Psychiatric Characteristics of Students Who Make Threats Toward Others at School.

Objective: While studies have focused on identifying potential school shooters, little is known about the mental health and other characteristics of students who make threats. This study aimed to describe these students and factors prompting psychiatric interventions and treatment recommendations.

Method: Child and adolescent psychiatry threat assessment evaluations of 157 consecutive school-referred youths in grades K-12 between 1998 and 2019 were reviewed for demographics, reasons for referral, nature of threat, psychiatric diagnosis, and psychiatric and educational recommendations.

When No Diagnosis "Fits": Diagnostically Homeless and Emotionally Dysregulated Children and Adolescents.

Clinical experience supports the concept of children with severe disturbances in most areas of functioning, with psychiatric symptom onset before age 6. They are emotionally dysregulated and extremely anxious and have developmental difficulties. Given the absence of an appropriate diagnostic category, it is best to consider clinical phenomenology and then categorize each dysfunction domain (mood/anxiety problems, possible psychosis, language impairment/thought disorder, and relationship/social problems).

Debate: Student mental health matters - the heightened need for school-based mental health in the era of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted existing gaps in school-based mental health services and created new and urgent needs to address student mental health. Evidence from early in the pandemic already suggests that preexisting educational and mental health disparities have increased under the stress of the current health crisis. School mental health professionals are essential to help address anxiety, to promote social adjustment in the 'new normal', and to address trauma, grief, and loss.

"The Need to See and Respond": The Role of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in School Threat Assessment.

Child and adolescent psychiatrists are on the front lines of performing challenging school threat assessments. With respect to school climate, clinicians should be aware of the presence of zero tolerance policies and inappropriate profiling. Removing a student from school does not eliminate the risk to the school community.

Risk factors for learning problems in youth with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

Objectives: This study examined the risk factors for learning problems (LP) in pediatric psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) and their specificity by comparing psychopathology, medical, cognitive/linguistic/achievement, bullying history, and parent education variables between subjects with PNES with and without LP and between subjects with PNES and siblings with LP.

Methods: 55 subjects with PNES and 35 siblings, aged 8-18years, underwent cognitive, linguistic, and achievement testing, and completed somatization and anxiety sensitivity questionnaires. A semi-structured psychiatric interview about the child was administered to each subject and parent.

Risk factors for comorbid psychopathology in youth with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

Purpose: To examine the risk factors for internalizing (anxiety, depression) and posttraumatic stress (PTSD) disorders, somatization, and anxiety sensitivity (AS) in youth with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES).

Methods: 55 probands with PNES and 35 siblings, aged 8-18 years, underwent a psychiatric interview, cognitive and language testing, and completed somatization and AS questionnaires. Parents provided the subjects' medical, psychiatric, family, and adversity history information.

Psychiatric diagnoses and cognitive impairment in pediatric multiple sclerosis.

Background: Pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) represents approximately 5% of the MS population; information regarding clinical features is slowly accumulating. Cognitive and psychiatric impairments frequently occur, but remain poorly understood.

Objectives: To describe psychiatric diagnoses among children with MS referred for psychiatric assessment and their relation to cognitive impairment.

Pediatric psychogenic nonepileptic seizures: a study of assessment tools.

The goal of this study was to identify assessment tools and associated behavioral domains that differentiate children with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) from those with epilepsy. A sample of 24 children with PNES (mean age 14.0 years, 14 female), 24 children with epilepsy (mean age 13.

Psychiatric comorbidity in pediatric patients with demyelinating disorders.

Little is known about psychiatric aspects of pediatric demyelinating conditions. A total of 23 youths (6-17 years) with demyelinating conditions underwent semistructured psychiatric interviews using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version. Adolescents and parents completed the Child Symptom Inventory-4 and the Youth's Inventory-4.

The presentation of anxiety in children with pervasive developmental disorders.

Objective: Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria generally discourage the diagnosis of other Axis I disorders in children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), anxiety symptoms are often observed in this clinical population. Moreover, there are some albeit limited data that suggest an association between anxiety and psychotic symptoms in children.

Aggression and violence in mood disorders.

As a common component of mood disorders, aggression can have many adverse effects on the child's or adolescent's life, including disrupting school performance and causing personal rejection by family, peers, and teachers. The problems of children and adolescents with mood disorders are compounded by comorbid aggressiveness. Without effective treatment for both problems, many of these aggressive, depressed children and adolescents go on to experience multiple failures in life leading to disturbances in character and the inability to establish fulfilling interpersonal relationships.