The New York Times recently released two interesting reports about mental health issues in young children. The first examined the concept of preschool depression (see also here for one of our previous reviews about depression in young children). The second examined the practice of prescribing antipsychotic medications in young children. Both articles touched on an issue that is always present in all discussions about early childhood mental health: how do we differentiate between symptoms of a psychiatric disorders and normative behaviors that are expected at certain ages? Are we simply pathologizing childhood when we diagnosed conditions such as ADHD or Oppositional Defiant Disorder?  Read More

Today I wanted to write about a study published recently in the journal Biological Psychiatry, which surprisingly didn’t get much press coverage. The study examined the way that rewards and consequences affect how kids with oppositional defiant disorder make decisions. Previous studies suggest that kids with ODD and conduct disorder have a reduced physiological response to aversive conditions, such as punishment. This is often used to explain why these kids don’t respond well to discipline styles that relay solely or mostly on punishment. But few studies have examined how different types of rewards and consequences actually affect the way these kids make decisions. Read More