CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. School Bullying: What It Is and Why It Hurts
2. The Role of Bullies, Victims, and Witnesses
3. Factors Contributing to Bullying and Violence
4. Screening and Assessment
5. Treatment For Children and Adolescents
6. Prevention and Intervention
7. Legal and Ethical Issues

Supplements
Case Studies
Fact Sheets
References
Resources

The ABCs of Bullying
Addressing, Blocking, and Curbing School Aggression

Conduct Disorder in Children and Adolescents

Conduct disorder is a component of the disruptive disorders that also includes oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).ref These classifications seem to be a collection of behaviors rather than a coherent pattern of mental dysfunction.ref

General characteristic behaviors of the disruptive disorders include:ref^, ref

• Aggressively fighting
• Bullying
• Intimidation
• Physically assaulting another
• Sexually coercing another
• Being cruel to people and/or animals
• Easily losing temper
• Deliberately refusing to comply with requests
• Blaming others for their own mistakes
• Continually being angry and resentful
• Vandalism, setting fires, and smashing windows (in high school)
• Theft, truancy, and early substance use (late middle school and high school)
• Precocious sexual activity (i.e., in late middle school and high school)

In preschool boys, high reactivity, difficulty being soothed, and high motor activity may indicate risk for ODD. Often, ODD is a precursor of conduct disorder in the middle and high school years.

Depending on how it is defined, as many as 1 to 4 percent of all 9- to 17-year-olds have a conduct disorder. Children with an early onset of the disorder (before age 10) are usually male.ref Conduct disorder is hard to diagnose and hard to treat. Generally, diagnosis is contingent on the presence of three or more of the above behaviors over a year's period, with at least one behavior within 6 months of the evaluation.ref

Bullying others is common with children with conduct disorder. However, conduct disorder is not based on one incident of misconduct, but rather, behavior that permeates all aspects of a child's life, both in school and at home. Unfortunately, children with conduct disorder rarely respond to punishment or any reward system for good behavior.ref

Children with conduct disorders tend to come from families with excessive amounts of dysfunction and chaos. This often includes lack of supervision, frequent changes in caregivers, poverty, neglect, and alcoholism.