Search

In order to examine their relationship to Expressed Emotion, family environment and marital relationships were measured in the parents of disruptive, obsessive-compulsive, and normal children. Satisfactory family and marital environment were found to be related to low Expressed Emotion, while achievement orientation in mothers and greater family conflict were found to be significantly related to high Expressed Emotion.

A relationship has been suggested between clinical presentation of paraphilias and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with respect to the unwanted repetitive nature and insight into the irrationality of the paraphiliac behavior. This has led to speculation that paraphiliac disorders might belong to an 'obsessive compulsive spectrum.' To address this issue, and because of the striking selective benefit of serotonin reuptake blocking antidepressants (such as clomipramine) in the treatment of OCD, 15 paraphiliacs entered a double-blind crossover comparison of clomipramine vs. desipramine preceded by a 2-week single-blind placebo period. Four subjects responded to placebo and were dropped from the study. Three others failed to complete the study. Although the study is limited by the small number of patients and the heterogeneity of the paraphilias, the observed benefit from both tricyclics (over the initial placebo) encourages further study. For the 8 subjects completing the protocol, there was no preferential response to the more specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor suggesting a difference in underlying pathophysiology between paraphilia and OCD.

Attention in children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been studied, but there is still no agreement as to the nature of the deficits that have been found. Two experiments were designed to test reaction time (RT) in boys with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD), a more general heading under which boys with ADHD may be classified. Not all boys with DBD meet the full criteria for ADHD, but those with ADHD can be said to have DBD as well. Subjects included 31 boys with an average age of 11.5 years, and 30 controls with an average age of 12.5 years. On a warned RT task, in which subjects were told to depress a key when a light turned on and to release it as quickly as possible when the tone sounded (the light warned of the imminence of the tone), boys with DBD had slower reaction times than controls and the times were more variable across trials. Results of experiment two, when no warning was given, also showed that DBD subjects performed more poorly than controls, but analysis proved inconsistent and depended upon methods of analysis used. In general, these experiments lend support to the theory that DBD subjects have slower and more variable RTs than controls, even when age and IQ were controlled. Other studies have shown that ADHD children do not have particularly slow processing times, therefore slowness in voluntary motor response may be an influential factor. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

The definition of aggression, acknowledged as an important parameter of childhood psychopathology, is poorly and inconsistently operationalized. This study examined the convergence of six measures of aggression in a group of 43 children and adolescents with Disruptive Behavior Disorders and assessed whether severity physical aggression toward humans and/or animals was related to these other measures. Patients with severe physical aggression were oversampled to examine these questions. Physical aggression directed toward people and animals had been associated with CSF 5-HIAA both at baseline and upon follow-up of children under the age of 12. Two frequently utilized factor analysis derived measures, the parent-rated Child Bellanor Checklist (CBCL) aggressive factor and the teacher-rated Iowa Conners aggression factor did not correlate with severity of physical aggression. Teacher ratings from two different school settings were not significantly correlated with other measures from other sources. The results suggest measurement of clinically salient physical aggression requires multiple informant sources and that the CBCL and Iowa Conners are assessing dimensions other than severity of physical aggression. This study also provided some evidence for construct validity of the Brown-Goodwin Lifetime History of Aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]