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| Toddlers now can be checked for mental disorders
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007705290315 Tuesday, May 29, 2007 Toddlers now can be checked for mental disorders By Larry Hertz
What if you asked your doctor to screen your 2-year-old child for the measles or chicken pox and he told you he couldn't determine whether your child was ill until he was 5? You'd probably find another doctor, wouldn't you? Until recently, according to Dr. James McGuirk, that's the kind of risk you were running if you wanted your child screened for mental disorders. "The prevailing wisdom was, you didn't screen kids under 5 because the symptoms didn't occur before that," said McGuirk, executive director of the Astor Home for Children, a Dutchess County-based agency that provides mental-health counseling and other services for hundreds of children every year. Last year, McGuirk said, officials at the state Office of Mental Health changed their minds about kids under 5. The office lobbied successfully for a bill providing $62 million for mental-health screening of pre-school youngsters throughout the state. McGuirk called the new legislation "perhaps the most significant innovation in the state of New York for kids in our lifetime." Now, agencies such as Astor can expand the testing it is already doing on some pre-school youngsters. The agency has designed a questionnaire for parents seeking basic information on their children's behavior. The Astor staff assesses the questionnaire, and if there are signs the youngsters need help, caseworkers visit those families' homes. "Home visits are crucial," said Konstantinos Tsoubris, Astor's assistant executive director. "You get to talk to other members of the family, maybe the grandparents, and you can determine the physical as well as the emotional needs of the child. If he's not getting enough to eat, you address that first." One of the first McGuirk said Astor was one of the first agencies in the state to develop state-approved protocols for the screening of pre-school children. He said he was convinced the new programs would pay dividends, for both the children and families involved and for the taxpayers. "The Office of Mental Health has always put adequate money at the back end of the system," he said. "With this new approach, we're asking: Why not catch these problems early when they're easier to address?" He said comprehensive mental-health screening of pre-schoolers would address another issue as well. "One of the biggest problems we face in the mental health field is the stigma mental disorder carry," he said. "This new approach treats mental illness like any other public health issue." Tsoubris said removing that stigma was critical. "Once you have a critical mass of parents standing up and asking for their kids to be screened, the rest takes care of itself," he said. "It becomes just another health issue, and that's the direction state of New York has decided to go." n n n
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