| anorexia nervosa | Chronic failure to eat for fear of gaining weight. Occurring usually among adolescent girls and young women, the disorder results in severe malnutrition, semistarvation, and sometimes death.
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| attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | A childhood disorder characterized by incessant restlessness and an extremely short attention span, leading to impulsive and disorganized behavior.
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| bulimia nervosa | Excessive overeating or uncontrolled binge-eating followed by self-induced vomiting.
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| childhood depression | A disorder of emotional distress with symptoms similar to those of adult depression (sadness, hopelessness, etc.) but expressed differently by children (e.g., by clinging to their parents) and by adolescents (e.g., by engaging in delinquent acts).
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| conduct disorder | A childhood disorder in which a preadolescent or an adolescent persistently violates social norms through aggression against people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, and/or other serious violations of rules.
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| disruptive behavior disorders | Childhood disorders characterized by poorly controlled, impulsive, acting-out behavior in situations where self-control is expected.
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| encopresis | A lack of bowel control past the age when such control is normally achieved.
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| enuresis | A lack of bladder control past the age when such control is normally achieved. Children with primary enuresis have never achieved bladder control. Those with secondary enuresis have lost the control they once had.
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| generalized anxiety disorder | A chronic state of diffuse anxiety characterized by excessive worry, over a period of at least six months, about several life circumstances (most often family, money, work, and health).
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| learning disorders | Three conditions characterized by reading, writing, or mathematical skills that are substantially below what would be expected for the person's age, education, and intelligence and by a resulting interference with the person's adjustment. The three conditions are reading disorder (dyslexia), disorder of written expression, and mathematics disorder.
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| nightmares | Frightening dreams, which do not cause physiological arousal and do not necessarily awaken the dreamer. During early childhood, nightmares are distinguished from sleep terrors, which are both more physically arousing and more harrowing.
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| play therapy | A psychodynamic technique in which the therapist provides young patients with drawing materials and toys, rather than asking them questions, on the assumption that whatever is troubling them will be expressed in their drawings and games.
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| self-instructional training | A cognitive therapy technique that teaches people to control their behavior by controlling what they say to themselves before, during, and after their actions.
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| separation anxiety disorder | A childhood disorder characterized by intense fear and distress upon being separated from parents or other caretakers.
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| sleep terrors | Sleep disorder with harrowing dreams arising out of slow-wave sleep, in which a child shows intense psychological arousal but then has no memory of the event.
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| sleepwalking | A dissociative disorder in which the person walks and performs some complex action while asleep. It is much more common in children than in adults. Also called somnambulism.
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| social phobia | A phobic disorder in which the person's anxiety is aroused by one or more social situations and is related to the person's fear of being humiliated or criticized. In childhood, this disorder typically takes the form of a paralyzing fear of strangers—peers as well as adults.
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| stuttering | The interruption of fluent speech through blocked, prolonged, or repeated words, syllables, or sounds.
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