Childhood Identification and Prophylaxis of Antisocial Personality Disorder (From Juvenile Psychiatry and the Law, P 65-82, 1989, Richard Rosner and Harold I Schwartz, eds. -- See NCJ-119142)

• NCJ Number: 119147
• Author(s): L Bloomingdale; E Bloomingdale
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Plenum Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Physiological and psychological characteristics show considerable similarity between children with Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADDH) and adults with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD).

Abstract

Children with ADDH have several psychological characteristics: lack of foresight, lack of insight, defective affect, inability to learn from experience, diminished sense of fear, inadequate motivation, poor judgment, absence of depression and neurotic anxiety, frequent lies, and self-defeating patterns of behavior. Prospective studies of ADDH children, with or without Conduct Disorder (CD), also show a high outcome of ASPD. The usual course of development from ADDH to ASPD is the chronological development of the ADDH to oppositional disorder, then unsocialized conduct disorder, delinquency, and, after the age of 18, ASPD. Recently other forms of treatment have been added to the traditional psychopharmacological agencies used for ADDH. If medication and new treatment approaches such as behavior modification, educational therapy, parental and family therapy, or other individualized interventions are provided for a period of 3 years, a recent controlled study indicates that the average number of arrests for felony offenses and the average number of institutionalizations are reduced significantly at the 0.0001 level. Figures, tables, 33 references, and 8 suggested readings.