Background: Although reward processing is considered an important part of affective functioning, few studies have investigated reward-related decisions or responses in young people with affective disorders. Depression is postulated to involve decreased activity in reward-related affective systems. Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance…

Background: Despite the huge youth population, there is a lack of psychiatric diagnostic instruments with reported psychometric properties in Chinese. This study reports the development of the Chinese version of DISC-IV and examines its test-retest reliability. Method: Seventy-eight parents and 79 youths (mean age 13.1 years) attending child…

Background: Despite an expanding epidemiological evidence base, uncertainties remain over key aspects of the epidemiology of the "antisocial" disorders in childhood and adolescence. Methods: We used cross-sectional data on a nationally representative sample of 10,438 5-15-year-olds drawn from the 1999 British Child Mental Health Survey…

School refusal behavior is defined as any child-motivated refusal to attend classes and/or difficulty remaining in classes for an entire day. Although many researchers have focused on older children and adolescents in their samples, few have specifically focused on young children aged 5-9 years (i.e., kindergarten to third grade). In this article,…

Background: This study describes the development of the Brief Child and Family Phone Interview (BCFPI)--a computer-assisted telephone interview which adapts the revised Ontario Child Health Study's (OCHS-R) parent, teacher, and youth self-report scales for administration as intake screening and treatment outcome measures in children's mental…

Antidepressant medication is considered the current standard for severe depression, and cognitive therapy is the most widely investigated psychosocial treatment for depression. However, not all patients want to take medication, and cognitive therapy has not demonstrated consistent efficacy across trials. Moreover, dismantling designs have…

Background: This study investigated whether processing emotionally salient information such as emotional facial expressions influences the performance on a cognitive control task in pediatric anxiety and depression. Methods: The sample included 68 participants between 8 and 16 years of age selected into three diagnostic groups: Anxiety Disorder…

Background: In this study we used event-related potentials (ERPs) and source localization analyses to track the time course of neural activity underlying response monitoring in children diagnosed with an anxiety disorder compared to age-matched low-risk normal controls. Methods: High-density ERPs were examined following errors on a flanker task…

This review discusses conceptual issues in relating temperament to psychopathology, including the disputed relation of temperament to personality in children. A potential integrative framework is discussed that links trait and biological markers of temperament (reactive, incentive-response tendencies) with regulatory processes. This framework is…

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine a score on the Obsessive Compulsive Scale (OCS) from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to screen for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in children and to rigorously test the specificity and sensitivity of a single cutpoint. Methods: A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis…

Background: This study examines the use of the Brief Child and Family Phone Interview (BCFPI) to screen for childhood psychiatric disorder based on Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV (DISC-IV) classifications of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder (CD),…

Objective: To assess the impact of comorbid anxiety on treatment for adolescent depression in an effectiveness study of interpersonal psychotherapy for depressed adolescents (IPT-A). Method: A randomized clinical trial was conducted from April 1, 1999, through July 31, 2002. Sixty-three depressed adolescents, ages 12 to 18, received either IPT-A…

Objective: This research examined the validity of criteria for diagnosing social phobia (SOC) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), where the "DSM-IV" criteria were modified to better identify toddlers who could have these disorders. Method: Diagnoses were made with a semistructured clinical interview that included child observations.…

Background: The frequently reported decline in the "overall" frequency and intensity of fears during late childhood and adolescence may mask different developmental patterns for two broad subclasses of fears: fears concerning physical danger and fears concerning social evaluation. It was investigated if physical fears decrease between…

We analyzed the effects of the Colorado Medicaid Capitation Program on the duration and services of over 21,000 outpatient mental health episodes for young children. The study spanned a three year period before and after capitation was implemented, and compared episodes of outpatient care for children from 14 capitated Community Mental Health…