Traditionally, a specific learning disability (SLD) referred to a discrepancy of one to two standard deviations between intellectual functioning and academic functioning. However, the amount of discrepancy was arbitrary (1), older children were favoured (2), higher IQs were favoured (3) and it was failure-based (4). Currently, the definition holds that achievement in key academic areas is substantially below the age norm and in excess of sensory deficits, linguistic processes, attention and memory. The prevalence is 2 to 10%.
Response to intervention (RTI) refers to a tiered system in which a failure to respond to an intervention is the criterium for identification of specific learning disabilities. This indicates the need for more specific and intensive intervention. First, there is screening for risk (e.g. simple tests of basic pre-reading skills) and assessment of family history of reading and language difficulties. After this, there are several tiers:
In the Netherlands, there are three different but similar tiers:
A child moves to the next tier if the progress in a tier is inadequate. The three-tier model is the most common model of RTI and is defined by three sequentially ordered intervention strategies. It aims at early identification of at-risk children.
All tiers depend on continuous monitoring of student progress as this determines the eligibility for a given tier. It thus does not look at an IQ-achievement discrepancy. A diagnostic classification depends on the outcomes of different interventions. The majority of children who identified as at-risk at first scored average after one or two semesters of tutoring (i.e. tier 1). This means that most struggling readers can become average-level readers if they are provided with effective intervention.
Almost all children identified as at-risk for long-term reading difficulties in first grade had the same characteristics:
This means that not dyslexia but poor education was the cause of their reading difficulties. For most beginning readers with reading difficulties, the problems were caused by experiential and instructional deficits and not by basic deficits in reading-related cognitive abilities.
RTI is better than IQ discrepancy and other psychometric measures in identifying children who are at-risk for long-term reading difficulties. IQ is not a good predictor for early identification. It does not predict differential response to intervention and does not differentiate atypical achievers from typical achievers with average IQ. IQ-achievement discrepancy should not be used as a predictor of dyslexia because:
False positives refer to children being falsely identified as being at-risk. This unduly taxes the school resources. False negatives refer to children being falsely identified as being not at-risk. This deprives the truly at-risk children of intervention. Sensitivity refers to a measure of the degree of accuracy in identifying reading disabled children. The standard is 90%. Specificity refers to the degree of accuracy in identifying non-reading disabled children. The tolerable minimum is between 85% and 90%.
Children at-risk for early and long-term reading difficulties can be efficiently identified at the beginning of kindergarten and this can leads to prevention of later difficulties. Only 16% of the children identified as at-risk at the beginning of kindergarten had reading difficulties by the end of second or third grade despite intervention (i.e. reading disability).
The same principles of RTI work for dyscalculia as well as dyslexia. Dyscalculia has several characteristics:
The prevalence is 5% to 10% and it is highly heritable. There are two types of dyscalculia:
Children with the most severe math deficits exhibit cognitive deficits in very basic number processing while children with moderate impairments do not. The distinction may thus be one of severity.
Pure dyscalculia refers to dyscalculia driven by an impaired number sense and mathematical learning disabilities (MLD) refers to dyscalculia driven by endogenous factors (e.g. cognitive deficits) not related to numerical processing. There are distinct pathological profiles of pure DD and MLD. Studies often use broad selection criteria. Studies with stringent selection criteria found no differences between primary DD and typically developing children on working memory measures, demonstrating the different pathological profiles.
The skills required for successful mathematical performance change over the course of development. Some children may have a specific deficit at an early learning stage which disrupts the acquisition of later skills. Persistent deficits need to be identified for the diagnosis of DD. Primary DD may be driven by a core deficit of the number sense (i.e. most severe problems).
There are several behavioural markers of pure DD:
The intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is involved in the processing of numerical magnitude representation. Children with dyscalculia demonstrate atypical brain activation during this. There is reduced modulation of the right IPS in children with DD during a non-symbolic numerical comparison task. They also show reduced activation of the IPS during mental arithmetic.
