PsyDactic - Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Board Study Edition

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Dr. O'Leary discusses his critical perspective on Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and argues that ODD is not a primary diagnosis but rather a "risk syndrome," a set of symptoms (defiance, irritability, and vindictiveness) resulting from various underlying conditions like ADHD, anxiety, or trauma. He explains that conceptualizing ODD as a stand-alone disorder often leads to the risky treatment pathw...

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This is part 3 of a series on pediatric trauma, delving into the treatment of trauma and stress-related disorders in children. Dr. O'Leary emphasizes that therapy is always the starting point for these conditions, highlighting Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as highly effective, evidence-based interventions for PTSD. For atta...

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This is the second of a three-part series on pediatric trauma, delveing into the epidemiology and underlying mechanisms of trauma-related disorders in children and adolescents. Dr. O'Leary discusses what might increase risk of developing PTSD after trauma. The discussion also explores the neurobiological impact of trauma, detailing how it can dysregulate the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, alter neurotran...

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Dr O'Leary discusses post-traumatic stress disorder, reactive attachment disorder, disinhibited social engagement disorder along with the other diagnostic boxes defined in the DSM.  In particular, he discusses how a developmentally appropriate approach is necessary and why there are different criteria for those aged 6 and under.

Find additional case vignettes in the show transcript.

Referenced resou...

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In this episode Dr. O'Leary delves into the complex world of Pediatric Anxiety Disorders. Learn about Separation Anxiety Disorder, Selective Mutism, Specific Phobias, Social Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Through clinical vignettes and DSM-5-TR criteria, this episode explores the nuances of diagnosis and when typical childhood anxiety crosses into a dis...

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Dr. O'Leary delves into the complex and often controversial topic of diagnosing Pediatric Bipolar Disorder and its differentiation from other conditions, particularly Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD). Dr. O'Leary explores the DSM-5-TR diagnostic framework, the history of Pediatric Bipolar diagnosis, the debate surrounding irritability as a diagnostic criterion, and the challenges of distin...

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This Episode covers major depressive disorder in children and adolescents.  According to the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, content related to depressive disorders constitute 7 to 9 percent of the board exam, so it’s worth a second, third and even fourth look.  Again, I will leave you in the competent hands of my AI co-hosts, Algernon and Alisa, or Allen and Alberta.  ...

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Now that we carry around casinos in our pockets, the rates of gambling disorder among adolescents is skyrocketing.  Yet, gambling disorder may be the most under-diagnosed disorder in the DSM.  This is an exhaustive treatment of the neurobiological, psychological, and societal aspects of gambling addiction, featuring discussions on the brain's reward system, cognitive distortions, and the impa...

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This is a general overview that highlights common features of substance use disorders in youth and discusses in more detail substances like alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and opioids.  It is a curated A.I. generated podcast.

Referenced resources can be found within the show transcripts at https://psydactic_caps.buzzsprout.com

Feedback can be emailed to feedback@psydactic.com OR submitted via a form at...

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This episode delves into the epidemiology, neurobiology, and differential diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), including its frequent co-occurrence with autism intellectual developmental disorder or ADHD, and stresses the importance of occupational and physical therapies to improve outcomes, highlighting that DCD should be identified and addressed rather than being subsumed into othe...

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Enjoy today’s A.I. generated discussion of ADHD etiology, epidemiology, and diagnosis.

Referenced resources can be found within the show transcripts at https://psydactic_caps.buzzsprout.com

Referenced resources can be found within the show transcripts at https://psydactic_caps.buzzsprout.com

Feedback can be emailed to feedback@psydactic.com OR submitted via a form at https://psydactic.com.

Th...

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Dr. O'Leary tries something new by feeding an artificial intelligence a series of peer reviewed papers about autism spectrum disorder and having it generate an audio discussion of the content.  This episode focusses on the differential diagnosis of ASD and how to rule out other neurodevelopmental disorders and even OCD or an anxiety disorder.

Referenced resources can be found within the show transc...

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This episode focuses on communication disorders in children, specifically language, speech sound, fluency, and social communication disorders. It differentiates these disorders through case vignettes, comparing and contrasting DSM-5 TR criteria, and highlighting key features of each disorder.

Language Disorder is characterized by persistent difficulties in language acquisition and use, impacting both co...

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This episode begins with a case vignette about a 7-year-old boy, Tommy, who exhibits global developmental delays and impaired adaptive functioning. Dr. O'Leary explores the DSM-5 criteria for ID, emphasizing deficits in intellectual functions and adaptive functioning during the developmental period. Severity levels are based on adaptive functioning and range from mild to profound. The episode distingui...

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In the last episode, I introduced behaviorism, which took a strikingly different approach to human learning and development by basically assuming that everything we are on the inside is somehow learned from the environment, except for some of the most basic things we need for survival.  Our inner life and the reasons we give for our decisions are more or less illusions.  What we are is what w...

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I have so far discussed some of the early psychosexual, psychosocial and cognitive approaches to child development, but I would be remiss if I did not also mention a group of theorists who attempted to study humanity by completely ignoring the fact that they have thoughts and emotions.  The behavioralists tried to simplify the study of humans by massively simplifying their assumptions about humans...

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In episode 8, I started discussing temperament theory with an introduction to Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess.  They first developed a temperamental formulation by following 141 children longitudinally and proposed 9 dimensions of temperament that can be reduced to three basic categories: Easy, Difficult, or Slow-to-warm-up temperament.  There were many researchers to follow and today I am ...

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While it may seem quaint today, the radical contribution that Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess made to child development was to look at children as unique individuals with very different innate approaches to the world that were present at birth.  While processes like attachment and their psychosocial context help to determine a child’s outcome, what Thomas and Chess emphasized was a child&r...

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Attachment theory began when John Bowlby rebelled from the psychoanalytic establishment by, for the first time, observing families interacting in order to understand individuals.  Bowlby was later joined by Mary Ainsworth who developed on of the most iconic clinical tools in the history of child psychology: The Strange Situation.  This episode begins with Bowlby and Ainsworth and explores the...