Disorders Common Among

Children And Adolescents

PRESENTED BY:
Objectives Discussing Discussing Childhood Anxiety Disorders

Describing Depressive And Bipolar

Describing
Disorders

Explaining Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Explaining
And Conduct Disorder

Discussing Discussing Elimination Disorders

Describing Describing Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Comparing Comparing Different Childhood Disorder

 Outline
Childhood and
Adolescence

Childhood Separation Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety
Disorders
Treatments for Childhood Anxiety Disorders
Depressive and Major Depressive Disorder
Bipolar
Disorders
Bipolar Disorder and Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
Oppositional What Are the Causes of Conduct Disorder?
Defiant Disorder
and Conduct
Disorder How Do Clinicians Treat Conduct Disorder?
 Outline
Elimination Disorders Enuresis

Encopresis

Neurodevelopmental Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Disorders
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Intellectual Disability
Comparison of
Childhood Disorders

Summary
Childhood and Adolescence
People often think of childhood as a carefree and
happy time—yet it can also be frightening and
upsetting as evident by figure.

Surveys reveal that worry is a common experience.

Bed-wetting, nightmares, temper tantrums, and

restlessness are other problems that many children
contend with.
Childhood and Adolescence
Physical and sexual changes, social and academic
pressures, school violence, personal doubts, and
temptations cause many teenagers to feel nervous,
confused, and depressed.

A particular concern among children and

adolescents is that of being bullied.
Childhood and Adolescence
Childhood Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety is, to a degree, a normal part of childhood.

Children may also be strongly affected by parental

problems or inadequacies.

For some children, such anxieties become long-

lasting and debilitating, interfering with their daily
lives and their ability to function appropriately.
More often, however, the anxiety disorders of
childhood take on a somewhat different character
from that of adult anxiety disorders.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation anxiety disorder, one of the most common anxiety
disorders among children.

Sufferers feel extreme anxiety, often panic, whenever they are

separated from home or a parent. Jonah’s symptoms began
when he was a preschooler and continued into kindergarten.

Children have enormous trouble traveling away from their

family, and they often refuse to visit friends’ houses, go on
errands, or attend camp or school.
Separation anxiety disorder may further take the form of a
school phobia, or school refusal, a common problem in which
children fear going to school and often stay home for a long
period.
 Separation Anxiety Disorder
Individual’s excessive anxiety features three or more of the
following symptoms:
• Repeated separation-related upset
• Repeated loss-related concern
• Repeated fear of experiencing separation-caused events
• Repeated resistance to leaving home
• Repeated resistance to being alone
• Repeated resistance to sleepaways
• Repeated separation focused nightmares
• Repeated separation-triggered physical symptoms.
 Treatments for Childhood Anxiety
Disorders
Among the children who do receive treatment, psychodynamic,
cognitive-behavioral, family, and group therapies, separately or in
combination, have been used most often.

Each approach has had some degree of success; however, cognitive

behavioral therapy has fared the best across a number of studies.

Clinicians have also used drug therapy in a number of cases of

childhood anxiety disorders, often in combination with psychotherapy.
Because children typically have difficulty recognizing and
understanding their feelings and motives, many therapists,
particularly psychodynamic therapists, use play therapy as part of
treatment.
Depressive and Bipolar Disorders

Around 2 percent of children and 8 percent of adolescents

currently experience a major depressive disorder.

As many as 20 percent of adolescents experience at

least one depressive episode during their teen years.

In addition, many clinicians believe that children may

experience bipolar disorder.
 Major Depressive Disorder

As with anxiety disorders, very young children lack some of the

cognitive skills that help produce clinical depression, thus
accounting for the low rate of depression among the very young.

Clinical depression is much more common among teenagers

than among young children.

Neither antidepressants alone nor cognitive-behavioral therapy

alone was as effective for teenage depression as was a
combination of antidepressants and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
 Major Depressive Disorder

Antidepressants alone tended to be more helpful to

depressed teens than cognitive-behavioral therapy alone.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy alone was barely more

helpful than placebo therapy.

Antidepressant drugs may be very dangerous for some

depressed children and teenagers.
Bipolar Disorder and Disruptive
Mood Dysregulation Disorder
For at least a year, individual repeatedly displays severe outbursts of
temper that are extremely out of proportion to triggering situations and
different from ones displayed by most other people of his or her age.

The outbursts occur at least three times per week and are present in at
least two settings (home, school, with peers).

Individual repeatedly displays irritable or angry mood between the

outbursts.

Individual receives initial diagnosis between 6 and 18 years of age.

Bipolar Disorder and Disruptive
Mood Dysregulation Disorder
 Oppositional Defiant Disorder
and Conduct Disorder
Oppositional defiant disorder
• A childhood disorder in which children are repeatedly
argumentative and defiant, angry and irritable, and in some
cases, vindictive.
Conduct disorder
• A childhood disorder in which the child repeatedly violates the basic rights of
others and displays aggression, characterized by symptoms such as physical
cruelty to people or animals, the deliberate destruction of other people’s
property, and the commission of various crimes.
• Children with conduct disorder, a more severe problem, repeatedly violate the
basic rights of others
What Are the Causes of Conduct
Disorder?
Many cases of conduct disorder, particularly those
marked by destructive behaviors, have been linked to
genetic and biological factors.

In addition, a number of cases have been tied to drug

abuse, poverty, traumatic events, and exposure to violent
peers or community violence.

Most often, however, conduct disorder has been tied to

troubled parent–child relationships, inadequate parenting,
family conflict, marital conflict, and family hostility.
 How Do Clinicians Treat Conduct
Disorder?

