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