 13 February 2008 in Bi-polar, Causes, Families, Musings, News, Prevention and Research. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

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.

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Time’s changing?

Published on 14 November 2007 in Autism, Causes, News, Prevention and The press. 0 Comments

Time magazine, which has stopped somewhere just short of flatly endorsing unfounded concepts such as facilitated communication, seems not to be buying the vaccine-autism argument. In an article about vaccinations that currently appears on the front page of Time’s Web site, reporter Laura Blue recites the litany of benefits that vaccines have provided and then asks why people resist using them.
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Consortium to Prevent School Violence launched

Published on 13 November 2007 in Acting out, Assessment, Behavior management, Conduct disorder, Families, News, Policy, Prevention, Research and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Today is the official launch of the Consortium to Prevent School Violence (CPSV). The consortium will provide many resources including fact sheets, research summaries, training resources, and more.

The Consortium to Prevent School Violence (CPSV) seeks to promote the effective implementation of school violence prevention practices that are:

Based in high-quality scientific research

Proven to prevent and reduce school violence

Following the school shootings of Fall 2006, a group of 20 researchers and practitioners in the field of school violence prevention collaborated on the creation of a position statement on the school shootings. In the process, it became apparent that an alliance of researchers and practitioners in school violence prevention to further the common goal of reducing school violence would be highly valuable.

The Consortium is primarily a volunteer effort.

Visit CPSV on the Web. Snag a copy of CPSV press release about the launch.

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