Conduct Disorder and Underachievement : Risk Factors, Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention

conduct disorder and under-achievement The young people who are the subject of this book are responsiblefor a disproportionate amount of difficulty for society. They arethe chronic rule-breakers and bullies. They may threaten,intimidate, manipulate, steal, and use violence to get what theywant. Many are drug abusers and drug dealers. Most have problems with self-control and self-discipline. Nearlyall of them are academic underachievers. Unfortunately, they arealso incredibly resistant to psychological intervention. Exhibitinga range of behaviors grouped under the DSM rubric "ConductDisorder," these children and adolescents are legion and theirnumbers continue to grow at an alarming rate. In Conduct Disorder and Underachievement, a leading authority on CDunderachievers explores the causes, assessment, treatment, andprevention of disruptive behavioral problems in underachievingchildren and adolescents. He summarizes many of the assessmenttools developed for CD underachievers and provides a unique,comprehensive risk-factor model which can be used to help identifydisorder problems before they occur. And, perhaps most importantly,he describes a dynamic cognitive/developmental treatment modelwhich has proven to be extraordinarily successful with certaintypes of CD underachievers. Conduct Disorder and Underachievement offers new hope for findingpsychological solutions to one of today's most pressing socialproblems. Much has been unearthed in recent years about the origins anddevelopment of conduct disorder (CD) in children and adolescents.Yet there is still considerable disagreement about the roleacademic underachievement plays in CD. Is underachievement acontributing factor to or a result of CD? While the jury is stillout on this issue, one thing is certain: eventually, therelationship between them becomes a dialectical one--bad grades andantisocial behavior usually go hand in hand. Can this seeminglyfacile observation provide the basis for interventions with certaintypes