Obsessive Compulsive Disorder In Children Essay Research

five mg once daily for children who are between the ages of six and twelve, and fifty mg a

day for teens between thirteen and seventeen (Bradbury, 1998).

The efficacy of exposure and responsive prevention and the potential

contribution of parental involvement in treatment were investigated for four

children with principal DSM-III-R diagnoses of OCD referred to the Center

for Stress and Anxiety Disorders, Child and Adolescent Fear and Anxiety

Treatment Program. Monitoring consisted of parent and child diaries of

obsessive-compulsive symptoms and daily child Subjective Units of Distress

(SUDS) ratings for a ten-item hierarchy. Results through twelve-month

follow-up suggest that exposure and response prevention with parental

involvement shows promise in the treatment of childhood treatment. (Knox,

Albano and Barlow, 1999)

There are other remedies for people with this disorder, but children would not be equally

responsive to the same treatment as an adult would. There is behavior therapy which

specifically includes exposure with response (ritual) prevention, which is the most

effective treatment currently available (Tompkins, 1999). In this type of therapy,

individuals expose themselves gradually to the fear that they have. As their treatment

progresses, individuals gradually experience less anxiety and fewer urges to ritualize.

Medications have proved effective in controlling OCD symptoms. However, many

people relapse when they stop taking their medication. For this reason, many clinicians

recommend behavior therapy, or behavior therapy and medication. Some of the time,

people may find that their obsessions and compulsions are weaker and do not happen as

often, but they may not completely go away. I think that if behavior therapy is working as

well as they say then children should not have to go on any medication. Why make the

child take medication when there is a risk of addiction or overdose? If therapy is just as

effective, if not more, than I think that a parent should have their child go through

therapy rather than taking any medication at all.

I have a couple of examples of children who have this disorder. The first example

is an eleven-year-old boy named Corey Hobbs who is from Dallas, Texas. He began

treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder when he was only nine-years-old (Emslie,

1999). At that time he said, “I want to know more about it.” He now says “I didn’t know

anything about it, either, but now I’ve learned a lot.” It was his mother who noticed it

first. It started out that school was getting to be a problem. He was still getting A’s, but

he was obsessed with doing more and more. If he could not finish a test, he would get

really upset and keep saying, “I have to finish, I have to finish!” He said that he also knew

that he was depressed. All he wanted to do at home was clean and clean. He never

wanted to go outside and play with his friends. Besides cleaning, Hobbs was obsessed

with touching and rearranging things. He would always smell unpleasant odors because

they bothered him so much. He became overly upset when his friends behaved in ways

that he did not approve. Hobbs was treated with behavior therapy and medication and is

doing quite well. He has learned to balance doing homework and playing with his

friends. Another example is a fifteen-year-old girl named Olivia. Olivia would take

shower for at least an hour and a half every night. After that she would arrange her books

for an hour before she would start he homework. When her homework was complete-

about midnight-she starts her selection of the clothing that she is going to wear the next

day which would take her about an hour. She would get up really bright and early the

next morning, but by the time she would get to school the next morning, after all of her

rituals, she would be a half-an-hour or so late to her first class. Olivia is going through

behavior therapy and doing respectably well.

All in all, I have learned a lot about obsessive-compulsive disorder in children. In

this term paper I have showed that there are many symptoms, few causes, and even

treatments for this disorder. Children who have this disorder and far and few between,

compared to adults, but doctors are finding more and more cases a day. By addressing

this problem of our society today, less children will feel like they are “going crazy”.