Beyond Medications: Psychosocial Methods for Helping Challenging Kids

Topics: Child Psychiatry | Psychopharmacology Tips | Psychotherapy

Foster children tend to be over-medicated. Surveys show that foster youth receive 5 times the number of psychotropic medications, frequently three or four simultaneously, as privately insured children. What else, beside medications, can we offer foster children who are often struggling with psychiatric issues and difficult and unfamiliar family envir

New Editor of CCPR: Glen Elliott

Topics: Child Psychiatry

We're happy to welcome Glen Elliott, MD, PhD, as the new Editor-in-Chief of the Carlat Child Psychiatry Report. Dr. Elliott is a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist with a distinguished and varied career. His education spanned both coasts: he went to medical school at Stanford (where he also received a PhD in neuro- and biobehavioral scien

The Politics of Medicating Children: Problems and Solutions

Topics: Child Psychiatry | Psychopharmacology Tips | PTSD

Medication Strategies for Helping People with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Topics: Autism Spectrum Disorder | Child Psychiatry | Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychopharmacology Tips

Getting meds just right is challenging in autism. Sometimes we succeed. For example, a woman with minimal verbal ability is extremely aggressive. She is on a number of medications including valproate 1000 mg extended release, paroxetine 40 mg, ziprasidone 40 mg twice a day, alprazolam 1 mg twice a day, and a host of supplements. She settles down conside

The Autism Diagnostic Shuffle

Topics: Autism Spectrum Disorder | Child Psychiatry | DSM

Autism is the poster child for the dramatic effects that changes in diagnostic criteria can have on apparent prevalence rates of disorders. CDC reports that the prevalence of autism was 0.05% in 1980, vs. 1.5% in 2015—a 30-fold increase. Most agree that diagnostic changes, especially DSM-4, drove this “epidemic.” Let’s look at the three most imp

Evaluating and Treating Autism: Practical Issues

Topics: Anxiety Disorder | Child Psychiatry | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychopharmacology Tips

Medications for Childhood PTSD: It’s All Off-Label

Topics: Child Psychiatry | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychopharmacology Tips | PTSD

In 2011, we wrote a review of medications for PTSD in children and found, unfortunately, that data to inform true evidence-based practice was scant. There are still no psychotropic medications that have been proven effective in randomized controlled trials for children with PTSD and there are no FDA approved medications for this population. Nonethele

Trauma Systems Therapy

Topics: Antidepressants | Anxiety Disorder | Child Psychiatry | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychopharmacology Tips | Psychotherapy | PTSD

Energy Drinks and Kids: What Child Psychiatrists Should Know

Topics: Child Psychiatry

The appeal of caffeine is no mystery. In moderate doses, it wakes us up, elevates our mood, and speeds up our thinking. But in very high doses we feel wired, get tachycardic, and can’t sleep. Kids are not immune to either the positives or the negatives of caffeine intake. As the energy drink industry has exploded, we are learning more about the eff

OCD in Kids: CBT, SSRIs, Then What?

Topics: Child Psychiatry | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy | Free Articles | OCD | Research Updates

Saphris Approved for Pediatric Bipolar Disorder—What Do the Data Show?

Topics: Antipsychotics | Bipolar Disorder | Child Psychiatry | News of Note

Bullying in Schools: A Primer

Topics: Child Psychiatry

When most of us went to school, we knew who the bullies were, and we knew who got bullied, but the problem was not discussed much. Things have changed since then. With media coverage of suicides attributable to bullying, we now realize that the phenomenon is potentially deadly. Bullying is generally defined as an aggressive, intentional act carried o

Helping Teachers Help Your Patients

Topics: Child Psychiatry

Editor’s note: Ms. Minahan is the co-author of The Behavior Code, along with our other interviewee in this issue Nancy Rappaport, MD (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press; 2012). Ms. Minahan is also the author of The Behavior Code Companion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press; 2014).

Combining Medications and Behavioral Techniques in Schools

Topics: Child Psychiatry

Medications for Agitated Kids— When Nothing Else Works

Topics: Child Psychiatry

Here is a hypothetical situation that most child psychiatrists have encountered: You’re an attending on a child psychiatric inpatient unit. An 11-year-old boy who was admitted for suicidal ideation just had a difficult meeting with his parents and the social worker. He wants to go home, but is not yet ready for discharge, and he’s angry about it.

Symbyax Helps Kids with Bipolar Depression—But Has Downsides

Topics: Bipolar Disorder | Child Psychiatry | Research Updates

The New FDA-Approved EEG Test for ADHD: Should You Order It?

Topics: Antipsychotics | Child Psychiatry | Free Articles

Over the decades, finding a truly useful objective diagnostic test in psychiatry has proven both elusive and frustrating. The latest candidate is a device called the NEBA system, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July of 2013. NEBA stands for Neuropsychiatric EEG-Based Assessment Aid for ADHD, and the FDA has allowed

Table - Antipsychotic Medications Used for Children

Topics: Antipsychotics | Child Psychiatry

Table: Antipsychotic Medications Used for Children (Click here to view as a full-size PDF.)  

Table - Possible Side Effects of Antipsychotic Medications

Topics: Antipsychotics | Child Psychiatry

Table: Possible Side Effects of Antipsychotic Medications (Click here to view as a full-size PDF.)  

Using Antipsychotics Judiciously in Children

Topics: Antipsychotics | Child Psychiatry