Anything But Child's Play

摘要

Diagnoses of mental disorders inrnchildren and adolescents rose dramatically during the past 2 decades. Juvenile cases of bipolar disorder, once thought to strike only in adulthood, jumped 40-fold between 1993 and 2004 in the United States, according to one widely cited study. Autism estimates leapt from 1 in 1500 to as high as 1 in 90 over a similar time period. Such figures have fueled an intense debate about whether the surge is real or reflects a trend toward overzealous diagnoses and a tendency to pathologize normal youthful behavior.