THE WORLDWIDE BURDEN OF INFANT MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL DISORDER: REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE OF THE WORLD ASSOCIATION FOR INFANT MENTAL HEALTH.

Children worldwide experience mental and emotional disorders. Mental disorders occurring among young children, especially infants (birth -3 years), often go unrecognized. Prevalence rates are difficult to determine because of lack of awareness and difficulty assessing and diagnosing young children.

Toddler socioemotional behavior in a northern plains Indian tribe: associations with maternal psychosocial well-being.

M.C. Sarche, C.

Emotional Expression and Language: A Longitudinal Study of Typically Developing Earlier and Later Talkers from 15 to 30 Months.

Children's emotional expression and language both develop during infancy and early childhood, yet these two communication systems have been studied primarily in isolation. This study focuses instead on assessing the relation between them just as productive language emerges during toddlerhood. Seventy-seven typically developing, firstborn toddlers and their families were recruited at 13 months of age.

Emotional availability: critical questions and research horizons.

Based on attachment theory, the construct of emotional availability and its assessment goes beyond attachment in important ways. Its origins in clinical experience and emotions research are discussed as well as the prospects for continuing advances in knowledge stimulated by the contributions in the Special Section. This is especially so in terms of developmental variations and the biological underpinnings of emotional availability.

Trajectories of cognitive development among American Indian young children.

Children who begin kindergarten with stronger skills learn faster than do those who enter with lower skills. Minority children tend to enter kindergarten already at a disadvantage, and the gap widens across time. However, little is known about cognitive development among American Indian young children.

Potentials for infant mental health: Congress themes and moral development.

Themes of the Congress carried forward the pioneering contributions of Rene Spitz and Takeo Doi. Contributions to infant mental health included those dealing with: (a) relatedness, (b) positive rewards of infancy, (c) disruptions of relatedness and rewards, (d) assessments, and (e) interventions. Contributions from infant mental health and bridging to the future included those regarding: (a) prevention, (b) policy, and (c) advances for science and practice.

Developmentally sensitive diagnostic criteria for mental health disorders in early childhood: the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-IV, the research diagnostic criteria-preschool age, and the diagnostic classification of mental health and developmental disorders of infancy and early childhood-revised.

As the infant mental health field has turned its focus to the presentation, course, and treatment of clinically significant mental health disorders, the need for reliable and valid criteria for identifying and assessing mental health symptoms and disorders in early childhood has become urgent. In this article we offer a critical perspective on diagnostic classification of mental health disorders in young children. We place the issue of early childhood diagnosis within the context of classification of psychopathology at other ages and describe, in some detail, diagnostic classifications that have been developed specifically for young children, including the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC:0-3R; ZERO TO THREE, 2005), a diagnostic classification for mental health symptoms and disorders in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.

Facilitating reflective supervision in an early child development center.

Reflective supervision (RS) has not been a tradition in most early child development settings. The infant mental health consultant, in successfully implementing RS, helps to articulate and affirm some basic values necessary for a community of reflective practice. These emphasize (a) participating in an environment of continuous learning and improvement and (b) engaging in an ongoing commitment to professionalism.

Innovation in child psychoanalytic training: an implementation study.

A five-year evaluative research project regarding an innovation in psychoanalytic training within institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) was conducted through the Committee on Child and Adolescent Analysis (COCAA) of its Board on Professional Standards, which led to significant policy changes within APsaA's Principles and Standards of Education. Eleven candidates at four different institutes (Columbia, Denver, Houston-Galveston, and St. Louis) entered a pilot training program for child and adolescent analysis without the requirement of adult training.

Development of autonomy: role of walking onset and its timing.

The observations of psychoanalytically oriented clinicians such as Mahler, Pine, and Bergman and Greenacre were descriptive of intriguing aspects of the infant's transition to upright locomotion. Yet, research on how walking creates changes in the infant and in the family have scarcely been studied. In this naturalistic home study, 46 infants were designated "earlier" (13 girls and 10 boys) and "later" (12 girls and 11 boys) walkers based on their relative timing of entry into this developmental transition.

Engaging imagination and the future: frontiers for clinical work.

Narrative theory indicates that assessment using narratives is expectant, collaborative, and has the potential to begin a process of change. A shift from thinking exclusively about meaning (subjectivity in the child) to thinking also about shared meaning (intersubjectivity between child and clinician-examiner) seems appropriate in the clinical context. Recent knowledge from the cognitive neurosciences makes a shift of this sort compelling and has further implications.

How do we evaluate learning from the curriculum? Thirty phone interviews with Institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

A telephone survey of curriculum directors of the thirty institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association revealed that 75 percent of institutes highly value the importance of evaluating what candidates learn from the curriculum. Paradoxically, however, most institutes do not do evaluations in this area. Typically, institutes evaluate candidates' satisfaction with courses, or their attendance and conduct in classes, rather than learning per se.

Healing after Columbine: reflections of psychoanalytic responders to community trauma.

Following the shootings at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, the Denver Psychoanalytic Society provided both immediate and long-term interventions to those closely impacted by the tragedy. In this effort, analytically trained volunteers faced many personal challenges and role adjustments. To address these issues a reflective study group was formed twenty months after the traumatic event.