Are antisocial youth cognitively impaired?

Université de Montréal resarchers publish in  Archives of General Psychiatry

Montreal, May 8th 2007 –  Standard clinical diagnoses commonly classify violent and non-violent antisocial children and adolescents into the same diagnostic category: Conduct Disorder (CD). So is the teen who would steal a car really the same kind of person as the teen who would physically attack someone on the street?  In an article published in Archives of General Psychiatry yesterday, a group of researchers from Université of Montreal, the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and Rutgers University challenge this idea on several grounds.

This international research team and the lead author, Dr Edward D. Barker, examined the development of physical violence and theft in a community sample of 698 men between the ages of 12 to 31 years. Researchers also examined how these behaviors relate to intellectual functioning in late adolescence/early adulthood.

Developmentally, only 1 in 10 men (13%) increased in physical violence during adolescence, whereas 1 in 2 men (55%) increased in theft during the same period. Researchers also found that increasing violence was related to low intellectual abilities whereas increasing theft was related to high intellectual abilities.

However, traditional clinical approaches classify violent and non-violent antisocial behaviors into the same category. Conduct disorder essentially covers four different types of antisocial behavior: violence towards people and animals, deceitfulness and theft, destruction of property, and serious violations of rules.

“With the current system, diagnosing children across these different behaviors presupposes that a child who is violent is similar to a child who would steal. This suggests the same intervention for both types of children, an approach that is more or less successful, says Dr. Jean Séguin from the Department of psychiatry and researcher at the Research unit on children's psychosocial maladjustment at the Université de Montréal. These results are important because research and clinical practice, which often involves treatment in groups, can confuse developmentally and intellectually different problem youth. Ramifications could be that these different children may be provided the same corrective interventions. This research improves our chances to develop more effective interventions.”

- 30 -

Source: Research unit on children's psychosocial maladjustment, Université de Montréal

For  information:
Julie Gazaille
Press officer
Université de Montréal
514-343-6796
j.cordeau-gazaille@umontreal.ca