Chapter 7: Conduct problems Flashcards
Age-inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate
family expectations, societal norms, and personal or
property rights of others
Conduct Problems
– Legal definitions exclude antisocial behaviors of
very young children occurring in home or school
– Minimum age of responsibility is 12 in most states
– Only a subgroup of children meeting legal
definition of delinquency also meet definition of a
mental disorder
• Juvenile delinquency
- “Rule-breaking behavior”
* “Aggressive behavior”
Externalizing dimension
• Repetitive, persistent pattern of severe aggressive
and antisocial acts
– May have co-occurring problems, e.g., ADHD,
academic deficiencies, and poor peer relations
– Family child-rearing practices may contribute to
problems
– Parents feel the children are out of control and
feel helpless to do anything about it
Conduct Disorder
Children with childhood-onset CD display at least one
symptom before age 10
– More likely to be boys
– Show more aggressive symptoms
– Account for disproportionate amount of illegal
activity
– Persist in antisocial behavior over time
Children with adolescent-onset CD
– As likely to be girls as boys
– Do not show the severity or psychopathology
characterizing the early-onset group
– Are less likely to commit violent offenses or persist
in their antisocial behavior over time
– More than 50% of children with CD also have____
ADHD
ODD is more prevalent than CD during childhood; by
adolescence, prevalence is equal
Lifetime prevalence rates
12% for ODD (13% for males, 11% for females)
– 8% for CD (9% for males, 6% for females)
gender
Gender differences are evident by 2-3 years of age
– During childhood, rates of conduct problems are
about 2-4 times higher in boys
– Boys have earlier age of onset and greater
persistence
– Early symptoms for boys are aggression and theft;
early symptoms for girls are sexual misbehaviors
- new forms of antisocial behavior
develop over time
Diversification
path begins early and
persists into adulthood
– Antisocial behavior begins early
• Subtle neuropsychological deficits heighten
vulnerability to antisocial elements in social
environment
– Complete, spontaneous recovery is rare after
adolescence
– Associated with family history of externalizing
Life-course-persistent (LCP)
path begins at puberty and
ends in young adulthood
– Less extreme antisocial behavior, less likely to
drop out of school, and have stronger family ties
– Delinquent activity is often related to temporary
situational factors, especially peer influences
Adolescent-limited (AL)
Early findings suggest three neural systems are
involved:
– Subcortical neural systems
• Aggressive behavior - dysfunction in the integrated
functioning of brain circuits involving the amygdala
– Prefrontal cortex
• Decision-making circuits and socioemotional
information processing circuits
– Frontoparietal regions
• Teaches parents to change the child’s behavior in the home and in other settings using contingency management techniques • Focus is on: – Improving parent-child interactions – Promoting positive behavior – Decreasing antisocial behavior • Makes numerous demands on parents
Parent Management Training (PMT)
• Focuses on cognitive deficiencies and distortions in
interpersonal situations
• Five problem-solving steps are used to:
– Identify thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in
problem social situations
Children learn to:
– Appraise the situation
– Identify self-statements and reactions
– Alter their attributions about others’ motivations
– Learn to be more sensitive to others
Problem-Solving Skills Training (PSST)