Typically developing children show a greater activation in the IPS for number pairs that were closer together compared to pairs that were separated by a larger numerical distance (i.e. distance effect). Children with dyscalculia do not show a distance effect in the IPS (i.e. no greater activation with greater distance).
Treatments which aim to target cognitive processes which are crucial for the development of math skills (e.g. Graphogame; the number race) are effective in improving number-comparison performance. However, there is no generalization to counting and arithmetic.
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Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 0 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) 
There are several major principles of youth interventions:
Children not referring themselves leads to problems with client motivation and problem awareness. There are three levels of youth intervention:
Treatment refers to targeting youth with symptoms at (sub)clinical level or those with a diagnosis. Heterogeneity in complaints exist because of three reasons:
The question is always where one should intervene when a child presents with complaints. Efficacy refers to whether an intervention works in a controlled, laboratory setting. Effectiveness refers to whether an intervention works in clinical practice. An evidence-based intervention refers to an intervention where there is at least some evidence regarding the efficacy and effectiveness. However, there is no clear guideline for when something is evidence-based as it is a continuum. Most include at least two studies with the following:
There are several ways in which a treatment can be considered well-established:
Or alternatively, when a large series of single-case designs have been used, it must demonstrate efficacy with:
When an experiment is used, it must be conducted with treatment manuals (1), characteristics of the sample must be specified (2) and the effects must be demonstrated by at least two different teams (3).
An intervention is probably efficacious when there are at least two experiments that show that the treatment is superior to the waiting list control-group or when the treatment is well-established but has not been investigated by at least two teams. Alternatively, a treatment is probably efficacious when a small series of single-case design experiments meet well-established treatment criteria. An intervention is an experimental treatment when treatment has not been tested in trials meeting criteria for methodology.
Evidence-based practice refers to using evidence-based interventions and using available knowledge about the effectiveness and efficiency of a method in carrying out an
.....read more Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 1 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) Children should have at least five symptoms for a period of two weeks including either the first or the second one to be diagnosed with major depressive disorder:
There are also some secondary symptoms:
Physical complaints (e.g. headaches; stomach aches) are more common in children. Substance use (e.g. alcohol; drugs) is more common in adolescence. The prevalence of major depressive disorder is 2.8% in school-age children (i.e. 6-12 years) and 5-6% in adolescents (i.e. 13-18 years). However, compared to adults, children and adolescents are still underdiagnosed and undertreated.
The general guideline for mild to moderate depression is psychosocial treatment. For severe depression, the guideline is a combination of psychosocial treatments and medication. However, one should be cautious with using medication with children and adolescents as there is an increased suicide risk with medication use. This may be because the medication increases impulsiveness. It should always be used in the context of extensive case conceptualization and in consultancy with a psychiatrist.
Beck’s cognitive theory of depression states that depression is the result of negative cognitions. There are automatic negative interpretations of ambiguous situation and cognitive errors (e.g. “bad things happen because of me”). This leads to negative schemes (e.g. “I am unlovable) which leads to depression. The negative beliefs are activated when faced with stressful circumstances and this interferes with coping and positive mood. There is black and white thinking, selective observation, overgeneralization and personalization of negative events (i.e. personal attribution). Depressogenic thinking is resistant to disconfirmation, partially due to the enduring styles of information processing that promote belief maintenance (e.g. focus on negative information).
The cognitive vulnerability model states that individuals at risk for depression selectively focus on and have better memory recall for negative rather than positive stimuli. A behavioural approach to depression holds that depression results from low levels of positive reinforcement and high levels of punishment and aversive control. This leads people to withdraw from negative interactions and avoid situations that may produce low positive reinforcement which, eventually, leads to a depressive cycle.
