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The Aspen Institute for Behavioral Assessment

The mission of The Aspen Institute for Behavioral Assessment is to provide psychiatric stabilization, comprehensive evaluation, assessment, treatment, and integrated prescriptive services for adolescents found eligible for treatment. The Aspen Institute for Behavioral Assessment provides comprehensive assessment services, crisis stabilization, early intensive treatment, and integrated, comprehensive prescriptive evaluations that chart the course for troubled teens to get back on track.

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Doctors Test for Behavior Disorders in Preschoolers as Young as Two

Some pediatricians try to detect autism by the way babies focus their eyes. Now others are devising tests for behavioral disorders like oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder in children as young as two years.

The idea is to diagnose these problems at an early age so that the children's behaviors do not escalate into stealing, vandalism, rape and other forms of violence in adolescence.

While the majority of two-year-olds throw tantrums and display aggression, some of them have behaviors that might be symptoms of psychological disorders requiring treatment.

Dr. Lauren Wakschlag, associate professor at the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois in Chicago, tests preschoolers for disruptive behavior disorders.

"The kids are asked to perform very simple tasks that might lead to frustration," Dr. Wakschlag said. "They have to clean up their toys. They have to wait. They have to take turns."

Often children with disruptive behavior disorders have similar behaviors as normal children, but to a different degree. Their tantrums may last twenty minutes and occur fifteen times a day. They may hold their breaths until they pass out.

"What we find is that the parent tries to intercede and the kid escalates," Dr. Patrick Tolan, director of the Institute, said. "The parent withdraws and that increases the probability that it will happen again."

If the Institute researchers detect DBDs, they refer parents to therapists to help them better handle the aggressive behaviors.

This study appears in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

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