Question: have you found any connections between children that have behavior problems?

Alice Jones Bartoli answered on 10 Jun 2011:

Hi Michel,

There are some common problems that many children with behaviour problems tend to have. However, there are many, many reasons why someone might have problem behaviour, so it’s important to work with children as individuals.

Some of the things that we are currently interested in includes difficulties with memory and with planning and organising, and also with understanding feelings and emotions in themselves and in other people. Memory problems mean that children aren’t great at remembering instructions, and can get frustrated easily. Planning problems mean that children aren’t able to realise what the consequences of their behaviour might actually be. Lots of children with behaviour problems have real difficulties in understanding their own feelings – some of them don’t know what to do if they feel upset or angry, or even really happy. Some children aren’t very good at noticing when the people around them aren’t pleased, and they can’t see when it’s appropriate to change their behaviour.

I’m also interested in brain differences in children with behaviour problems. So far, we know that some children have differences in the way that their brain reacts to different emotions compared to children without problems – this is interesting, and tells us that we might need to work on those emotions in particular.