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Back to Normal
- Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior Is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Narrated by: Matthew Kugler
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
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Publisher's Summary
A veteran clinical psychologist exposes why doctors, teachers, and parents incorrectly diagnose healthy American children with serious psychiatric conditions.
<.p>In recent years there has been an alarming rise in the number of American children and youth assigned a mental health diagnosis. Current data from the Centers for Disease Control reveal a 41 percent increase in rates of ADHD diagnoses over the past decade and a forty-fold spike in bipolar disorder diagnoses. Similarly, diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder has increased by 78 percent since 2002.Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, a clinical psychologist specializing in childhood and adolescent therapy and assessment, has witnessed firsthand the push to diagnose these disorders in youngsters. Drawing both on his own clinical experience and on cutting-edge research, with Back to Normal he has written the definitive account of why our kids are being dramatically overdiagnosed - and how parents and professionals can distinguish between true psychiatric disorders and normal childhood reactions to stressful life situations.
Gnaulati begins with the complex web of factors that have led to our current crisis. These include questionable education and training practices that cloud mental health professionals' ability to distinguish normal from abnormal behavior in children, monetary incentives favoring prescriptions, check-list diagnosing, and high-stakes testing in schools. We've also developed an increasingly casual attitude about labeling kids and putting them on psychiatric drugs.
So how do we differentiate between a child with, say, Asperger's syndrome and a child who is simply introverted, brainy, and single-minded? As Gnaulati notes, many of the symptoms associated with these disorders are similar to everyday childhood behaviors. In the second half of the book Gnaulati tells detailed stories of wrongly diagnosed kids, providing parents and others with information about the developmental, temperamental, and environmentally driven symptoms that to a casual or untrained eye can mimic a psychiatric disorder.
These stories also reveal how nonmedical interventions, whether in the therapist's office or through changes made at home, can help children.
Back to Normal reminds us of the normalcy of children's seemingly abnormal behavior. It will give parents of struggling children hope, perspective, and direction. And it will make everyone who deals with children question the changes in our society that have contributed to the astonishing increase in childhood psychiatric diagnoses.
Narrator Matthew Kugler will remind listeners of the friendly guy next door, and his frank, unrushed performance helps hammer home Dr. Enrico Gnaulati's startling assertion that doctors, teachers, and parents have been incorrectly diagnosing healthy American children with serious psychological disorders. A clinical psychologist specializing in childhood and adolescent therapy and assessment, Dr. Gnaulati reveals how normal childhood behavior can appear to be a symptom of a mental disorder to the untrained eye. This audiobook gives a much-needed sense of perspective and direction to anyone who regularly interacts with children.
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- 20-06-21
Liked the book, but a crucial limitation
I like the book overall. It communicates well how some of the normal behaviour of a difficult child is so easily placed into ASD. Many case studies are mentioned. It must be mentioned that this book appears to be more suitable for the kids between 5 and late teens. This has little about the kids that are diagnosed too early (<3 years).
The book has a lot of American politico-economic context, that I was not really interested in knowing. But since the USA is considered a superpower, you see similar behaviour trickling down into other countries (like India).
In addition to the politico-economic and social limitation, one of the biggest problem was that the author does not always define the "age" when he talks of the "age-appropriate". So, if there is an example, it gets a bit difficult to imagine the age of the kid.
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