Children with Learning Disorders (LD) are susceptible to decreased self-esteem and willingness because of their difficulty learning, which can lead to exacerbation of the learning difficulty in a vicious cycle. Appropriate learning supports may help not only in terms of learning, but also psychologically.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychological effect of learning supports for children with LD.

The aims are to make clear that psychological changes occur for children by the learning supports.

We conducted 10 learning support sessions for 12 children (age 8–11 years) diagnosed as LD. Afterward, we gave a questionnaire on motivation and self-efficacy in learning to the children and their parents, and a questionnaire on positive participation in class to the children's teachers.

The children's responses showed increased intrinsic motivation with high autonomy, and decreased extrinsic motivation with low autonomy and self-efficacy after supports. the parents’ responses indicated increased self-efficacy and decreased motivation overall after supports, while the teachers’ responses indicated increased positive class participation after supports.

Parents and teachers see that willingness for learning improve through learning supports, but the children themselves feel decreased efficacy. At the same time, the children came to have more autonomous intrinsic motivation for learning. Both of motivation and willigness increased through learning supports, but conversely the children came to notice their own weaknesses (true abilities), which is thought to have led to decreased self-efficacy. with continuing support improvement of true efficacy may be expected.

Public health checkups are conducted on 3-year-old children in Japan. However, it is often difficult to detect or provide ongoing support to children with developmental disorders without MR. Therefore we have conducted health checkups on 5 year olds.

The objectives are to describe the results and follow-up of health checkups in 5-year-old children and examine the utility of such checkups.

The aims are to make clear the utility of health checkups in 5-year-old children for screening for developmental disorders.

The subjects were 303 children of 5-year-old that lived in Kanie-cho and participated in health checkups. in the checkups, a child psychiatrist examined the children, and made a provisional diagnosis of a developmental disorder.

Eighty-two children were provisionally diagnosed as having developmental disorders. the follow-up allowed final diagnosis of developmental disorders (suspect diagnosis included) to be made in 39 children (12.9%), and pinpointed 19 children with ADHD, 9 children with PDD, 9 children with mild MR, and 2 children with motor skills disorder.

All children with PDD had already been informed about the possible occurrence of developmental disorders at 3 years of age. However, most of ADHD, mild MR, and motor function disorder were diagnosed in these children during the checkups at the age of 5 years.

The health checkup in 5-year-old children is useful not only as a tool to detect developmental disorders that are difficult to diagnose at the age of 3 years but also as an approach in patients lost to follow-up.

Information about the stability of the diagnosis of the Adult ADHD, when made using standardized tools and diagnostic criteria remains unavailable from India.

To follow-up adults with ADHD after one year of diagnosis.

To study the stability of diagnosis and comorbidities at one year follow up of Adult ADHD.

20 subjects with adult ADHD (DSM-IV-TR 2000) were attempted to follow up after 1 year of the diagnosis. the diagnostic assessment was done using DSM-IV-TR and Wender Utah criteria wherever applicable. the symptoms were assessed on clinician rated ADHD-RS. the comorbidities and global functioning were also assessed at follow up.

19 (95%) of 20 subjects could be followed up. the diagnosis was stable in all the 19 (100%) subjects at the follow up according to DSM-IV-TR criteria. However, the symptoms declined over a period of one year. Diagnosis of 2(10.52%) subjects of ADHD - CT was changed to ADHD - IA. 2(10.52%) subjects went into partial remission. of the original 13 subjects diagnosed as adult ADHD as per Wender Utah criteria, 12 (92.30%) retained the diagnosis at follow up while 1 (7.7%) did not. Substance abuse was increased at the follow up from 26.32% to 47.37%. the rates of the rest of the comorbidities didn’t change over a period of one year.

Results suggest that the diagnosis of adult ADHD, when made using standardized tools and diagnostic criteria remains stable at 1 year follow-up. the rates of comorbidities increased at the follow up.

Methylphenidate is a central dopamine reuptake inhibitor used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sympatomimetic effects of methylphenidate have been shown in a number of studies in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of methylphenidate on pupil sizes in 6–11 aged boys diagnosed ADHD.

Fifteen boys with ADHD were participated in this study. We tried to minimize confounding factors by exclusion of any other psychiatric disorders. Pupil diameter changes of the participants were measured in photopic and mesopic conditions before oral administration of methylphenidate and after 1 hour of drug intake. the differences between the groups were assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

There was a statistically significant difference between photopic pupil diameters of left eye before and after oral administration of methylphenidate (p = 0.03), but not between photopic pupil diameters of right eye (p = 0.09). the mesopic pupil diameters for two eyes before and after oral administration of methylphenidate didn’t show any statistically significant difference.

