Anxiety and depression in children and adolescents are reviewed, including differential diagnosis, assessment of symptoms, family history data, developmental features, and clinical correlates. Findings indicate that 15.9% to 61.9% of children identified as anxious or depressed have comorbid anxiety and depressive disorders and that measures of anxiety and depression are highly correlated. Family history data are inconclusive. Differences emerged among children with anxiety, depression, or both disorders. Anxious children were distinguishable from the other 2 groups in that they showed less depressive symptomatology and tended to be younger. The concurrently depressed and anxious group tended to be older and more symptomatic. In this group, the anxiety symptoms tended to predate the depressive symptoms. Findings are discussed in the context of a proposed developmental sequence.

Comorbidity of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents.

Diagnosis and definition of childhood autism

A systematic psychiatric examination of the parents of 50 hyperactive children and 50 matched control children was carried out Increased prevalence rates for alcoholism, sociopathy, and hysteria were found in the parents of the hyperactive children Ten percent of the parents of the hyperactive children were thought to have been hyperactive children themselves, and, of this 10%, all were psychiatrically ill with alcoholism, sociopathy, or hysteria The data support the notion that the hyperactive child syndrome is passed from generation to generation and may be a precursor of certain adult psychiatric illnesses

Psychiatric Illness in the Families of Hyperactive Children

Most of the chapters in this book take for granted the definition of infantile autism and the criteria to be used in its diagnosis. That is right and proper, but the questions of definition and diagnosis have given rise to such controversy over the years that it is necessary to set the scene for what follows by some discussion of the issues involved.

Tsung-Yi Lin

Papers

A tri‐axial classification of mental disorders in childhood

Mental health planning for one billion people : a Chinese perspective