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Creating a pro-social school environment increases the frequency of children’s positive behavior, develops their social skills, and may limit future aggressive behaviors.

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure/Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Young people whose mothers drank when pregnant may be more likely to abuse alcohol because, in the womb, their developing senses came to prefer its taste and smell.

Emotionally intelligent students get better grades and higher test scores. Students who are better able to understand and manage their emotions effectively, a skill known as emotional intelligence, do better at school than their less skilled peers, as measured by grades and standardized test scores, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

The number of children diagnosed with and treated for disruptive disorders including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has markedly increased over the last decade. Concurrent with this trend is a growing debate about the best way to treat such problems in children.

Treatment of Autism can be done at home or school, at low costs. In the first successful experiment with humans using a treatment known as sensory-motor or environmental enrichment, researchers documented marked improvement in young autistic boys when compared to boys treated with traditional behavioral therapies, according to research published by APA

New research debunks Tourette’s syndrome myths and lays the groundwork for a behavioral intervention. It is agreed by most researchers, Tourette’s syndrome is mainly biological. Some of the characteristics of the disorder are tics such as head jerks, eye blink and grunts, which all stem from the basal ganglia or with dopamine function.

Two generations ago, our country declared a war on poverty. While the nation has made substantial progress in responding to poverty and poverty-related conditions, some of its most devastating and destructive impacts remain most prevalent in children and are too often passed down from one generation to the next.

Deborah Fein, PhD, was a psychologist in the 1970’s and became fascinated that a few of her patients with autism spectrum disorder had become symptom free by age 7. Since then, it has become clearer that a small subset of children do, clinically speaking, lose the ASD diagnosis—ranging from 3 percent to 25 percent of young people initially diagnosed with the disorder, according to research.

Coaching is a technique to help with ADHD. Children, adolescents and adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) don’t necessarily need psychotherapy, says psychologist Abigail Levrini, PhD. What they often do need is help getting themselves organized and reaching their goals—coaching, in short.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that affects behavior, communication and social functioning. According to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1 in 68 children in the U.S. have ASD.

Mothering a child with autism may be more stressful than mothering one with developmental delays, concludes a July study published online in Autism.

New research proves the need of earlier intervention. One in 88 children is the number of U.S. children with autism. Psychologists need to understand how mental disorders manifest in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

A report from the American Academy of Pediatrics urges pediatricians to get more training in mental health.

ADHD has three subtypes, which include hyperactive impulsive, primarily inattentive, and combined. With inattentive type, the restlessness is internal. 

If children with autism can’t see the forest for the trees, that may be partly because the burden of processing all those trees at once makes it harder to lock in the scene. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System have found that children with autism differ from other children in two specific memory capabilities.

Since alcohol use has increased since the pandemic, researchers have found this pattern to also be among pregnant women as well. Therefore, experts worry this could result with more babies being born with damage from prenatal alcohol exposure. “Experts estimate that 2% to 5% of U.S. schoolchildren—as many as 1 in 20—may be affected by prenatal alcohol exposure, which can cause complications with growth, behavior, and learning.

Researchers have reported that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) believe they are coping better socially and in school than they actually are, but Erika Swanson, PhD, a recent graduate from the University of California at Berkeley’s clinical psychology program, has found this to be untrue in girls.

After six years of study, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has expanded its guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to cover both preschoolers and adolescents. The previous guidelines issued a decade ago were limited to children ages 6 to 12, but advances in research have allowed the new guidelines to include children ages 4 to 18.

Psychologists are using research-based behavioral interventions that effectively treat children with ADHD. These interventions focus on teaching parents strategies for helping their children succeed. One such approach is to catch children being good.

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability and is often severe enough to make it difficult for children to succeed academically. Treatment for language and reading impairments by speech therapists and reading specialists is often a slow, long, expensive, and frustrating experience for professionals, parents, and children.

Mutations in a gene vital to brain development may predict the onset of autism, say researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism (CPEA). Autism, a developmental disability largely shrouded in mystery since its identification in 1941, typically manifests itself in the first three years of life and affects one in 500 individuals.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are more common than thought, say researchers at congressional briefing. Many women aren’t fully aware of the risks associated with drinking while pregnant, and the public needs more information on the symptoms and severity of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), according to experts who spoke at a congressional briefing.