Although methylphenidate may produce to increase pupil size by sympathomimetic effects; our findings demonstrate that methylphenidate decreases the size of left pupil in photopic conditions. This may be related to an increased response to light.

The DSM-IV-TR criteria for Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) involve a marked impairment in the development of motor coordination although visuo-spatial, digital and visuo-motor perception, neuromuscular tone, qualitative and quantitative measures of gross and fine motor coordination related impairments might be used to isolate three main subtypes of DCD/dyspraxia: ideo-motor, visuo-spatial and constructional, and a mix group sharing common impairments with additional comorbidities. This study focus on isolating specific markers of coordination disorder and their interactions in mix vs. pure form of dyspraxia.

Tree-based bagged classifiers were used to highlight relevant markers among 49 pass/fail tests that best discriminate two clinical subgroups based on a sample (N = 63) of 5–15 years old children having IQ in the expected range (40% mix dyspraxia). Model calibration was done on a training sample through nested repeated 5-fold cross-validation while predictive performance were assessed on a held-out validation sample, using a split ratio of 0.7/0.3.

We found that digital praxia, imitation of gestures, manual dexterity, digital perception, lego blocks, and visual motor integration were among the top most important impairments when predicting subtypes. Specific interactions among those predictors and other impairments (motor pathway, visual evoked potential, language) were shown to provide additional insights into DCD subtyping.

Taylored follow-up of patients presenting with DCD should consider the specificity of visuo-spatial, neuromotor and neuropsychological impairments whose co-occurrence allow to define different subtypes of DCD.

Some areas of the brain, such as basal ganglia and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, related to a saccadic control are also involved in the pathogenesis of ADHD. Therefore, examination of problems of eye movements may constitute an effective neurophysiological objective diagnosis of ADHD.

The aim of this study is to assess the differences in fast eye movements (saccades) between ADHD individuals and healthy subjects. the study analyzed the following saccadic parameters: latency, duration, amplitude, average velocity, peak velocity, sharpness, and skewness.

Based on the results of psychological tests: TOVA and CAARS-S:L group of 50 people who had the highest score in the ADHD scales was distinguished. in this study we made use of a Saccadometer.

ADHD individuals compared to healthy subjects have more intrusive saccades, anticipatory saccades, and saccades with short latency (< 100 ms) and long latency (> 500 ms). in people with ADHD of low and moderate severity of symptoms duration is shorter and velocity is higher than in healthy subjects, whereas in ADHD individuals with a strong and very strong severity of symptoms duration is longer and velocity is lower compared to healthy subjects. in ADHD individuals amplitude accuracy match in a prosaccades task is better than in healthy subjects, and an antisaccades task is worse than healthy subjects.

The results indicate that the differences are varied due to the severity of the symptoms of ADHD. the statistical significance shows that the use of saccadometry for selected parameters of eye movements may improve diagnosis of ADHD.

Children and adolescents experience significant emotional disorders and the prevalence of these conditions is notable. There is a dearth of pediatric mental health care professionals in the U.S., and among those professionals available, geographic and reimbursement limitations restrict access to the care.

Primary health care providers are being encouraged to provide some of the identification and care management to offset this access problem.

Expand clinical skills of pediatric providers through enhanced training of residents in the use of psychopharmaceuticals for the most common psychiatric diagnosis in U.S. children (ADHD).

Second- and third-year pediatric residents attended an intensive 10-hour training in pediatric psychopharmacology for ADHD in 2010. the curriculum was based on a well-established 3-day program that teaches primary care clinicians the elements of guideline-level care for common behavioral health conditions. the program included pre- and post- training assessment of resident knowledge of current practice guidelines for ADHD and intention to use them. Special attention was given to proper use of screening instruments, diagnostic scales, treatment options, importance of medication options and increased frequency of visits during drug initiation and titration of dosages, and obstacles to implementation.

Results showed significant and sometimes large post-training increases in intentions to use medication therapies, systematic progression through stimulant and non-stimulant alternatives, parent and teacher symptom rating scales throughout treatment, and side effect scales during dose titration.

A one-day enhanced training program improved knowledge of, attitudes toward, and intention to use guidelines of care for youth with ADHD.

In this study we examine, across physician billing, ambulatory and inpatient/emergency data sets, the relationship between physical health and mental health costs among those with and without psychiatric disorders under the age of 18 years on their index vist.

