Depression Among the Very Young: Chronic Sadness in Preschoolers
August 4th, 2009 |
A GoodTherapy.org News Summary
The occurrence of apparent sad spells, lethargy, or irritability in the very young –children under three years of age– may often be written off as a stage or passing episode. But a study recently conducted on preschoolers has suggested that children this young may indeed be affected by chronic depression. Basing its research on the idea that studies on depression have typically set a limit around six years of age, the Washington University team studied over 200 preschoolers, 75 of which had been diagnosed with major depression. Over the two year course of the study, the researchers found that a significant amount of children initially indicated for depression still exhibited signs on subsequent checkups. The data may help mental health professionals better understand the capacity for the very young to grapple with very adult concerns.
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13 comments so far
for those of us int he child psychology profession, major depression in a child 3 or under is nothing new. But the UW research will certainly be helpful in raising awareness and funding.
What has become of our culture that would cause a toddler to be depressed?
This has to be a joke. I don’t believe that.How can you possibly tell a preschooler is depressed? Dr Thom I’m seriously interested in the answer.
What, is the pharmaceutical industry not making enough millions already? I can see them sitting around the boardroom discussing which age group they might have missed and allocating cash for this kind of research.
So medicating preschoolers is what we call taking care of our children now in our society. I’m disgusted. Before it became so easy to get a prescription, families talked. They thought problems and issues through. They helped their children grow up in a safe secure world. They paid them attention. Brothers and sisters helped their siblings’ families when they fell upon hard times.
They didn’t feel a need to medicate three year olds!
WHERE is the help for these kids BEFORE they become depressed? The article related that most have suffered trauma through abuse. I’m so sick of mental wounds having to be addressed afterwards. We need to be tackling the source of these problems before they become problematic. More supervision of children, more community involvement and more giving a damn about the kid across the street by being a good neighbor. Remember those days?
How sad! I have never even heard this topic mentioned and now here we go targeting this group of people. Have we run out of enough adults to pinpoint with depression now, so now we have to look to their young kids? I heard just the other day that the number of people on anti depressants has like doubled in the past ten years, and now here we have a ripe population that is sure to become a part of this growing phenomenon. I would love to hear what the American Academy of Pediatrics has to say about this because I don’t know about you, but if I took my two year old for a check up and my doctor told me he was depressed, I might tuck tail and run out of there very quickly!
Are you kidding me? Depressed preschoolers? Now I have seen it all.
Daycare centers nationwide must be reeling at the thought of lost revenue because of sick days. I cannot take this seriously and wouldn’t want my kid on meds either at that age laura. I remember when being on daily meds was almost unheard of in children unless they were asthmatic. Now every classroom has kids on them and the trend is working its way down to younger and younger age groups.
To the untrained ear, that does sound ludicrous perhaps. However depression in preschoolers is no flight of fancy nor a new idea. In 2004 Marilyn B. Benoit, MD, past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and clinical professor at Georgetown University, in Washington was featured in a WebMD article on the subject. I’ve quoted some of the article in which she was asked if school-aged children – even toddlers- can be depressed.
“Absolutely: In preschool and in school years, children suffer from depression,” Benoit says.
“There really is clinical depression in toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children,” Jeffrey Dolgan, PhD, chief of psychology at The Children’s Hospital, in Denver, tells WebMD. “It is something a few years ago we weren’t recognizing.”
How common is it? That depends on your definition. Benoit and Dolgan note that most children with depressive disorders also suffer from anxiety. Some experts, however, see the anxiety as the underlying problem for the vast majority of these kids. One of them is Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, founder and director of the New York University Child Study Center, and director of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU/Belleview Hospital Center.
Koplewicz, Benoit, and Dolgan agree that childhood depression is — like adult depression — a brain disorder brought on by changes in the chemistry of the brain. These changes often have their roots in the hormonal changes of the teen and young adult years.
To the untrained ear, that does sound ludicrous perhaps. However depression in preschoolers is neither a flight of fancy nor a new idea. In 2004 Marilyn B. Benoit, MD,past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and clinical professor at Georgetown University, in Washington discussed this for WedMD with two other doctors.It’s an interesting article.
“”As rare as it is, there is a group of school-aged kids — and even a few preschoolers — who do experience full-blown depressive episodes,” Koplewicz says. “It is one of those times where it is not a parent or an environment that has done this. It is a predisposition, the same way some kids have autism or learning disabilities or a full-blown gift for music at age 5 or 6. It is purely a DNA blip.” “
Coming to a news station near you: why your toddler needs meds, not milk.
I’m speechless at the absurdity of this. I don’t care what experts say. Toddlers don’t need meds.
babyies and preschoolers go through so much of disciplining they lose the ability to be childlike. Perfectly understandable. When children have nowhere to vent their pent up frustration, they do tend to internalize and get depressed.