Theory is necessary because explaining the rationale behind a treatment makes it more understandable for a client and improves treatment adherence. The client needs to view the treatment as useful and needs to understand why
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and interpersonal therapy (IPT) are two effective treatments and are
.....read more Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 2 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) There are three learning paths to fear:
There are three intervention techniques for anxiety:
The information processing theory holds that attention, interpretation and memory biases will lead to problematic cognitions. This means that an ambiguous situation (e.g. “seeing children laugh”) could be interpreted negatively (e.g. “they are laughing at me”) and this could lead to a memory bias (e.g. “I only remember people laughing at me when I wore this t-shirt”).
All treatment protocols for anxiety treatment starts psychotherapy. Next, the child is prepared for exposure by doing cognitive therapy or relaxation technique. Afterwards, there is conduct of modelling and exposure.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy is the most evidence-based prevention and treatment method for anxiety disorders. The recovery rate for anxiety disorders after using CBT is approximately 60%.
There are several principles (i.e. steps) of cognitive therapy for anxiety:
The goal of CBT is cognitive restructuring. Children also receive homework in CBT. The situation-thought feeling (the five G’s) is used to give insight for the client and is a tool for the therapist regarding treatment course:
The client has to identify all and elaborate on them. Detecting the negative thoughts can be done by using questionnaires or by using cartoons. People often find it difficult to formulate helping thoughts. Therapists can help them by provide the client with this or help them formulate it (e.g. give examples).
The presence of social anxiety disorder at pre-treatment leads to slower rate of change and poorer diagnostic outcomes when using CBT. This may be as group settings are more aversive for them. They may also show behavioural inhibition from infancy, making them more resistant to change. The therapeutic relationship may also be more problematic due to their SAD. Exposure may have opposite effects as social situations are more ambiguous and more difficult to interpret. This makes it difficult to see whether one’s initial interpretation was false.
Children with SAD may thus need a longer treatment programme and a more tailored programme that helps them disconfirm their negative social expectations (e.g. equip children with social skills prior to exposure). One way in which this can be
.....read more Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 3 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by deficits in social communication and restricted, repetitive and/or sensory behaviours or interests. The severity levels should be specified.
In the 1970s, only 1.5% of the children with ASD achieved normal functioning. About 35% showed good adjustment but required some degree of supervision. The majority (i.e. 60%) remained severely handicapped. About 50% remained non-verbal throughout their lives. Currently, this is less than 10%. However, ASD does not need to be a life-long disabling condition. About 25% of the children can lose the diagnosis after treatment and most children can achieve positive outcomes with treatment. Children who lose the diagnosis will become similar to typically developing children.
There are several criteria for when an intervention is successful:
However, when an intervention is truly successful depends on the goals of the parents and the child. The intervention should aim to improve on these goals and should thus be matched to their goals.
Lovaas’ discrete trial training (DTT) demonstrated that behaviour modification treatment could lead to positive outcomes for children with ASD. This training makes use of operant techniques and breaks skills into small component and teaches the child one component at a time. According to Lovaas, children with ASD are unsuccessful in learning skills from the natural environment and the environment should thus include potent reinforcers and should be simplified. This means that every small step is rewarded. Though the training seems effective, there is a lack of generalization of learned skills (1), it leads to avoidance behaviour (2), there is a lack of spontaneity (3) and there is an overdependence on prompts (4). This could be because the treatment is very therapist-directed.
Applied behavioural analysis refers to the process of systematically applying interventions based upon learning theory principles to improve socially significant behaviours to a meaningful degree. It aims to change behaviour by investigating what is reinforcing the behaviour and it is the core of all interventions for ASD.
The core of all interventions for ASD is applied behavioural analysis. This refers to systematically applying interventions based on learning theory principles to improve socially significant behaviours to a meaningful degree. This approach aims to change behaviour by investigating what is reinforcing the behaviour:
ABA can focus on social skills (1), communication (2), play (3), behaviour (4), adaptive skills (5), motor skills (6) and cognitive skills (7), meaning that the focus of ABA in children with ASD can be very heterogeneous. These skills often develop naturally in typically developing children.