Visit data for all cases receiving specialized ambulatory, emergency or inpatient (tertiary) mental health services was constructed and subsequently matched on age and sex with comparisons in a final ratio of 1:8. Comparisons were health care users who did not receive treatment in the specialized tertiary public mental health system). Based on approximately 10 Million billing records, we compared the average number of visits and average costs per unique individual for “physical diagnoses” (non-psychiatric) and psychiatric diagnoses over the 16 year study period across case and comparison groups.

We report among those with and without psychiatric disorders that physical disorders are significantly greater for those with any psychiatric disorder over the 16 year study period in both physician billing and ambulatory datasets. This result differs in the inpatient / emergency dataset in that cases have about 1/3 the number of admissions for physical diagnoses.

It was unexpected that cases with a psychiatric diagnosis in the physician billing dataset had fewer physical disorder inpatient and emergency admissions. We suggest that this finding represents a form of system-based stigma.

The last decade the parents of autistic children have become objects of many controversial studies and theories. A lot of studies have revealed a positive relationship between father's age and the incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders.

In the present study, we investigated the association between paternal age and an increased risk of autism in offspring.

Samples consist of 88 autism cases from the Children's Health Center of Thessaly, Greece. Each case was matched with questionnaire on parental education, child's gender, dominant hand, presence of seizures. Six categories of paternal age were created. the relationship between the variables was investigated using Cramer's V correlation coefficient and chi-square tests to explore the relationship between categorical variables. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences v. 18.0 (SPSS) was used.

The data show a significant association between higher paternal ages and an increased risk of autism presented a strong, positive relation (Cramer's v = 0.468; p = 0.001< 0.05). An analysis of the combined effect of the incidence rates seizures (30%), offspring's gender (65.9%) male and (34.1%) female were found. in addition, the data shows the right hand is used (67%) more than the left (33%), furthermore the education also revealed that parents with higher education had an increased risk of having autistic children.

Our study provides evidence of the association of paternal age and risk of autism. However, the findings in our sample do not constitute a causal relationship but lay the foundations for thought and further research.

The problem of interaction between physicians and parents of children with mental diseases is very urgent.

80 parents of mental disease's children were examined.

To identify the reasons for resorting to a psychiatrist, the degree of confidence in the doctor, agreement with the diagnosis and methods of treatment.

A special questionnaire was developed in the department of Adolescent Psychiatry of St. Petersburg Bekhterev Research Psychoneurological Institute.

We found that the 28 parents (35%) took their children to psychiatrist by their own initiative, some other professionals (pediatrician, neurologist or psychologist) encouraged applying to a psychiatrist in 44 cases (55%), 8 parents (10%) asked for advice after strong recommendations from teachers. in fact, that the child really has a mental disorder 56 parents (70%) seen after the examination with EEG and MRI. Examination of the child by psychiatrist and an explanation of symptoms persuaded 20 parents (25%) only. 53 parents (66,3%) were convinced that a doctor for a diagnosis of mental disorder had to examine the child several times, 21 (26,2%) agreed with the diagnosis after several evaluations of different mental health professionals, 6 (7,5%) found that difficult to answer the question. 72 parents (90%) were not satisfied with the medical information about the child's illness that was provided and were needed to supplement that.

All of those factors hamper the effective interaction between the doctor and the parents of patients, which leads to delays in providing necessary assistance and negatively affects the health of children.

Heightened emotional reactivity and amygdala activation have each been shown to play a role in the etiology of adolescent-onset major depressive disorder. However, the link between emotional reactivity and amygdala response in adolescent-onset major depression is not well understood.

In this study, we compared amygdala activation during an emotional regulation task in depressed and healthy adolescents.

We conducted a functional connectivity analysis to examine the neural correlates of amygdala reactivity during emotion regulation in adolescent depression.

Fourteen unmedicated adolescents diagnosed with current depression without comorbid psychiatric disorders and fourteen well-matched controls ages 13 to 17 years underwent an emotional regulation task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants were asked to either notice how they were feeling (“Maintain”) or employ cognitive reappraisal strategies (“Reduce”) while viewing negatively-valence images.

Imaging analyses demonstrated that depressed adolescents:

1. (1) had greater right amygdala activation during the maintain condition relative to controls,

2. (2) showed less connectivity during the maintain condition between the amygdala and both the insula and medial prefrontal cortex than controls, and

3. (3) showed a significant positive correlation between amygdala-seeded connectivity during maintenance of emotion and psychosocial functioning.

During the maintain condition, depressed adolescents showed a heightened amygdala response and less reciprocal activation in brain regions that may modulate the amygdala. A poorly modulated, overreactive amygdala may contribute to heightened emotional reactivity. Adolescents with depression may benefit from treatments that:

1. (1) reduce amygdala hyper-reactivity,

2. (2) improve cognitive control of affective circuits, and

3. (3) improve skills in self-awareness.

