No abstract

For some time, society's emphasis on appearance has negatively affected women. Now we're finding increasing numbers of men who are also overly dissatisfied with their bodies. This trend has led to a new disorder, muscle dysmorphia (MD), which is characterized by a preoccupation with muscularity accompanied by perceptual, affective, and behavioral components that interfere with daily activities. Currently, MD is not included in the DSM-IV, although it is purported to be a kind of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), which in turn is a somatoform disorder. This study investigated relationships among symptoms of MD and variables most relevant to a DSM classification of men who lift weights regularly. No relationship was found between MD and a measure of somatoform disorder. Instead, BDD, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), body dissatisfaction, and hostility are the main predictors of MD. This suggests that MD is an OCD spectrum disorder, rather than a somatoform disorder.

Children with selective mutism (SM) display a failure to speak in select situations despite speaking when comfortable. The purpose of this study was to obtain valid assessments of receptive and expressive language in 33 children (ages 5 to 12) with SM. Because some children with SM will speak to parents but not a professional, another purpose was to explore the efficacy of employing parents to deliver test stimuli. Parents received training on presenting standardized test material and were monitored during testing by a professional who scored and interpreted the results. Professional-administered tests underestimated children’s capabilities. However, even with parents, children’s scores decreased as the tasks changed from receptive to expressive vocabulary and from narrative comprehension to telling a story on their own. Thus, although SM is typically classified as an anxiety disorder, an underlying expressive narrative language deficit was identified in 42% of children with SM using this new procedure.

Family members who do not provide daily care are still impacted by the neurobehavioural changes that progress throughout the long-term, post-acute community phase. This study offers suggestions regarding an effective methodology for assessing family needs and recommends accessible and practical supports.

This research assessed the feasibility of Social Communication Anxiety Treatment (S-CAT) developed by Elisa Shipon-Blum, a brief multimodal approach, to increase social communication in 40 children aged 5-12 years with selective mutism (SM). SM is a disorder in which children consistently fail to speak in specific situations although they have the ability to do so. Key features of this approach are the SM-Social Communication Comfort Scale (SCCS), transfer of control (ToC), a nonchalant therapeutic style, and cognitive-behavioral strategies over a brief time frame. Following 9 weeks of treatment, children showed significant gains in speaking frequency on all 17 items from the Selective Mutism Questionnaire (SMQ), a standardized measure of SM severity. Children also showed decreased levels of anxiety and withdrawal as reported by parents on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). SM initial symptom severity and family therapy compliance, but not duration of SM, contributed to treatment outcomes.