Question

What is the necessary criteria to assign a child/teen a DSM-V diagnosis?

Answer 1

• The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (DSM-5) includes changes to some key disorders of childhood.There were age-related diagnostic criteria changes for two other mental disorder categories particularly relevant to the definition of serious emotional disturbance (SED): attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• An ADHD diagnosis now requires symptoms to be present prior to the age of 12 (rather than 7, the age of onset from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.
• PTSD includes a new subtype specifically for children younger than 6 years of age.According to the DSM-5, PTSD can develop at any age after 1 year of age. Clinical re-experiencing can vary according to developmental stage, with young children having frightening dreams not specific to the trauma.
• Young children are more likely to express symptoms through play, and they may lack fearful reactions at the time of exposure or during re-experiencing phenomena.
• Its critics warned that DSM-5 would lead to the further overdiagnosis of children and adults.DSM-5 is a disaster for children assigned behavioural disorders. It sets the threshold for such disorders far too low, as it does for many other, poorly defined conditions such as generalised anxiety disorder, with which it’s now even easier to be diagnosed and thus, by extension, medicated.
• Children exhibiting prolonged temper tantrums can now be diagnosed with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. That’s along with ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and bipolar disorder, which are already in the manual and share a great deal of overlap.