The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter最新文献

Mastering family therapy is a core competence in the Brown child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship program. To acuminate our skills, in addition to working doing a half day per week of family therapy for the duration of our training, we have weekly family therapy seminars led by Dr. Michelle Rickerby. Most of the time, we spend the hour discussing one or two challenging cases among our class, and if there is time, allot the last 5 to 10 minutes of class to play out a particularly arduous interaction. However, once or twice a year, Dr. Rickerby invites improvisational “improv” actors from a local theater for an extended workshop on family therapy. I was fortunate that my case was chosen as a prompt for this year's workshop.

The biggest fear of parents when referred to Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is that the therapists will validate that the parent isn't good at parenting, so if the parent ever thinks the therapist is judging or blaming him or her, the therapy won't go well, said Melanie M. Nelson, Ph.D., presenting this topic at the AACAP last fall. “How would if feel if you were told you should go to parent training?” she said. “The message is that you need to go to remedial classes. So, we emphasize that we are working on specialized parenting, or therapeutic parenting.”

Last fall's release of the federal 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that substance use, suicidal thoughts, and depression are high among adolescents and young adults. Highlights are below.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as ADHD, is a condition that often begins between ages 3 and 6, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (https://bit.ly/3sUSkXw). And it's not just a childhood disease. ADHD may continue through the teenage years and into adulthood.

In the last 10 years, mindfulness has become a popular approach for managing strong or distressing feelings for adults and children. Particularly for children, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been touted as a modality for the treatment of conditions ranging from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, depression, and stress. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the widely recognized originator of medically based mindfulness, defines the concept as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1982). Practices such as yoga, breathwork, or meditation all incorporate mindfulness to act or react with awareness and with a lack of judgment regarding those thoughts and feelings that arise.

I recently did a media interview related to an earlier CABL commentary (Walters, 2018) focused on the underdiagnosis of ADHD in girls, prompting me to look at the recent research on the topic. Interestingly, the journalist I spoke with shared an article that noted the rising numbers of women ages 23–29 years and 30–34 years diagnosed with ADHD. Although still a relatively small percentage compared to female children, this percentage has almost doubled from 2020–2022 (Russell et al., 2023). In addition, the percentage of males versus females of any age diagnosed with ADHD increased from males being 133% more likely to be diagnosed in 2010 to females 28% more likely in 2022 (Russell et al., 2023).

Since the 1940s, scientists have been interested in how we maintain attention, balance multiple tasks, and carry out instructions. From this, the term executive function (EF) was born. Although its definition has changed over the years, it can be simply described as the processes of our brain that allow us to focus on what we find important. Alternatively, executive dysfunction is the inability to focus on what we find important. In the age of cell phone notifications, doom scrolling, and a general feeling of information overload, many of us can relate to wanting to stay on-task. At the time of writing this article, TikTok videos with the hashtag “executive dysfunction” have accumulated over 168 million views, reflecting a growing interest in what makes up executive function, and alternatively, what can be done when our focus feels impaired. As families inevitably bring their questions about EF to the clinic, how do we discuss it? What recommendations can we make for children with executive dysfunction?

Rewarding positive behavior, and not corporal punishment, should be the main mode of discipline by schools and families, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which wants it to be banned in all states by law. First, it causes harm to children. Second, it doesn't work. And third, it leads to even worse behavior.

Preterm birth and its complications are the leading causes of neonatal illnesses and deaths in the United States; the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is calling for a primary care framework (pediatricians) to help monitor these babies. Early identification of neurodevelopmental conditions for children who graduated from the neonatal intensive care unit is critical, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which encourages primary care pediatricians to take a more critical role in the long-term, timely, and coordinated care needed by high-risk infants during their early childhood years.