Psychological Discrepancies found in Children and Adolescents

Department of Cognitive-Behavioral Medicine, University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

*Corresponding Author:

Kunio Y
Department of Cognitive-Behavioral Medicine
University Graduate School of Medicine
Tokyo, Japan
Tel: +81 797-23-0661
E-mail: yui16@bell.ocn.ne.jp

Received date: July 04, 2017; Accepted date: July 04, 2017; Published date: July 10, 2017

Citation: Kunio Yui (2017) Psychological Discrepancies found in Children and Adolescents . J Child Adolesc Behav 5: e118. doi: 10.4172/2375-4494.1000e118

Copyright: © 2017 Yui K. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Editor Note

After birth, child undergoes several physical and psychological changes to reach adulthood in response to various genomic and environmental risk factors. For every stage, there are some characteristic features, which confer the notion about status of development. Effective involvement of various biomarkers and pathological models have made easy to evaluate the pathological as well as psychological states of individual subject. However, the behavioral analysis of child and adult people was not much highlighted topic until the exclusive work by Sidney Bijou, 1961 who postulated ‘Systematic and Empirical Theory’ for ‘Behavioral Development’. The theory by Bijou also influenced the fellow researchers to postulate several analysis tools for child and adult behavioral measurement. Among several of such kinds Bijou and Baer's model, Latent growth model, Structural equation model, Rasch analysis, Commons and Miller model are noteworthy. Studies and research on such intriguing subject is the basic requirement for proper evaluation of society and therefore, the present ‘Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior’ is there to function as an information resource on the respective fields of studies.

Journal of Child & Adolescent Behavior is a highly acclaimed scientific journal in the field. It is known for its high quality research manuscripts that provide novel insights into the field of diagnosis, treatment and management of pathophysiological, psychological and behavioral disorders exclusively observed among children and adolescents. The current issue of the journal also published many such avant-garde articles on some highly important hitherto unexplored aspects of psychological discrepancies found in children adolescents. Some of the most important articles in these areas have been discussed in here.

Anorexia Nervosa is a mental disorder that is most often observed in adolescents. The patient has a strong fear of gaining weight and tries to avoid eating food. The condition becomes life threatening when food intake is stopped for extended periods of time. The physical and psychological implications of the disease on the patient as well as on the family members and parents are extensive and needs immediate address. The article published by Denton et al. [1] emphasized on the need of publication of scientific manuscripts that highlight on the perspectives and dilemma of parents of adolescents suffering from Anorexia Nervosa. The authors presented a multifaceted overview of parents’ experience of taking care of an adolescent daughter, who was suffering from the disease. The study investigated the viewpoint of seven such mothers and one father. Further analysis of the data revealed by the participants in interview indicated that, the disease was ‘tearing their family apart’ and they were struggling on the question- ‘how do we get our daughter back?’ Furthermore, the study also found that, emotional support and counseling for the patient as well as the parents is highly important for handling the condition with ease and swiftness.

The article by Gaul et al. [2] investigated the nature, prevalence and psychopathological and relative frequency of psychotic like experiences (PLEs) among adolescents. While, it has already been established that, PLEs have peak incidence rates during adolescence, the said study made an attempt to estimate the frequency of occurrence of PLEs in an adolescent Flemish clinical sample group using the CAPE (Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences) method. The obtained data was further correlated with the gender, age, IQ and psychopathology of the subjects. To do so, the authors studied 1176 adolescent children in the age group of 12-17 years, referred for psychiatric assessment in psychiatric outpatient clinic. The authors used the CAPE positive experiences scale (CAPE-P, 20 questions) to measure PLEs that has been categorized as Hallucination, Paranoia, Delusion, Grandiosity and Paranormal Belief. The outcome of the study revealed that, 734 CAPEs were valid for research. Surprisingly, the authors report that, around 94.2% of the adolescents studied reported about their experience at least one PLE at some point or other. The observed figures are significantly higher than those observed in the general population. Furthermore, the rates are even higher in adolescent girls as compared to boys. They also found a significant correlation between PLEs and distress, but the same could not be said for the psychopathological conditions. The results indicated that, CAPE is a highly effective method for the assessment of frequency and severity of PLEs in adolescents and emphasizes on the requirement of psychopathological correlation with the same.

