Diagnoses don't tell you much

Allan-Matlem

Active Member
Hi,

labels may be important for getting accomodations and resources for kids , but they don't help that much.
It is only a beginning. Here are 2 resources arguing for parents to look at their kids in terms of lacking skills and unsolved problems , using the Assessed lagging skills and unsolved problems document as a guide.


From Dr Ross Greene's site http://livesinthebalance.org
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dr-ros...ting-behaviorally-challenging-kids-collaborat

In this program, Dr. Greene discusses whether diagnoses are useful in understanding and helping kids with behavioral challenges. He then talked about some of the characteristic ways in which the Empathy step of Plan B can go awry, and discussed how Plan is not only applicable to adult-child problem-solving but also to problem-solving interactions between adults, including parents and teachers.


from Dr Ablon - http://thinkkids.org - blog
New DSM, New Diagnosis, Same Concern

2/10/2010


You may have heard or read in the popular press (for example, articles in today's NY Timesand programs on NPR) that the American Psychiatric Association has just issued a proposed list of changes to the new DSM-5, the bible of psychiatric diagnoses. Of particular interest to many of us is the proposed diagnosis "Temper Regulation Disorder with Dysphoria" meant for the most part to speak to the symptoms of many children who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The temper outbursts described in the new diagnosis could probably be used to describe every child we work with and possibly your child. But if you look closely at the specific criteria that the child must meet to warrant the diagnosis you will see that the child must have a persistently negative mood nearly every day between outbursts. This is obviously intended to capture the difficulties with emotional regulation outside the context of frustration that occur for some kids. In our language, we're talking about kids whose difficulties regulating their emotions doesn't just go south when triggered but rather in between triggers too. We welcome an opportunity to recognize the challenges of these kids without jumping to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. But the new diagnostic label carries with it the same limitation as other diagnoses: they don't tell adults what specifically the child needs help with or how they can help. We like to say that our litmus test for a good explanation is one that tells you what you are working on. In our approach, we encourage folks to use The Thinking Skills Inventory to help identify the specific skills a child has difficulty exhibiting and the specific triggers or problems around which the challenging behavior occurs. Being specific about a child's difficulties tells adults what to work on. We hope folks won't lose sight of this important fact in the context of this new label.

Allan
 
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