To assess the severity of anxiety as state and as trait, depressiveness and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) of adolescents after artificial abortion up to 12th week of pregnancy.

The study was carried out in Tuzla Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH). We assessed 120 female adolescents aged 17.7 ± 1.5 years for trauma experiences, presence of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSD Questionnaire), depression (Beck's Depression Inventory - BDI) and anxiety as state, and anxiety as trait (STAI - Form Y). Sixty adolescents had intentional artificial abortion and 60 had no abortion.

Adolescents who aborted pregnancy presented significantly more severe depressiveness (mean ± standard deviation=39.2 ± 16.1) than adolescents who did not abort (17 ± 12.9; F = 69.249, P < 0.001, ANOVA). Anxiety as state (mean ± standard deviation=4.2 ± 0.95) and as trait (4.2 ± 3.4) was significantly higher in abortion group than in non-abortion group (3.2 ± 1.1, F = 27.749, P< 0.001; 3.4 ± 1.1, F = 17.033, P< 0.001,ANOVA, respectively). There were no significant differences in severity of PTSS amongst adolescents who aborted pregnancy ((mean ± standard deviation=34.3 ± 23.7), than adolescents who did not abort (27.1 ± 16.7, F = 3.856, P = 0.052, ANOVA).

Adolescents who aborted pregnancy presented significantly more severe intensity of depressiveness and significantly more severe anxiety as state and trait than those who did not abort, but there were no differences in severity of PTS symptoms in abortion and no abortion group of adolescents.

To date, few studies have examined the extent to which the performances of Working Memory (WM) tasks vary with cultural and demographic variations.

The present study compared the performance between Kuwaiti and Egyptian children at grade 4 using a WM battery comprising six tasks, which measures both verbal and visuospatial WM.

The Arabic Automated WM Battery (Alloway, 2007) was administered to a 384 primary school children: 192 Kuwaitis (96 males and 96 females) and 192 Egyptians (96 males and 96 females).

The WM construct has the same factorial structure across the Kuwaiti and Egyptian cultures. Moreover, a significant difference between groups on 5 out of 6 WM tests, but no significant gender differences in (listening recall, counting recall, backward digit recall, Mr. X and spatial span), Furthermore, the backward digit recall task varied as a function of gender across cultures.

The factor structure of the Automated WM battery was validated across the two Arab cultures. Although this study was conducted in two collectivistic cultures, it refers to the impact of the sociocultural context on both verbal and visuospatial WM performance. However, the effects of size were low, which reflects a limited impact. This finding is useful for depicting cognitive profiles of these collectivistic cultures. Future research in this area should expand our investigations to a number of collectivistic Arab cultures and extend the comparison to include analytic culture.

The metallic pollution is recognized being harmful to nervous system. the “Gharb” plain (area of our study) localized in the North-West of Morocco is one of the most important agricultural and industrial regions of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, it suffered from the increase of different polluting human activities, especially metallic ones, which expose the children, living in this region, to serious neurobehavioral problems.

Objective and aims: Evaluation of the general intelligence in urban, periurban and rural schooled children (aged 6 to 8 years) living in Gharb plain and study of the relationship between the performance in this test and the quality of environment.

Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) and questionnaire about some environmental conditions.

The obtained results had shown that the best scores of RSPM was registered in the urban children (p < 0.01) and that was significant correlations between the performance in this test and the living zone (p < 0.001), the construction made material (p < 0.01), the source of pollution near the school (p < 0.001) and the consumption of well water (p < 0.01).

The children's intelligence appeared in connection with environmental factors, but a deeper investigation is needed for studying all these factors, in addition to others (psychological, socio-economical, and nutritional ones).

Cognitive deficits are estimated to appear in 30–70% MS patients. Cognitive deficit is often characterized as slight cognitive dysfunction and is usually leading to loos one's job.

To find out range and rate of the cognitive changes in MS patients and whether complaints are in accordance with objectively found results.

Neuropsychological methods was used for finding out objective changes in the field of cognitive functions, clinical interview was used to assess subjective experiencing. the test group: 35 patients (therefore 25 women), aged 23 – 66.

In patients whose IQ is higher than 100, it has been found out that 16.6% of them have no difficulties related to cognitive functions, 53.33% have executive functions disorder and 25.00% have other disorders. in patients whose IQ is lower than 99, it has been found out that 72.2% of the patients have no complaints related to cognitive functions, 18.8% have executive functions impairment and 9.09% have other impairments. Besides that the coherence between level of IQ and objective findings and/or subjective experiencing was investigated.

