Mental Health is the Issue

This shooting in Connecticut has affected us all.  And in the rush to deal with this tragedy, invariably the public will focus on guns and gun control.

Doing so, I feel, will probably sidetrack the issue as to how we can deliver mental health services to more people (and especially children) in a better and more efficient way.

The gun issue is nuanced.  Some countries actually have more guns per capita than the United States.  That's true, but there are major conditions placed on the citizens in those countries , both before and after guns are purchased.  It's true that gun related violence is not prevalent in those countries, but, at least in Israel, the rates of gun related suicide are quite high.

But, violence occurs at high rates in other countries where it is nearly impossible to obtain a gun.  Remarkably, on the same day that we witnessed the horror at Sandy Hook elementary in Newton, the residents of the Guangshan county in the city of Xinyang also dealt with a tragedy that defied logic.  Twenty-two children were attacked by a knife-wielding individual outside the gates of the Chenpeng Village Primary School.

Just to be clear, I do agree that gun laws need to be stricter.  But we should not let the conversation move away from mental health.

In many ways, we may be very similar to China.  Our lives are stressful.  There is a wide gulf between the rich and poor, and workers in all countries are not treated fairly, leading to high rates of poverty. We move a lot within our country's borders, which erodes our social support.  "Back in the day", when we didn't move all that much, children found support in extended family.  That extended family is not always so close in today's day.  And there is a lack of psychological support in the schools and in the community at large.

In addition (while I can't speak for China), I know that we are, as a people very mean to one another.  We get angry way too easily.  We value winning an argument, at any cost, than coming to a realistic resolution.   This narrative dominates our political discourse, but it also has trickled into our daily lives.  Along with the environmental stressors that we are all experiencing, we are just not nice to one another.  And if we are all experiencing this distress, the effects should be more intense for children and adults with mental illness.

This isn't an argument for excusing the actions of what these attackers committed in Connecticut and in Xinyang.   But, if these people had been able to access the psychological support in their schools, communities and clinics in their area, perhaps we would not have had these tragedies.   Chilling statistics on the National Alliance on Mental Illness website remind us that:

Despite effective treatments, there are long delays, sometimes decades, between the first onset of symptoms and when people seek and receive treatment. An untreated mental disorder can lead to a more severe, more difficult to treat illness and to the development of co-occurring mental illnesses.

and:

In any given year, only 20 percent of children with mental disorders are identified and receive mental health services.

Organizations such as New York Association of School Psychologists (NYASP) and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) have worked hard to help school professionals and families deal with these disparities.  They were some of the first groups to post helpful resources to help the families, friends and children that were dealing with the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre.  And they continue to advocate for legislative solutions to close this mental health gap.

The real conversation here is how we can have more people access more mental health services in our attempt to prevent these types of tragedies from occurring again in the future.

School Psychologist

"What is a school psychologist?" people often ask me  - this great piece is a nice succinct description of what school psychologists do!  Check it out!

The development of mands

Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about the development of the mand reptetoire in all children.  Typically we discuss how the mand develops in children on the spectrum, but it appears that we need to look at other issues as well.

For example, how does the mand develop in response to motor development - for example, does the development of the ambulation repetoire affect the mand repetoire in any discernable manner?  If I can walk, and experience more of the environment, will I not want more of it?  And will I not ask for more?  So if the motor skills of a child are impaired, then these children will not necessarily see as much of the world and by consequence, not mand for it.

Just some Sunday evening thoughts...

How Schools, Parents Can Work Together For Successful Kids

ScienceDaily (2009-08-18) -- It is widely understood that, ideally, schools and parents should work together to ensure that children can succeed as students and citizens. But what is the right balance? And how much do teachers want parents involved in the classroom? A new study identifies ways that schools and communities can work with parents to give children the greatest chance of success.

Video Game Addiction

The AMA has held discussions recently as to whether or not "video game addiction" is a viable psychiatric condition.

According to the report prepared by the AMA's Council on Science and Public Health, based on a review of scientific literature, “dependence-like behaviors are more likely in children who start playing video games at younger ages.” Overuse most often occurs with online role-playing games involving multiple players, the report says.

World of Warcraft (WOW) is among the most popular. Other games include Second Life.

This is, I believe, an important step to dealing with this issue, however, we need to look at other issues to help children get out of the house to play and socialize more. Labelling another addiction in children is another way of blaming children, when what is really at fault is the environment (i.e., our society

How is fear learned?

An article in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience indicates that that the neural processes associated with the development of fear are the same whether humans personally experienced an aversive event or only witnessed it.

The study shows that the amygdala, which is known to be critical to the acquisition and expression of fears from personal experience, is also involved during the acquisition and expression of fears obtained indirectly through social observation.

Previous research has shown how people develop fears after first-hand experience of an aversive event—getting stung by a bee or being burned by a hot pan. In acquiring these fears, a process known as fear conditioning, the brain’s amygdala plays a critical role.

However, it’s unclear if fear conditioning can occur indirectly—that is, through social observation with no personal experience. It is also uncertain what neural processes take place in the acquisition of fears stemming from events or circumstances not experienced first-hand.
In this study, subjects witnessed a short video of another individual participating in a fear-conditioning experiment. In the video, subjects saw another person responding with distress when receiving mild electric shocks paired with a colored square.The subjects watching the video were then told they would take part in an experiment similar to the one they just viewed.

Unlike the experiment in the video, these subjects never received shocks.

The results showed that the participants had a robust fear response when they were presented with the colored square that predicted electric shocks in the video, indicating that such a response resulted from merely observing—rather than directly experiencing—an aversive event.

In addition, using brain imaging techniques, the researchers found that the amydgala response was equivalent with both when watching others receive a shock and when presented with the colored square that was previously paired with shock in the video. This finding demonstrates that similar neural systems are engaged when fears are learned through first-hand experience or by merely observing others.

The knowledge of somebody else’s emotional state may evoke empathic responses. However, as our results reveal, when others’ emotions are accompanied with vivid expressions and perceived as potentially relevant to our own future well being, we may engage additional learning mechanisms.

In a way, learning by observing others’ emotional responses is like exploiting their expertise without being directly exposed to the potential risks associated with the direct learning. This seems a very adaptive thing to do for most social animals, which could explain why it is commonly seen across species. However, it remains to be explored in what way uniquely human social abilities contribute to learning fears through social observation.

Report on Hispanic Mental Health in the Schools

An interesting report which was conducted by the Center for Disease Control reports that Hispanic teenagers are at risk for many mental health issues. The CDC survey of nearly 14,000 U.S. high school students has been conducted every other year, since 1991. Results reported Thursday were from last year's survey. Some of the more interesting findings were:

• More than 11 percent of all Latino students - and 15 percent of Latino girls - said they had attempted suicide. The white and black rates were about 7.5 percent.
• Latinos also reported much higher rates of using cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and methamphetamines.
• Hispanics report that their use of condoms was at lower rates than the other population groups.
• About 36 percent of Hispanics reported prolonged feelings of sadness or hopelessness, slightly higher than previous years. In contrast, about 28.5 percent of black students reported such feelings in the 2005 survey, about the same as two previous surveys. And about 26 percent of white students reported such feelings, down slightly from 2003 and 2001.
• 1 in 8 Latino students said they had done cocaine, 1 in 10 had done ecstasy, 1 in 11 methamphetamines and 1 in 28 heroin.

Hispanic, Latino, mental health, children, suicide, drug use, school psychology, depression,

Mental, Emotional Health Providers Assist Indonesian Quake Children Victims

Indonesia earthquake children relief PTSD school psychology