The family environment and developmental psychopathology: the unique and interactive effects of depression, attention, and conduct problems.

Prior studies have found remarkable similarity in the family characteristics across a wide range of child psychopathologies. This study investigated the unique relationships between symptoms of depression, conduct problems/aggression, and inattention/hyperactivity and characteristics of the family environment. Parents and teachers completed multiple behavioral, emotional, and family measures to describe the characteristics of a community sample of 362 children.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: manifestation in adulthood.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the manifestation of ADHD in adults using a combination of structured clinical interview, behavioral self-report, and a range of neuropsychological measures. Symptom criteria that are endorsed by adults with ADHD as compared to non-diagnosed adults and an adult sample with other clinical disorders tend to reflect problems with follow-through, forgetting, organization, and losing things. Notably, adults in the No Diagnosis group endorsed a higher frequency of symptoms than base rates reported elsewhere.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test with children: a meta-analytic study of sensitivity and specificity.

More and more frequently the presence of executive function deficits appears in the research literature in conjunction with disabilities that affect children. Research has been most directed at the extent to which executive function deficits may be implicated in specific disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, deficits in executive function have been found to be typical of developmental disorders in general. The focus of this paper is to examine the extent to which one frequently used measure of executive function, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), demonstrates sensitivity and specificity for the identification of those executive function deficits associated with ADHD as well as its use with other developmental disorders through meta-analytic methods.

Adolescent health risk behavior: when do pediatric psychologists break confidentiality?

Objective: To determine the circumstances under which pediatric psychologists believe it is ethical to break confidentiality when presented with adolescent health risk behavior.

Method: Members of the Society of Pediatric Psychology (N = 92) responded to a survey containing a vignette about an adolescent patient engaging in health-compromising behaviors. Participants rated the degree to which it is ethical to break confidentiality for health risk behaviors of varying frequency, intensity, and duration.