Promoting the Emotional and Behavioral Success of Youths: A Practical Guide for Clinicians

Clinicians  often have difficulty helping the parents of youth with emotional and  behavioral difficulties and fail to recognize that often it is the  youth’s cognitive and learning weaknesses that drive their maladaptive  behaviors. This book aims to help clinicians further understand the  roots of youth’s maladaptive behaviors. It also addresses the impact of  youth’s varied cognitive abilities on their behaviors and problems with  self-esteem, particularly in youth that do not meet the diagnostic  criteria for a formal learning disability. While many clinicians view  learning deficits as impairments in specific academic skills, these  deficits go beyond varied learning abilities and often experience  difficulties in emotional, social, and behavioral functioning. These  impairments vary from child to child and it is crucial to develop  practical interventions for improved self-esteem and emotional success.  Varied learning abilities reflect a neurodevelopmental problem in youth  that can lead to difficulties with their emotional, social, and academic  functioning and limit their intellectual potential. There are often  treatment impasses when a youth’s behavioral problems do not improve  with traditional forms of psychotherapy and medication. The practical  individualized interventions recommended in this book will: 1) decrease  conflict in day-to-day interactions between youth and parents, 2)  improve self-esteem and 3) help to achieve realistic social, emotional  and academic goals. The text will help clinicians determine which  maladaptive behaviors are a result of cognitive deficits and not  “symptoms” of a disease-based mental disorder.

Written by experts  in the field, Promoting the Emotional and Behavioral Success of Youths  reviews appropriate interventions in the context of the public health  strategies that address the prevention of secondary socio-economic  aspects as a result of cognitive weaknesses, such as realistic  educational needs, career and employment choices. Clinicians will be  able to use this book to develop “best fit” multimodal interventions to  help parents of youth develop adaptive behaviors.