New perspectives on child and adolescent depression

The Children's Depression Index (CDI) was administered to a group of 304 regular school students in Grades 3–12. It was found that 21% of the students reported mild to moderate levels and 7% reported severe levels of depression. Females reported more overall depression than did males. Specific CDI items selected more frequently by females than by males supports previous work suggesting that females tend to internalize difficulties whereas males are more likely to externalize problems. There were no age differences associated with overall depression; however, there were some developmental differences in specific items cited. Finally, “red flags” were identified that may be helpful in spotting children suffering from severe levels of depression.     

Social neuroscience of child and adolescent depression

The social neuroscience of child and adolescent depression is inherently multidisciplinary. Depressive disorders beginning early in life can have serious developmental and functional consequences. Psychopathology research has described depression's defining clinical and contextual features, and intervention research has characterized its response to treatment and prevention programs. Neuroendocrine, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies have identified core neurobiological aspects of early-onset mood disorders. These areas are reviewed using a developmental social neuroscience perspective for integrating disparate observations. The paper introduces a dynamic adaptive systems framework, and it discusses hedonic capacity, stress sensitivity, ruminative self-focus, and attentional impairments as fundamental components of mood disorders.     

Resistance and countertransference in child and adolescent psychotherapy

Countertransference brings to light the influence of both anxiety and family processes on the child's or adolescent's maturation and character development. The significance of developmental, dynamic, and family-interpersonal factors have all been stressed as part of the latent communication inherent in resistance. Family influences on resistance and countertransference have to be the subject of analytic scrutiny. The engagement of children and adolescents in the therapeutic process seriously threatens parents' defensive operations both as couples and as individuals. Countertransference responses afford the opportunity not only to clarify the meaning of resistances but also to pinpoint anxieties that have been reexperienced by the child or adolescent with the analyst at points of threat and disorganization. The twofold therapeutic task with children and adolescents consists of delineating and counteracting the family's negative impact on the child's development and self, in addition to addressing the children's contribution to their own pathological traits and immaturities. Countertransference anxiety confirms the dynamic and family implications of the analyst's participation with the patient. Countertransference resistance suggests the analyst's lack of openness in investigating how the treatment has evoked the child's anxiety, the parent's anxiety, and the analyst's anxiety. Resistance-transference-countertransference exchanges reveal the child's or adolescent's efforts to move towards health while emerging from the internalized family.     

Measures of child and adolescent psychopathology in Asia

This article reviews measures of child and adolescent psychopathology used in Asian cultures. Sixteen imported measures from the West are identified and their psychometric equivalence across cultures is reviewed; 2 new measures are briefly introduced. Although initial evidence is generally promising, more studies are needed to support their use in Asia. One recently developed Singapore measure cannot be considered genuinely indigenous. Culture-specific items proposed for imported measures could be grouped into existing diagnostic constructs. There is, as yet, no strong theoretical support for culture-bound diagnostic constructs in Asian cultures.     

Personality assessment of the prelingual, profoundly deaf child or adolescent

Personality assessment of children and adolescents experiencing an early, profound hearing loss is hampered by the lack of instruments standardized and/or developed primarily for use with deaf clients. Further compounding the problem are the relatively few psychologists trained in and/or experienced with deaf personality assessment. This article reviews the rudimentary requirements for personality assessment with the deaf and critiques the available personality tests that are either used or useable in assessing the deaf.     

The normative development of child and adolescent problem behavior

The aim of this study was to identify normative developmental trajectories of parent-reported problems assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; T. M. Achenbach, 1991) in a representative sample of 2,076 children aged 4 to 18 years from the general population. The trajectories were determined by multilevel growth curve analyses on the CBCL syndromes in a Longitudinal multiple birth-cohort sample that was assessed 5 times with 2-year intervals. Most syndromes showed a linear increase or decrease with age or a curvilinear trajectory, except for thought problems. Trajectories for most syndromes differed for boys versus girls, except those for withdrawn, social problems, and thought problems. These normative developmental trajectories provide information against which developmental deviance in childhood and adolescence can be detected.     

Parenting in relation to child and adolescent vocational development

Processes of child and adolescent vocational development include acquisition of knowledge, beliefs, and values about work options and requirements, exploration of interests that will be relevant for occupational interest development, development of academic aspirations, self-efficacy, expectations, and attainment. These elements serve to provide preparation for entry into a range of occupations and provide for the establishment of vocational aspirations, occupational self-efficacy, expectations, planning, and attainment. Parenting occurs within a family context influenced by a myriad of factors, including availability of financial capital, human capital, social capital, child agency, work-family interfacing, family roles, family structure, and the historical conditions affecting parents. These family contextual factors promote our understanding of differences in parenting in relation to child and adolescent vocational development. Far more complex than specific steps to entering the labor market per se, child and adolescent vocational development includes the interfacing of parenting and developmental processes.     

Dissociative experiences, psychopathology and adjustment, and child and adolescent maltreatment in female college students.

Thirty-three female college students who scored in the upper 15% on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) were compared with 33 female students who scored below the mean on the DES on measures of psychopathology (Symptom Checklist-90), college adjustment (Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire), and child and adolescent maltreatment. Compared with controls, high-DES subjects reported more psychopathology, poorer college adjustment, and a greater extent of psychological, physical, and sexual maltreatment. On the basis of the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, 2 high-DES subjects but none of the control subjects met criteria for a dissociative disorder (i.e., multiple personality and psychogenic amnesia). Despite the sensitivity of the DES, 8 subjects who scored in the upper 2% of the population on the DES failed to meet criteria for a dissociative disorder.