Stuart L. Kaplan

Effects of Methylphenidate on Adolescents with Aggressive Conduct Disorder and ADDH: A Preliminary Report

The effect of methylphenidate on aggression in adolescents diagnosed with both aggressive conduct disorder and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity was assessed in nine male adolescents. After three open trials, a placebo controlled double-blind design was used. During methylphenidate treatment of the six double-blind subjects, there was a significant reduction of aggressivity (ps less than 0.05), as measured by the Adolescent Antisocial Behavior Checklist. Conners Teacher Rating Scale Hyperactivity and Aggression scores were in the predicted directions, but the differences were not statistically significant.

Adverse Health Behaviors and Depressive Symptomatology in Adolescents

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and a Health Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ) were administered to 398 junior and senior high school students to assess the relationship between health behaviors and depressive symptomatology. Adverse health behaviors which included cigarette smoking, alcohol use, marijuana use, and the use of drugs other than marijuana were highly intercorrelated. Age of the subjects and BDI items explained up to 31% of the variance of the adverse health behaviors. The suicidal ideation and hopelessness items of the BDI and age of the subjects accounted for most of the explained variance (28%) in adverse health behaviors.

A Comparison of Three Nocturnal Enuresis Treatment Methods

To evaluate the efficacy of an operant approach that includes the bell and pad for the treatment of enuresis (Tangible Rewards with Fading), it was compared with an established operant method that includes the bell and pad (the Dry Bed method) and to a conventional Bell and Pad method. Although there were no overall statistically significant differences among the three methods, individual pairwise comparisons were of interest; the Dry Bed method had no advantage, but the Tangible Rewards with Fading method tended to have more patients reach a 14-day dryness criterion (p less than 0.10) and tended to have fewer patients relapse after treatment (p less than 0.08) than the Bell and Pad method.

Soft Signs in Children of Parents with Agoraphobia

OBJECTIVE To study a proposed relationship between anxiety disorders and neurological soft signs by determining whether children of agoraphobic parents would have an increased prevalence of soft signs compared to children of parents without agoraphobia. METHOD Family study methodology was used to compare 25 children of agoraphobic adults and 25 age- and sex-matched children of nonagoraphobic adults on a structured soft signs examination and on structured psychiatric interviews. Also, soft signs of 12 agoraphobic adults were compared with soft signs of 16 control adults. RESULTS Children of agoraphobic adults had significantly more right- and left-side motor slowness on finger tapping and hand patting (p values < .05) than did children of controls. Seventy-six percent of the children of agoraphobic adults had at least one slow motor sign, compared with 28% of the control children (p < .001). There were no significant differences in soft signs between agoraphobic and control adults. CONCLUSIONS The study provides additional support for a relationship between soft signs and anxiety disorder.