Assignment Task:
Signature Analysis: Craft an Analysis Regarding a Behavioral Disorder
In this module, you will begin to put the pieces together regarding diagnosis and treatment for behavior disorders that emerge in childhood and adolescence. Best practices for services and treatments are those that are evidence-based. Evidence-based practice (EBP) assumes the presence of a coherent body of scientific knowledge relevant to a broad range of services that optimizes the effectiveness of interventions, treatments, or services. Effectively implemented EBP requires a contextual base, collaborative, and create a partnership among families, practitioners, and researchers. Children and adolescents should receive the best available evidence-based mental health care based on scientific knowledge and integrated with clinical expertise in the context of patient characteristics, culture, and preferences.
Coordinated care in the children's mental health system has often been fraught with fragmented services (juvenile justice, mental health, substance use), which more often work in a closed system. However, researchers and practitioners are now realizing that services and treatments must reach across these silos to work collaboratively.
Reference:
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., Text Revision). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Learning Objectives:
- Examine the role of evidence-based interventions in child and adolescent psychopathology. (CLO 3) Need Assignment Help?
- Analyze a childhood or adolescent diagnostic category in-depth. (CLO 1, 2, 3, 4)
- Evaluate the role of the family and sociobiocultural influences in the classifications of an abnormal child and adolescent development. (CLO 1, 2, 4)
Evidence-based Interventions
You have learned that childhood and adolescence can be problematic developmental periods. Many children and adolescents (and their families) often cannot work through the behavior disorders that have been described alone - they need professional help and support. Fortunately, researchers have developed several clinical modalities that have been found to be effective and well-researched regarding promising practices in working with children and adolescents. These practices are referred to as evidence-based practices. The hallmark of a good clinician is to work from an evidence-based treatment modality and perspective. Without these practices, clinicians can find themselves working without a net. Evidence-based practices involve the best available research evidence regarding whether and why a treatment works, clinical expertise to quickly identify a patient's unique health state and diagnosis, their individual risks and benefits of potential interventions, and client preferences and values.
Some very effective programs include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescent Depression, Motivational Interviewing, Seven Challenges Substance Abuse Interventions, and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Be sure to review this week's resources carefully. You are expected to apply the information from these resources when you prepare your assignments.
Reference:
Mattox, T. & Kilburn, R. (2014). Evidence-based practices in child and family services.
Background:
Your signature assignment is to craft an analysis regarding a disorder that spans both childhood and adolescence. In your analysis, please choose one disorder that you have studied in this course.
Identify the disorder and its diagnostic criteria; discuss the progression of the behavioral disorder. Identify possible risk factors and possible family characteristics that may contribute to the disorder. Discuss treatment options for this disorder based on Evidence-Based Practices that are based on theories and research. Discuss and identify ways to engage family members in treatment interventions. Lastly, provide your own 'take-away' about the disorder, and how you, as a clinician, would reach out to a child or adolescent with this behavioral disorder.
Instructions
For this project, please include the following in your analysis:
- Provide an overview of the behavioral disorder selected; this must be a disorder that spans both childhood and adolescence. Identify the disorder's diagnostic criteria and discuss the progression of the behavioral disorder.
- Review the theories that help us understand this disorder across childhood and adolescence. Include information about possible risk factors and possible family characteristics that may contribute to the disorder.
- Explain how the disorder impacts the three domains of development (physical, cognitive, and psychosocial).
- Discuss evidence-based treatment options that you believe will work best in addressing the symptoms for the behavioral disorder treatment. Discuss and identify ways to engage family members in treatment interventions.
- Lastly, provide your own 'take-away' about the disorder, and how a clinician would reach out to a child or adolescent with this behavioral disorder.
Length: 10 - 12 pages, not including title and reference pages
References: Include a minimum of nine scholarly resources, at least six of which are recent (published within the last 5-7 years).
Your proposal should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards.