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Category Archives: Hidden Disabilities
The DSM-5: Will kids with mental illness be abandoned in an evidence-based world?
The tragic flaw in the DSM-5 is that the new diagnostic criteria have been declared “dead on arrival” by the leaders of the organization positioned to fund the research necessary to direct clinical care. Continue reading
Posted in Advocacy, Families, Hidden Disabilities, Key Ministry, Mental Health
Tagged adolescents, children, dsm-5, mental illness, research
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DSM-5…Parents can have separation anxiety too!
Separation Anxiety Disorder is the most common anxiety disorder among kids ages 12 years and under. Separation Anxiety (along with Selective Mutism) was removed from the category of Disorders Usually First Diagnosed in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence and included among anxiety disorders. The similarities between separation anxiety and selective mutism and other anxiety disorders led to the decision to include them in this category. Other data leading to the inclusion of separation anxiety was the observation that 0.9-1.9% of adults meet criteria for the condition during any twelve month period.
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Is Oppositional Defiant Disorder a description or a diagnosis?
My problem with the diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is that establishing the diagnosis doesn’t tell you anything about what to do to treat it. Consider it a “lite” version of Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder without the severe, protracted tantrums or meltdowns.
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Does the DSM-5 harm bright kids with learning disabilities?
Given the outsized role these conditions play in children’s mental health, the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for specific learning disorder represent a major fail for the field. Continue reading
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): A category unto itself…
Some of the conditions included in this new category (in addition to OCD) include…Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Hoarding Disorder, Trichotillomania (Hair-Pulling Disorder) and Excoriation (skin-picking) Disorder. Continue reading
Posted in Controversies, Families, Hidden Disabilities, Mental Health
Tagged Body Dysmorphic Disorder, dsm-5, Hoarding, OCD, Skin-Picking Disorder, Trichotillomania
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Why the decision to eliminate Asperger’s Disorder was absurd…
From a clinician’s standpoint, kids with Asperger’s are VERY different from kids with “classic” autism. Kids with Asperger’s have the intelligence and language skills to very effectively communicate their thoughts and perceptions. They also have a far greater capacity for self-awareness of their social deficits…and are far more amenable to treatment interventions to ameliorate their weaknesses in social situations. They’re so different that the vast preponderance of kids with traditional autism in our community receiving medical intervention are seen by developmental pediatricians and pediatric neurologists, not child psychiatrists. Continue reading
Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder…not quite Asperger’s
SCD has become the diagnostic category for kids who look like those with Asperger’s Disorder, but don’t meet full criteria for an autism spectrum disorder.
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The “R-word” has been banished…new criteria for intellectual disability
The most important change in the new criteria involves a decrease in the emphasis upon intelligence tests in the classification of intellectual disability in favor of a severity of impairment classification based upon adaptive functioning along with intelligence testing. Continue reading
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