Behavioral Pediatrics

This work provides the primary care physician with a practical guide to early recognition of and intervention in the significant problems increasingly affecting the emotional health of children and adolescents. The first part of the volume introduces general concepts of normal psychological development, child/adolescent sexuality, and gender identity; concepts of behavioural assessment, psychometric testing, and assessment and management of behavioural and developmental disorders in the infant and young child; and general treatment concepts related to interviewing and counselling techniques, family therapy, and psychopharmacology. The second part of the book focuses on specific behavioural paediatric concepts and disorders, with particular emphasis on pathophysiology. It adopts a practical approach to diagnosis, management, prognosis and referral.
Topics explored in this second part include abuse, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, infantile autism, depression and suicide, disruptive behaviour disorders, eating disorders (obesity, bulimia and anorexia nervosa), enuresis and encopresis, failure to thrive, mental retardation, schizophrenia, psychosomatic disorders, school refusal, mental health aspects of sexually-transmitted diseases, sleep disorders, specific developmental disorders (axis II), speech and language disorders, substance abuse disorders and tic disorders, as well as chronic and personality disorders. This reference on paediatrics, family medicine and psychiatry is intended for primary care physicians, paediatricians, adolescent medicine physicians and psychiatrists.