ABA attempts to understand and alter the environment to change behaviour using
.....read more Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 4 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) There are several guidelines for treating children with ADHD:
Behavioural intervention cannot be supported as a front-line treatment for core ADHD symptoms. This is especially the case in studies where the outcomes are blinded. However, parenting practices and conduct problems improve after behavioural interventions and this is often the main reason for referral, meaning that behavioural interventions serve their goal. Improving parents’ behaviour towards their children may improve child behaviour and improve the quality of the parent-child relationship.
Children who receive behavioural consultation are less likely to receive medication later that year. If they do receive medication, the dosages are lower compared to children who did not receive behavioural consultation. Using a low-intensity behavioural intervention as a first-line treatment reduces or eliminates the need for medication in children with ADHD.
There are several reasons why it is important to reduce the need for medication:
Adding medication secondary to initial behavioural treatment leads to better outcomes on primary outcomes than the other way around. Parents who began treatment with behavioural parent training had better attendance than those assigned to receive training after medication. The cost of starting with a low-intensity behavioural intervention is also lower. It is thus important to start with behavioural intervention.
Behaviour modification is teaches skills to parents, teachers and children to overcome some of the key functional impairments associated with ADHD. Effective treatments need to focus on peer relationships (1), parenting (2) and academic functioning (3). Combining recreational activities with educational activities increases children’s attendance.
Behavioural parent/teacher training is a mediation therapy. This means that the therapist trains the parent or teacher and this person then uses their newly learned skills on the child. This is done because interventions directly involving the child often have little effect due to self-regulation problems of children with ADHD. Using both parents may increase the consistency of the implementation of strategies and shared understanding of ADHD which may lead to better outcomes. However, the evidence for this is limited.
Barriers to parent training include situational factors (1), psychological factors (2), lack of awareness of programmes (3), unavailability of programmes (4) and issues with poor interagency collaboration (5). There are several moderators of treatment effect:
Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 5 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) When treating criminals in the past, severe punishments were used. Later, phrenology was used to diagnose people and electro convulsion therapy was used to treat people with a criminal history.
Durkheim stated that every society gets the criminality that it deserves. The cost of incarceration is higher than that of rehabilitation. Martinez stated that people who commit crimes should be locked up. According to him, it is impossible to treat criminals. Early (humane) treatment for criminals consisted of CBT. It was focused on treating the symptoms and did not include the families.
Static risk factors refer to risk factors that cannot be changed and are fixed. Dynamic risk factors refer to risk factors that are malleable. The interaction between risk and protective factors and the interaction between the individual and the environment is essential for criminality.
The age crime curve refers to criminal activity increasing during adolescence and peaking during late adolescence. This could be due to the maturity gap (i.e. a well-developed affective brain circuitry and a less developed prefrontal cortex control centre in the brain, combined with adult responsibilities).
The outcome of therapy is influenced by several factors:
There is a lot of innovation in the therapy of juvenile delinquents. This includes real-time biofeedback treatment and virtual reality treatment. Group therapy consists of treatment of aggression (1), improving social skills (2), making moral choices (3) and help meetings (4). However, it can lead to a lot of peer contagion, making it typically ineffective.
There are different forms of systemic treatments:
There are three stages of systemic treatments:
Building a therapeutic alliance takes time and it is important to be patient as the patients are typically not motivated to change. The alliance between the patient and all important people (e.g. parents; therapists; friends) and the alliance between these people is essential.
Understanding the common elements of treatments could render them more effective. Many treatments have common elements, yet a unique focus which allows for personalization. Knowledge of treatment mechanisms and identification of potent treatment techniques can support enhanced precision in matching systemic treatment to the needs of adolescents and their families.
There are six mechanisms (i.e. common elements) of systemic treatment:
Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 6 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM) Traditionally, a specific learning disability (SLD) referred to a discrepancy of one to two standard deviations between intellectual functioning and academic functioning. However, the amount of discrepancy was arbitrary (1), older children were favoured (2), higher IQs were favoured (3) and it was failure-based (4). Currently, the definition holds that achievement in key academic areas is substantially below the age norm and in excess of sensory deficits, linguistic processes, attention and memory. The prevalence is 2 to 10%.
