Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Disruptive Behavior in Children and Adolescents

Not Applicable

Completed

Interventions: Behavioral: Supportive Psychotherapy (SPT)
Behavioral: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anger and Aggression

Brief Summary: This is a randomized controlled study of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for disruptive behavior such as irritability, anger and aggression in children and adolescents. CBT will be compared to Supportive Psychotherapy (SPT) and participants of this study will be randomly assigned (like the flip of a coin) to receive CBT or SPT. Participants will be also asked to complete functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrophysiological (EEG) tasks (recordings/images of brain activity) before and after treatment.

Detailed Description: Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a behavioral intervention that consists of 12 weekly sessions. During CBT children are taught various skills for coping with frustration and parents are taught various strategies for managing situations that can be anger provoking for their child. This study is conducted to examine whether reduction of behavioral problems including anger outbursts, irritability, aggression and noncompliance after CBT may be paralleled by changes in areas of the brain responsible for emotion regulation and social perception.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Boys and girls, 8 to 16 years of age.
T-Score > 65 on the parent-rated Aggressive Behavior Scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL).
Unmedicated or on stable medication for aggression, ADHD, anxiety, or depression for at least 6 weeks, with no planned changes for duration of study.
Children can speak English sufficiently enough to participate in CBT and study assessments.
Children should have 1) no metal medical implants, 2) a body weight of less than 250 lbs. and 3) no claustrophobia. [These are necessitated by the safety requirements of the fMRI.]
Children should be able to meet fMRI data quality requirements at baseline [to enable pre- to post-treatment comparison.]
Families can commute to the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, CT for weekly visits.

Exclusion Criteria

IQ below 85.
Children across various DSM diagnoses will be eligible for participation. However, significant levels of psychopathology that require immediate clinical attention such as severe depression or psychosis will be exclusionary because it will require alternative treatments.
Significant medical condition such as heart disease, hypertension, liver or renal failure, pulmonary disease, seizure disorder, brain injury based on medical history which can interfere with participation in the study.
Concurrent psychotherapy can continue, but CBT for aggression is exclusionary. Subjects will be asked not to initiate any new child psychotherapy during the study.

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Supportive Psychotherapy (SPT)	Supportive Psychotherapy (SPT)	SPT consists of 12 sessions that are focused on discussing peer relationships and family functioning with a goal of enhancing subjective well-being
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anger and Aggressive Behavior	Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anger and Aggression	CBT is a behavioral intervention that consists of 12 weekly sessions. During CBT children are taught various skills for coping with frustration and parents are taught various strategies for managing situations that can be anger provoking for their child.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Modified Overt Aggression Scale	follow up (3 months)	Modified Overt Aggression Scale is a 16-item scale that reflects the frequency and severity of incidents of aggressive behavior. Scores can range from 0 (minimum) to 300 (maximum) with higher scores reflecting worse outcome.
The Clinical Global Impression - Improvement Score	follow up (3 months)	The Clinical Global Impression - Improvement Score assigned by an independent evaluator (IE) who will be blind to treatment assignment is the categorical primary outcome measure of aggressive behavior. The CGI-I reflects the IE's assessment of overall change from baseline rated on a scale from 1 to 7 where 1 is very much improved, 2 is much improved, 3 is minimally improved, 4 is no change, 5 is minimally worse, 6 is much worth, and 7 is very much worse. Higher scores reflect worse outcome. By convention, ratings of very much improved (1) or much improved (2) define positive response; all other scores are classified as a negative response.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
The Child Behavior Checklist	follow up (3 months)	The Child Behavior Checklist is a parent rating of child psychopathology that has two factor-analytically derived scales of disruptive behavior. Child Behavior Checklist Aggressive Behavior Scale consists of 18 items, rated as 0, 1 or 2, with a scale raw score range from 0 (minimum) to 36 (maximum) with higher scores reflecting worse outcome. Raw scores are also converted to T-scores with possible range from 0 to 100 with higher scores reflecting worse outcomes and T-scores of 65 and higher reflecting clinically significant range.