Massachusetts Screening Preschoolers For Mental Health Problems
A reader passed along an article that ran last October in the MetroWest Daily News in Massachusetts, an article I’d not seen previously about the implementation of Yolanda’s Law, named for a 16-year-old who committed suicide.
“The legislation, signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in August and backed by a coalition called the Children’s Mental Health Campaign, encourages doctors to screen their young patients for disorders and seeks to have mental health assessments provided at day care and pre-K programs.”
At day care and pre-kindergarten programs? Oh wow. They are really going after them young nowadays.
As I noted when I wrote about a slightly different law in Massachusetts requiring mental health screening for kids in the commonwealth’s Medicaid program that was touted by the Boston Globe which included a handy checklist of kiddo mental disorder symptoms on its website:
“One of the symptom checklists on the paper’s website contains a stunning array of non-symptom symptoms: teases others, refuses to share, is fidgety, acts younger than others, daydreams too much, is afraid of new situations. And so on. Many of these symptoms are hardly indicative of abnormal behavior or psychology.
“Could someone please let me know what is the objective standard for daydreaming?”
I wonder how these programs are working out and how many more Rebecca Rileys they’ll create. Anyone from Massachusetts know?
Sometime last year, I was interviewed by a reporter from WFCR-FM, the public radio station in Amherst, about mental health screening for kids. I gave the reporter several reasons to be skeptical, much less against, screening for little kids. The reporter got quite frustrated with me–I could hear it in her voice–and told me how much doctors liked screening programs. I reminded her of the Riley case and she basically ended the conversation. I know that nothing I told her ended up on the air. That’s some nice objective journalism by a publicly-supported radio station.
Related posts:
- WebMD Depression Screening Test, Brought To You By Eli Lilly
- House Health Care Bill Pushes Mental Health Promotion, Nanny State In Workplace
- NPR’s Biased Reporting On Mental Health
- Two Studies: Mom’s Anti-Depressant Tied To Newborns’ Health Problems
- House Health Care Bill Mandates Study Of Mental Health Outcomes of Abortion, Adoption
Posted in Furious Seasons