Featured in interaction November 2006 (PDF)
About 20 years ago, Elizabeth McCauley, PhD, had a career-altering experience. A young boy, maybe 12 or 13, came to the emergency room with classic signs of depression.
Dr. McCauley and her colleagues were perplexed. In the early 1980s, it was still thought that children weren't able, cognitively or emotionally, to be depressed. But there he was.
Dr. McCauley's research has helped establish the study of adolescent depression as a discipline and change how depression in children is understood and treated.
"He could have been a 50-year-old man," Dr. McCauley recalls.
Having her personal observation butt up against common knowledge inspired a career-long exploration of childhood anxiety and depression.
Dr. McCauley's research has helped establish the study of adolescent depression as a discipline and change how depression in children is understood and treated.
A few years ago, Dr. McCauley teamed with colleague Ann Vander Stoep, PhD, a University of Washington child psychiatric epidemiologist, to better understand the factors that influence emotional distress in children with the goal of preventing such distress from progressing to more severe emotional health and behavioral problems.
Partnering with the Seattle Public Schools, Drs. McCauley and Vander Stoep developed the Developmental Pathways Project.
Under this umbrella, they are conducting a series of studies that screen middle-school students for signs of emotional distress and provide early interventions that address the issues causing the distress.
The National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Nesholm Family Foundation and Don and JoEllen Loeb have helped fund the project.
"We decided to screen students in sixth and eighth grades, because these years lead to significant transition in their lives, and times of transition are always times when stress increases," says Dr. McCauley.
"Initially, we were concerned that we'd uncover a vast need for mental health services that we wouldn't have the clinical resources to handle.
"What we found is that most of the children have specific, practical needs, such as homework support or a sense of connectedness. Many of the schools have the resources to meet these needs right in their buildings."
Drs. McCauley and Vander Stoep are currently assessing the effectiveness of a skills-based intervention designed to help eighth-graders make a successful transition to high school and are designing two follow-up studies to evaluate their mental health screening program.
The first follow-up study will look at whether the suggested interventions were acted on by the child and family, and if not, why not. The second will assess whether the suggested interventions helped when they were acted upon.
Learn more about the Developmental Pathways Project.