Another article that presented the existing correlations between resilience, abnormal behavior in children and adolescents was published by Kelley et al. [3]. The authors explored the role of exposing the children to the three most widely known psycho-spiritual principles viz. Universal Mind, Consciousness, and Thought. The authors randomly selected 45 children and 25 high-risk adolescents for the study. The experimental group received ten lessons (60-90 minute each) that were specially designed to discuss the principles of Universal Mind, consciousness, and thought. The lessons also discussed multiple aspects of applying the discussed principles for psychological development, gain control over own thoughts and access the inner resilience. The results obtained after the lessons indicated that, the experimental group members showed significant improvements in their resilience behavior. In addition, the high-risk adolescents included in the experimental group showed decline in their risky behavior. The results obtained in the study propose the utilization of the psychospiritual lessons in the process of treatment and management of resilient and high risk children and adolescents.

The rampant increase in the number of young children and adolescents using internet has caused the development of several other discrepancies associated with it, cyber-bullying being one of them. The article published by Olenik-Shemesh et al. [4] presented a study that was meant to explore the present status of cyber-bullying in Israel. The authors studied 242 pupils (54.1% girls) from two municipal primary schools through questionnaires. Analysis of the recorded data indicated that, around 15.8% of young children who were active on the internet faced cyber bullying. Furthermore, it was also found that, the rate of bullying was significantly higher in girls than in boys. Additionally, pupils those who faced ‘face to face’ bullying had higher probability of being the victims of cyber bullying. Victims of cyberbullying reported that, they did not have social support, which makes the condition even worse. The article highlighted the need of development of social counseling programs in schools that must work in concert with parents to identify victims of cyber bullying and support them emotionally.

Diagnosis, prognosis and management of autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders corresponding to ASD are highly complicated and multifactorial. Some of the most common symptoms of ASD include impairment of social communication skills, repetitive behavior and abnormal reactions to sensory stimuli. In such cases, inclusion of abnormal sensory reactions in the process of diagnosis of ASD has been proposed to be highly advantageous. However, assessing the abnormality of these reactions are some complicated tasks. The article published by Renzo et al. [5], investigated the efficacy of this diagnostic parameter by assessing the correlations between the different sensory reactions and repetitive behavior. The author investigated the Short Sensory Profile and the Repetitive Behavior 50 autistic preschool children and substantiated the co-occurrence of both these factors in most of these children. Furthermore, they also proposed that, the most commonly affected sensory areas correspond to the functions of tactile hypersensitivity, auditory filtering and hypo reactivity. The study also authenticated the role of ADOS-2 test for ASDs by crosschecking the outcomes of the test with those obtained from indirect assessment methods based on questionnaires.

Apart from the above discussed research articles, the current issue also hosted some high impact systematic reviews on other developmental and behavioral aspects of adolescents. The review article by David et al. [6], discussed the correlations between the prevalence of Diet-Related Chronic Health Conditions (DRCHCs) such as, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Cystic Fibrosis (CF), and Celiac Disease (CD) and the chances of development of pathological conditions related to eating. The review emphasized on indirect psychological and societal implications of DRCHCs and how they may help in the process of development of eating pathological conditions. The article also serves to point out the specific risk factors viz. weight issues, food restriction and social acceptance that may further the process of development of eating pathologies. The article is an important piece of literature that may help in the accentuation of further research studies pertaining to development of better management strategies for adolescents suffering from DRCHCs.

The other review article presented an overview of multiple aspects of Executive attention (EA) and its role in controlling thoughts and behavior. In addition to summarizing the process and role of emergence of EA, the article also discussed the paucity of scientific documents highlighting the developmental outcomes of EA [7]. The article manages to summarize most of the extant literature available on the topic and hopes to further the design and implementation of research studies that can elucidate the process of development of EA in the formative years.

References

1. Denton R, Muncer S, Howey L (2017) How do we get our Daughter back? Parents Perspectives on Recovery from Anorexia Nervosa. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 337.
2. Gaul K, De Loore E, van West D (2017) The Occurrence of Positive Psychotic Experiences in an Outpatient Clinic in Flanders. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 338.
3. Kelley TM, Alexander JR, Pransky J (2017) Drawing-Out Resilience in Children and High-Risk Adolescents via Exposing Them to Three Psycho-Spiritual Principles. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 343.
4. Olenik-Shemesh D, Heiman T, Zuaretz-Hannan M (2017) Cyber-victimization among Children: Prevalence, Characteristics, Gender Differences and Links to Social Difficulties. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 339.
5. Di Renzo M, Bianchi di Castelbianco F, Vanadia E, Petrillo M, et al. (2017) Sensory Processing and Repetitive Behaviors in Clinical Assessment of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 342.
6. David JG, Culnan E, Ernst L (2017) Adolescents with Diet-Related Chronic Health Conditions (DRCHCs) and Unique Risk for Development of Eating Pathology. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 340.
7. Conejero A, Rueda MR (2017) Early Development of Executive Attention. J Child Adolesc Behav 5: 341.