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Overview Anxiety Disorder – Children with this disorder experience extreme, unrealistic worry unrelated to recent events or unrealistic and excessive fears. They may be overly conforming, perfectionist, unsure of themselves, and tend to redo tasks because of excessive dissatisfaction with less-than-perfect performance. Asperger’s Syndrome – A subset of the autism spectrum disorders, this neurobiological disorder can impact sensory systems, behavior, as well as visual and auditory processing. Children may show excessive rigidity (resistance to change), problems with communication, social skills deficits, or persistent preoccupation with one topic or activity. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD, ADHD) – this disorder is characterized by over activity and/or inability to pay attention and stay on task. Children with ADHD are extremely impulsive and have difficulty remaining still, taking turns, keeping quiet, and organizing and finishing tasks. Bipolar Disorder (Manic-Depressive Illness) – This brain disorder causes unusual shifts in a child’s mood, energy, and ability to function. Children and young adolescents with the illness often experience very fast mood swings between depression and mania many times within a day. Children with mania are more likely to be irritable and prone to destructive tantrums than to be overly happy and elated. Conduct Disorder – Children and adolescents with conduct disorders exhibit serious, repetitive, and persistent misbehavior. These behaviors fall into four main groups: aggressive behavior toward people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, and serious violations of rules. Depression – This disorder is characterized by feelings of sadness, hopelessness, guilt, or worthlessness accompanies by an inability to concentrate, loss of energy and a change in eating or sleep patterns that interfere with daily living. Depression is one of the most serious mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders experienced by children and adolescents. Eating Disorders – These are characterized by self-starvation or binge-eating and purging. Youth who have eating disorders are obsessed with food. Their lives revolve around thoughts and worries about their weight and their eating. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) – This is an umbrella term that describes the range of effects that can occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. These effects may include physical, mental, and/or learning disabilities as well as emotional or behavioral disorders that may have lifelong implications. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – This neurobiological disorder is characterized by intense, unwanted impulses and thoughts that are recurrent, persistent, intrusive, and senseless. These behaviors interfere with daily routines and cause the child or adolescent to compulsively and repeatedly perform tasks to try to deal with these obsessions. Behaviors may be internalized (i.e, counting) so that the child appears inattentive or slow. Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) – This disorder is characterized by a persistent or consistent pattern of defiance, disobedience, and hostility toward various authority figures, including parents, teachers, and other adults. Children with ODD blame others for mistakes, act in negative and vindictive ways, and may have behaviors that alienate them from their peers. PDD and Autism Spectrum Disorders – Autism belongs to the category of disorders known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). Autism is a neurologically based developmental disorder with symptoms that can range from mild to severe. This disorder can affect a child’s ability to understand and use language, to play and relate to others, and to accept normal sensory input from the world around them. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – This is a psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of violent or life-threatening events. Symptoms or behaviors could include agitation, confusion, denial, fear, anger, or withdrawal. The child may appear unresponsive, detached, and/or depressed. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) – A major feature of this disorder is a markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness with peers and adults in most contexts. Aggression, either related to a lack of empathy or poor impulse control, is a serious problem and is frequently accompanied by a lack of emotion or remorse. Schizophrenia – This is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease that causes a person to experience confused thinking, vivid and bizarre thoughts, hallucinations and delusions, sever anxiety, odd behavior, disorganized speech, and/or lack of motivation. Children over the age of five can develop schizophrenia, but it is very rare before adolescence. Tourette’s Disorder – This is a neurological disorder in which symptoms includes the presence of multiple motor and vocal tics; multiple bouts of tics everyday or intermittently for more than a year; changes in the frequency, number, and kind of tics; and marked distress or significant impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning, especially under stressful conditions.