Acta paedopsychiatrica最新文献

Music therapy is becoming an increasingly prevalent method for assisting in the mental health needs of a variety of different conditions. However, other tangential aids can greatly facilitate the music therapy process. The use of Projectives techniques to assist in the process of music therapy and to assess the growth and development of clients is described.

Diagnosis and classification of autism and related pervasive developmental disorders is both easy and difficult. Infantile autism is a characteristic syndrome on which many publications have appeared in the last 50 years. Conversely, the diagnosis and even the classification of children with pervasive developmental disorders related to autism is difficult. Although children with these disorders are twice as numerous as children with infantile autism, growing attention has been directed to at the latter group since the last decade. In this paper, autism and related disorders are described as a developmental disorder as well as a spectrum disorder. The spectrum of clinical symptoms can be explained, of which infantile autism is the most severe and prototypical manifestation. A working model is presented which accounts for all the problems of children with pervasive developmental disorders. An illustration of working with the model in practice is also given. The main lines of treatment and stages in treatment are briefly described.

During the last three decades the psychological consequences of precocious puberty have received considerable attention. The nature and shortcomings of relevant studies are described. It is emphasized that specialized counselling and guidance of families with children who have to cope with precocious puberty is important, since it often contributes to an appropriate behaviour adjustment without the development of psychiatric symptomatology. Guidelines for medical service and psychological management are provided.

A group of children under 16 years of age who were admitted to hospital after episodes of deliberate self-poisoning, were followed up after one year. Ninety of the original sample of 100 were traced, and interviewed. Almost half of the subjects were improved after one year but the remaining children continued disturbed. Improvement was most marked in relation to "school problems" and "running away from home". There was significant improvement for some children in their family relationships. Ten per cent of children had been involved in further self-poisoning during the follow-up period. Extended follow-up some seven years later traced 41 of the original subjects. The repetition rate for self-poisoning was 20% although the majority of these episode occurred within a year of the original self-poisoning. Overall, the situation of subjects was judged as improved by them and their families although significant psycho-social difficulties remained for some.

Various savant abilities, mostly those in intellectual fields, found in autistic people, namely in music, memory, mathematics, specific knowledge and drawing, are presented. Their social importance is discussed. As an interpretation three hypotheses are offered. In autistic people perception and storing of perceived impulses function differently from in normal people (comparable to those of eidetics). The memory process and the storing function abnormally. Outstanding abilities are reinforced unilaterally by the environment and are produced as a kind of avoidance material, because many usual abilities cannot be performed.

The hypothesized connection between adaptive style, specifically repressive adaptation, and the family environments of adolescent clinical samples was investigated. Adolescent patients (n = 221) were studied, who were then divided into four groups matched for sex, age, and socioeconomic status (mean age = 15.7 years, SD 2; sex = 14% boys, 86% girls; SES = 2.4). Grouping was based on the Marlowe Crowne Social Desirability Scale and Spielberger's Trait Anxiety Inventory Scores [repressors (n = 43), impression managers (n = 54), high anxious (n = 55) and low anxious (n = 69)]. Results by MANOVA, Scheffe and discriminate function analysis confirmed our hypothesis. Repressors had distinct family environments as measured by the Family Environment Scale (p = 0.0001). Families were characterized by high levels of cohesion, expressiveness, independence, and organization, displaying correspondingly low levels of achievement orientation, conflict, control and incongruence. Repression may be an effort to adapt to an idealized family environment.

The aim of this article is to present the results from a point-prevalence study of symptoms and items of behaviour among children and adolescents in the western part of Norway. Empirical manifestations of personality traits and psychopathology in the ordinary population are factor-analysed. The prevalences in different types of local communities are calculated, and the variations are discussed using the concept of socialization, especially development and internalization of values, norms and behaviour in cultures with different rates of change.

The analysis of 11 home movies taken by parents before the recognition of autistic or atypical disorders of their own child has confirmed the major value of this method for describing early pathological signs. Symptomatology analysis has revealed anomalies of eye contact, a deficiency and variability of emotional expression, a defect of attention and initiation of communication, as well as motor abnormalities. The comparison of the frequency of abnormal behaviour, assessed with a rating scale among three groups of children (autistic, pervasive developmental disorders and normal) revealed behavioural differences as a function of early age and diagnosis, which concern not only social and communicative behaviours, but those of emotion and attention as well. The limits and interest of this methodological approach are discussed and the possibilities of subsequently using these documents in a more complete method, such as blind examination and scoring by uninformed investigators, are suggested.