Early Identifiers

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Mental health and neurological disorders diagnosed in children can be debilitating for all involved. For certain disorders, early identifiers can be crucial to early intervention and prevention programs. This article primarily focuses on conditions or diagnoses that traditionally are diagnosed later in childhood. By then most children are already in school and integrated in their community when they are diagnosed. The conception of early detection basis its limited research and plan on the mindset that if psychologists can find early identifiers and risk factors in the first three years for these specific disorders, prevention measures can be set into motion that can lead to decreased school and social problems and less stress on the parents …show more content…
In this particular discussion, false positives would occur when a child is officially diagnosed only to discovers later on that the diagnosis was incorrect. False negative assessments occur when the initial diagnosis would find nothing, yet there was indeed a developmental problem that emerged later down the line. False positives and negatives can carry legal ramifications. There are no specific dilemmas on a federal level, but there are within each state. Depending on the state, a child’s family can raise a malpractice lawsuit for various reasons, including misdiagnosis, money wasted, potentially harmful treatments, debilitating stress, etc. To limit any legal consequences, Ozonoff (2015) mentions the important distinction between diagnoses and risk behaviors. She states, “Being open and transparent with parents about this uncertainty will promote trust and encourage long-term engagement with the clinical care system, even if the initial interpretation of the child's status changes” (Ozonoff, 2015). Explain to the clients that because there are not fully developed assessments for children so young a diagnosis may change over time or be in