The stimulant drug methylphenidate was administered in a double-blind, placebo controlled study over a 10-day period to 81 children in 2 institutions. The children were deprived or emotionally disturbed, but none was known to be psychotic, brain damaged, or mentally retarded. Following tests, it was found that 2 children's anxiety scales and an impulsivity scale were unrelated to learning, and ...

In the 1930s, children who were violent, depressed, psychotic, or suicidal would likely have been labeled delinquent and sent to a custodial training school for punitive treatment. But starting in the 1940s, a new group of institutions embarked on a new experiment to salvage and treat severely deviant children. In the process, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers at these residentia...

A group of 96 nondefective children in Grades 4 through 9 who were referred to a child psychiatric clinic were compared with a group of 120 public school children of similar intellectual and educational level in terms of their response to a Taffel-type verbal conditioning procedure. Half of the children in each group were experimental 5s, to whom E said "good" following their use of a first-per...

Trichobezoars are impactions of swallowed hairs in the stomach and occasionally in the intestine. They occur in emotionally disturbed, depressed, or mentally retarded patients who have trichotillomania and trichophagia. Removal of gastric trichobezoar by open surgery (gastrotomy) is a standard approach. Psychiatric follow-up is needed to diminish the recurrence of trichotillomania and trichopha...

At a hospital in the south of England there are two residential units, each with 15 beds, for emotionally disturbed children under 12?one a house in the town, and the other a bungalow in the grounds of the hospital. Children come to them from all parts of the country. The work of the unit is diagnostic, with comparatively short-term treatment. It covers a wide range of behaviour disturbances, i...