Response to intervention (RTI) refers to a tiered system in which a failure to respond to an intervention is the criterium for identification of specific learning disabilities. This indicates the need for more specific and intensive intervention. First, there is screening for risk (e.g. simple tests of basic pre-reading skills) and assessment of family history of reading and language difficulties. After this, there are several tiers:
In the Netherlands, there are three different but similar tiers:
A child moves to the next tier if the progress in a tier is inadequate. The three-tier model is the most common model of RTI and is defined by three sequentially ordered intervention strategies. It aims at early identification of at-risk children.
All tiers depend on continuous monitoring of student progress as this determines the eligibility for a given tier. It thus does not look at an IQ-achievement discrepancy. A diagnostic classification depends on the outcomes of different interventions. The majority of children who identified as at-risk at first scored average after one or two semesters of tutoring (i.e. tier 1). This means that most struggling readers can become average-level readers if they are provided with effective intervention.
Almost all children identified as at-risk for long-term reading difficulties in first grade had the same characteristics:
This means that not dyslexia but poor education was
.....read more Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 7 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)For a personality disorder to be diagnosed in adolescence, the problems have to be present for a year. There are four main areas of deficit:
There are several symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD):
It is essential to assess how severe the symptoms are. The guidelines for personality disorder are treatment using DBT (1), mentalization-based treatment (2) or schema-focused therapy (3). In dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) there is a constant search for balance between the different theories on which it is based:
It is an efficacious treatment for BPD as well as for depressed older adults and individuals with eating disorders. It focuses on teaching skills for enhancing emotion regulation (1), distress tolerance (2) and building a life worth living (3).
Dialectical strategies include balancing irreverent and reciprocal communication, as well as acceptance-based and change-based interventions. Reciprocity includes listening and understanding (1), self-disclosure (2) and a sincere warmth (3). Irreverent includes obtaining attention for a subject (1), shifting the affective response (2) and introducing a new perspective (3). Dialectical strategies may be effective through enhanced orienting responses (e.g. by remaining attentive to what is happening, cognitive processing, attention and learning may be influenced) and in vivo learning and modelling.
There are several assumptions of DBT:
Youth Intervention: Theory, Research, and Practice – Lecture 8 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)Trauma refers to a normal response to an abnormal event. About 14% of the children exposed to a trauma develop PTSD. The probability of developing PTSD increase the longer and more severe the traumatic events are.
PTSD includes several symptoms:
The symptoms need to last for at least a month. For late-onset PTSD, the symptoms need to have an onset of 6 months after the traumatic event. The intrusion symptoms in children are represented in pretend play (e.g. playing the traumatic experience). Regressive behaviour (e.g. going back a developmental step) is common in children with PTSD.
There are several risk factors to develop PTSD:
There are also several secondary sources of stress as a risk factor:
There are also several risk factors in children:
Ehler and Clarke’s cognitive model of PTSD states that persistent PTSD only occurs if individuals process the traumatic event and/or consequences in a way which produces a sense of serious, current threat. People with persistent PTSD are unable to see the trauma as a time-limited event that does not have global implications for their future. There are two key processes that lead to this sense of threat:
The perception of current threat is accompanied by intrusions and other re-experiencing symptoms when activated. This motivates a series of behavioural and cognitive responses that are intended to reduce perceived threat and distress in the short-term but prevent cognitive change. This maintains the disorder.
The emotional processing theory states that posttraumatic symptoms reflect the development of a problematic fear structure comprising many stimuli, responses and meaning representations. There are maladaptive responses when this is triggered.
The social cognitive theory focuses on the impact of trauma on pre-existing or developing beliefs about one’s self, others and the world. According to this theory, trauma-related feelings
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