Ritalin and other stimulants have long been used as treatments for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in elementary-age children, curbing disruptive and defiant behavior and allowing children to focus. Now, in the first full-scale study of its kind, research finds that the drugs also help teen-agers with the condition, allowing them to focus in the classroom and concentrate on schoolwork.

In research published in Behavioral Neuroscience, Soncin and colleagues (2016) compared executive functioning in ADHD and BD relative to controls using an oculomotor task, in which participants were cued (by color of the fixation point) to either look toward (prosaccade trials) or away from (antisaccade trials) a visual target.

There are numerous existing therapies and supports that have been successful in helping kids with autism reach their potential, but there are also barriers. Pediatricians sometimes fail to use common screening measures according to the standardized instructions, says Diana Robins, PhD. Robins helped develop one of the most commonly used tools, the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), which includes a round of standardized questions to ask when initial screening raises red flags (Pediatrics, Vol. 133, No. 1, 2014).

Perhaps the most glaring gap for people with autism is the evaporation of support when they reach adulthood. Regional studies suggest unemployment is high among adults with autism. Cognitive abilities are not protective: a study by developmental psychologist Julie Taylor, PhD, of Vanderbilt University, found that young adults with autism and no intellectual disabilities were three times more likely than those with autism and an intellectual disability to have no regular daytime activities, likely because there simply aren’t many employment or day programs designed for people of average or above-average intelligence with autism (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 41, No. 5, 2011).

There is such a large population of children with incarcerated parents in the United States that even “Sesame Street” is addressing the issue. In 2013, the program introduced Alex, a character whose father is in jail, to highlight the stigma and coping difficulties experienced by children of incarcerated parents. The show’s handling of the topic sparked public interest and initiated a wider discussion about the need for increased support for children of incarcerated parents and their caregivers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging health care providers to refer parents of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for behavior therapy before prescribing medicine. According to the CDC’s latest Vital Signs report, about 75 percent of young children being treated for ADHD receive medicine, and only about half receive any form of psychological services.

The purpose of this reading is to understand Cognitive Processing Therapy. Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is a specific type of cognitive behavioral therapy that helps patients learn how to modify and challenge unhelpful beliefs related to the trauma. CPT is an effective form of treatment for PTSD that has developed after experiencing any traumatic event, such as, child abuse, combat, rape, and natural disasters.

There are several effective evidence-based practices designed to help children or teens who are grieving or experiencing trauma and grief. They include: Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, Multidimensional grief therapy, and Resilient Parenting for Bereaved Families, etc.

Our nation’s economic status has tremendously affected the lives of millions of Americans. “U.S. Census data reveals that from 2009 to 2010, the total number of children under age 18 living in poverty increased to 16.4 million from 15.5 million.” On that account there has been psychological research to show how poverty negatively impacts children at home, school, and in their communities.

“The purpose of our study was to understand, document, and report conservative Christian parents’ perceptions of the effectiveness of an intensive 5-week filial therapy program, Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT).” As our society continues to grow, it is to be realized how much of a role religion plays in our everyday life.

“Human trafficking is a global and domestic human rights issue that is characterized by economic exploitation through force, fraud and coercion.” Human trafficking can be to anybody of any age, however, young girls and women are the majority of individuals who are trafficked.

“Pretend play may not drive child development as much as once thought” (Sadie Dingfelder). Using only the power of their imaginations, children can transform a box into a boat, or a living room into a peril-fraught jungle. But while many famous theorists, including Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, have posited that pretending fuels children’s intellectual and creative development, that may not be the case, suggests University of Virginia psychology professor Angeline Lillard, PhD, online in Psychological Bulletin.

“Too many children and teens are experiencing mental health concerns. This has been going on for many years and the COVID-19 pandemic has simply escalated the problem,” said clinical psychologist Lori Pbert, PhD. Therefore, the USPSTF is recommending that children 8 to 18 should have regular anxiety screenings.