The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter最新文献

Perhaps old news by the time this commentary is published, but essential to our work with children and families, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has issued a public health advisory about the level of stress that parents in the United States face in trying to raise their children (Murthy, 2024). He cites the APA study statistic that 48% of parents report their day as overwhelming, compared to 26% of other adults (APA, 2023), a study which looked at trauma as a national aftereffect of the pandemic.

To say teachers and other school staff are overworked and underpaid is an understatement. Teachers play the role of counselors, mentors, comforters, disciplinarians, security, and educators to large groups of children, sometimes up to 20 or more in a single class. It is also an understatement to say that teachers want their classrooms to run smoothly, with minimal emotional or behavioral challenges to disrupt an already busy school day. When students act out, it can be easy to see the child as the behavior and judge them accordingly without considering the function or root cause of that behavior.

Using data from students at colleges and universities, researchers has found that the combination of autism with transgender or gender-nonconforming identities is associated with greater odds of suicide attempts. The findings point to a need to interventions for college students with autism and gender-nonconforming identities.

The typical conundrum with cannabis use by adolescents and first episode psychosis — which came first? — was displaced by Steven Batki, M.D., in a plenary session at the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders (CCSAD) in September. Bakti, who is a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences, presented his conclusions allowing the audience of some 1,000 to ask questions as he went along.

Motivation has long been considered key to sending substance use disorder (SUD) patients in the direction of recovery. But how do you motivate an adolescent, to whom motivational approaches may feel like a call to battle — or even worse, an excuse for running away? Lauren Sbarbaro, Ph.D., a psychologist licensed in alcohol and drug treatment who trained at Hazelden, shared some insights with attendees at the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders (CCSAD) in Hyannis, Massachusetts last week.

I attended a recent webinar, “Beyond the hype: What research tells us about social media use in youth mental health” (August 2024), expecting the panelists to focus on the adverse effects of screen time. Interestingly, they offered a different perspective, one of nuanced findings in a young area of research, the suggestion to “take the panic level down” and still recognize risk factors (Schleider, 2024), and how social media might be a powerful tool for promoting positive mental health in youth.

Parents often struggle with discipline as well as how best to support their children's social and emotional growth. Unfortunately, many pediatricians, nurses, teachers, and other professionals involved in the lives of young children and their families lack the formal training and/or time to address parenting questions and concerns. And, although evidence-based parenting programs do exist, their impact is limited by low rates of uptake. Logistical barriers to implementation and workforce shortages limit their availability, and even when available, families often face numerous obstacles to enrolling in and completing programs. From a public health perspective, lack of accessibility and low exposure rates severely limit their potential for reducing the prevalence of behavioral and emotional problems and for promoting psychological wellbeing.

While distinct diagnoses, the behavioral presentation of ritualistic/repetitive behaviors seen in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can present similarly. This results in difficulty with accurate diagnosis and implementation of evidence-based treatments. OCD is characterized by prolonged and recurrent unwanted thoughts, known as obsessions, which cause a feeling of intense anxiety or distress. As a result, people with OCD perform repetitive behaviors known as compulsions to help alleviate distress. ASD is characterized as a developmental disorder causing persistent challenges associated with social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRB), and impairment in functioning. While the definitions are distinct, accurate conceptualization is not always clear. The picture can become even more complex with comorbidities. To parse these behaviors apart, we can consider the course of the behavior and assess the function. With better ability to differentiate, we can have a clearer picture of how to support the youth and family.