Pros and Cons of Diagnosing Children
One of the great controversies in the field of psychology relates to how we define normal and abnormal behavior. There is general agreement with the official definitions of abnormal behavior; that is, abnormal behavior is severe or maladaptive enough to need diagnosis and psychological or psychiatric treatment. These official definitions are contained in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). There have been many revisions of this manual over the years. Currently, we are using the fifth edition, or the DSM-5 (APA, 2013).

Children and adolescents who display certain behaviors that cause them to have significant difficulty in their everyday functioning are likely to be diagnosed with one of the disorders in the DSM. Some of those diagnoses are temporary, whereas others are life-long.

Review the following case:

Anna, a four-year-old Mexican-American girl, lives with her mother and father. Anna’s parents immigrated to the United States years before her birth. Her mother speaks only Spanish with her, while her father speaks only English. Anna’s parents are migrant workers who must move regularly. Anna and her parents have moved over ten times since her birth. They hope to provide Anna with more stability, now that she is approaching school age. Therefore, they are seeking other forms of employment.

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Anna recently completed kindergarten orientation. The school psychologist recommended that her parents have her evaluated further, as her speech development is significantly delayed. She speaks very little; her vocabulary was screened at the kindergarten orientation and was found to be at least two years behind typical speech development. During the kindergarten screening, Anna was hyperactive, unable to sit still, distracted, and unable to complete the tasks. She was unable to complete them partially due to their difficulty level, but also due to her inability to focus sufficiently.

After a thorough evaluation at the local mental health center, Anna was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She began participating in a behavioral modification program with a bilingual therapist, who speaks both English and Spanish. She will be evaluated in a few weeks by the psychiatrist, who will decide whether to prescribe stimulant medication for the ADHD.

Based on your analysis of the case, respond to the following:

Analyze the pros and cons of diagnosing Anna with a mental health disorder. Identify at least three benefits and at least three costs Anna and her family may experience as a result of her diagnosis. When deciding which pros and cons to identify, consider benefits and costs related to at least fourof the following categories:
Stigma
Prescription of psychiatric medication to children
Selection of a psychotherapy approach
Multicultural factors
Labeling or mislabeling of children
Early intervention
Write your initial response in 300­­–500 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources, including in-text citations and full references. Incorporate information from at least two academic sources to support your statements or ideas. Academic sources could include your textbook, required readings for this week, or academic journal articles found in the AU online library.

Discussion: Pros and Cons of Diagnosing Children

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.