The patients whose IQ is higher than 100 feel do not complain (50%); unlike the patients whose IQ is lower than 100, only 25% do not refer to any complaints. Objective findings show the same tendency. Our hypothesis says that the patients whose IQ is higher than 100 have better compensation ability in the range of mild cognitive deficit than the patients whose IQ is lower than 100.

Cognitive impairment contributes to the development and the outcome of schizophrenia (SZ), but there is considerable less data about cognitive functioning in schizoaffective (SZAFF) and bipolar (BD) disorder with psychotic symptoms.

Seven basic cognitive functions were examined in patients with SZ, BD and SZAFF to assess the cognitive deficits and their patterns.

The aim of the study was to obtain data on the structure of cognitive functions in psychosis spectrum in an effort to employ these findings to improve the therapeutic interventions.

Twenty SZ, 21 BD and 20 SZAFF outpatients were involved in the study. the following cognitive functions were examined: phonological and visual working memory (WM), perseveration, planning and learning during task solving. the severity of the clinical symptoms was also assessed.

BD patients performed better than the SZ (p = 0.025) and the SZAFF (p = 0.025) group on one phonological WM task. Patients with SZ had significantly lower level of conceptual choices in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) compared to BD (p = 0.007). Correlations between the different measures of the WCST and the clinical state of the patients might indicate that the severity of the residual symptoms results in weaker performance on working memory tasks.

According to our data SZ patients show poorer performance on the cognitive tasks considered. As these cognitive processes play an important role in everyday life and they might contribute to the functional outcome of psychotic disorders, these cognitive areas should be part of the rehabilitation programmes of SZ.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) promotes growth and maintenance of connections and participates in plasticity mechanisms.The cognition an the functioning of patients with a first episode of psychotic (FEP) is altered.

We analyze the relation between the BDNF, the cognitive performance and prognosis in patients with FEP.

45 patients with a FEP from the Basque Country, diagnosed using the SCID-I and DSM-IV. Plasma BDNF levels were measured using the BDNF Sandwich ELISA Kit. All patients were assessed clinically three times over a year using PANSS, GAF and Strauss Carpenter scales. Battery of cognitive tests (Wechsler Memory Scale and WAIS-III) was applied six months after the acute episode.

Positive correlation between BDNF levels after six months of treatment and five cognitive domains: abstract verbal reasoning (r = 0.468), motor and processing speed (r = 0.397), learning capacity (r = 0.559), immediate memory (r = 0.409) and delayed memory (r = 0.382). Also, the patients with lower BDNF plasma levels at baseline, at 6 months follow-up had worse social activity (0.61 vs. 0.89; p = 0.041) and functioning (0.69 vs. 0.93; p = 0.044).The BDNF levels increased along the follow up, after the pharmacological treatment (basal-1 month: Z = −2.88; p ≤ 0.004 and 1–6 months: Z = −2.23; p ≤ 0.05).

Our results suggest that BDNF is associated with cognitive impairment seen after a FEP and their prognosis. After the pharmacological treatment, the BDNF levels increase significantly and at 6 moths of treatment there were normal levels. Further investigations of the role of this neurotrophin in the symptoms associated with onset of psychosis are warranted.

Cognitive-style is a psychological dimension that represents consistencies in how an individual acquires and processes information. It is conceivable that some people are better in processing words, and other people are better in processing images. This basic idea has inspired theories of visual and verbal cognitive-styles. Recently it was shown that a specific pattern of cortex activity distinguishes these two cognitive-styles.

Nine young right-handed healthy adults completed computerized verbal categorization test during fMRI. the test includes three types of conditions: ‘MIX’: in which each stimulus included 4 word items. one of the four words is functional extraordinary and another one is visual extraordinary. in two other conditions (‘FUNCTIONAL’ and ‘VISUAL’) with 3 word items, in which only one of them consider as extraordinary (functional or visual). Participants were instructed to choose one extraordinary item as quickly as possible. Selections and response times (RT) were recorded. Participants were classified according to their selections as having ‘functional’ or ‘visual’ cognitive-style.

Behavioral results show that ‘visual’ styled subjects responded slower than ‘functional’ subjects. Moreover, ‘functional’ subjects demonstrated unilateral activation while the visual cognitive-styled participant demonstrated activation in both right and left.

We hypothesize that visual cognitive-styled people are tending to use images during solving problems [more conscious features] and therefore it demands to recruit more brain resources and costs them more time. the bilateral activations of the ‘visual’ styled subject, opposed to the unilateral activations of the ‘functional’ styled subjects, support this assumption.