Conduct
disorder can
be treated by

Child-
Sociocultural
Focused Prevention
Treatments
Treatments
Elimination Disorders
Children with elimination disorders repeatedly urinate or
pass feces in their clothes, in bed, or on the floor.

They already have reached an age at which they are

expected to control these bodily functions, and their
symptoms are not caused by physical illness.

Types of
elimination
disorders are

Enuresis Encopresis
 Enuresis
Enuresis is repeated involuntary (or in some
cases intentional) bed-wetting or wetting of
one’s clothes.

It typically occurs at night during sleep but may

also occur during the day and children must be
at least 5 years of age to receive this diagnosis.

The problem may be triggered by stressful

events, such as a hospitalization, entrance into
school, or family problems.
 Encopresis

This problem seldom occurs at night during

sleep.

It is usually involuntary, starts at the age of 4

or older, and affects about 1.5 to 3 percent of
all children.

The most common and successful treatments

for encopresis are behavioral and medical
approaches or a combination of the two.
 Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of disabilities in the functioning
of the brain that emerge at birth or during very early childhood and affect
the individual’s behavior, memory, concentration, and/or ability to learn.

Many of the disorders first displayed during childhood subside as the

person ages.

However, the neurodevelopmental disorders often have a significant impact

throughout the person’s life.

For example, at least half of those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity

disorder, one of the neurodevelopmental disorders, carry some version of
their disorder with them into adulthood.
 Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have
great difficulty attending to tasks, or behave over actively and
impulsively, or both.

ADHD often appears before the child starts school.

Children who have trouble focusing attention may keep turning

from task to task until they end up trying to run in several directions
at once.

ADHD is a difficult disorder to assess properly.

What Are the Causes of ADHD?

Biological factors have been identified in many cases, particularly

abnormal activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine and
abnormalities in the frontal-striatal regions of the brain.

The disorder has also been linked to high levels of stress and to
family Dysfunctioning.

In addition, sociocultural theorists have noted that ADHD symptoms

and a diagnosis of ADHD may themselves create interpersonal
problems and produce additional symptoms in the child.
 How Is ADHD Treated?

Drug Therapy

ADHD is treated by
Behavior Therapy and
Combination Therapies
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism spectrum disorder is marked by extreme unresponsiveness
to other people, severe communication deficits, and highly rigid and
repetitive behaviors, interests, and activities.

These symptoms appear early in life, typically before 3 years of age.

People with autism may display motor movements that are unusual,
rigid, and repetitive.

The symptoms of autism spectrum disorder suggest a very disturbed

and contradictory pattern of reactions to stimuli.
What Are the Causes of Autism Spectrum
Disorder?

The causes of autism

spectrum disorder are

Sociocultural Causes Psychological Causes Biological Causes

How Do Clinicians and Educators Treat
Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Cognitive-Behavioral
Therapy

Communication
Training
Autism spectrum
disorder is treated by
Parent Training

Community
Integration
Comparison of Childhood Disorders
Intellectual Disability
Individual displays deficient intellectual functioning in areas such as
reasoning, problem-solving, planning, abstract thinking, judgment,
academic learning, and learning from experience.

The deficits are reflected by clinical assessment and intelligence

tests.

Individual displays deficient adaptive functioning in at least one area

of daily life, such as communication, social involvement, or personal
independence, across home, school, work, or community settings.

The deficits begin during the developmental period (before the age
of 18).
 What Are the Features of Intellectual
Disability?
Mild ID
• A level of intellectual disability (IQ between 50 and 70)
at which people can benefit from education and can
support themselves as adults.
Moderate ID
• A level of intellectual disability (IQ between 35 and 49)
at which people can learn to care for themselves and
can benefit from vocational training.
 What Are the Features of Intellectual
Disability?
Severe ID
• A level of intellectual disability (IQ between 20 and 34) at which
people require careful supervision and can learn to perform basic
work in structured and sheltered settings.
Profound ID
• A level of intellectual disability (IQ below 20) at which people need a
very structured environment with close supervision.
Down syndrome
• A form of intellectual disability caused by an abnormality in the 21st
chromosome.
 What Are the Biological Causes of
Intellectual Disability?

Biological • Chromosomal Causes

causes of • Metabolic Causes
intellectual • Prenatal and Birth-Related
disability Causes
are • Childhood Problems
 Summary
Because children and adolescents have limited control over their lives, they are
particularly affected by the attitudes and reactions of family members.

Clinicians must therefore deal with those attitudes and reactions as they try to
address the problems of the young.

Treatments for conduct disorder, ADHD, intellectual disability, and other

problems of childhood and adolescence typically fall short unless clinicians
educate and work with the family as well.

At the same time, clinicians who work with children and adolescents have
learned that a narrow focus on any one model can lead to problems.
 Summary
For years, autism spectrum disorder was explained exclusively by family factors,
misleading theorists and therapists alike and adding to the pain of parents already
devastated by their child’s disorder.

In addition, in the past, the sociocultural model often led professionals wrongly to
accept anxiety among young children and depression among teenagers as
inevitable, given the many new experiences confronted by the former and the
latter group’s preoccupation with peer approval.

The increased clinical focus on the young has also been accompanied by more
attention to young people’s human and legal rights.

As the problems and, at times, mistreatment of young people receive more

attention, the special needs of these individuals are becoming more visible.
 Educational Videos

Children depression and anxiety

• https://youtu.be/dZgMvyRkaI4

Children cyber bullying

• https://youtu.be/916K8xRxQZw

Child conduct disorder

• https://youtu.be/_YIZOiguS3c
 Reference
Comer, R. J. (2012). Abnormal psychology. Macmillan.