OCD Chicago

Your Child Can Get Better With Effective Treatment

Information for Parents

How OCD Is Diagnosed in Children

Most mental health professionals use a test called the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale to diagnosis OCD. There are two versions—one for adults (Y-BOCS) and one for children (CY-BOCS).

A cognitive behavior therapist will ask you what symptoms you have observed in your child and will also talk with your child. Through a series of questions, the therapist can gain insight into the exact fears that are driving the unusual behavior in your child.

Through these assessments, the therapist will be able to distinguish between normal fears or coping behavior and OCD symptoms. This diagnostic process is important because young people’s behavior can be caused by a combination of fears as well as normal development. Sorting through what is OCD behavior and what is a preference, habit or simply “eccentric” behavior must be done by a cognitive behavioral therapist who has experience treating children or adolescents with OCD.

It’s also possible for a child or teen to be suffering with OCD and another anxiety disorder such as major depression, repetitive body or facial tics, or attention deficit disorder. The therapist can determine what conditions may exist and ensure that proper treatment is made available.

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Expert Perspectives

Very Superstitious

Together with morbid obsessions, magical and superstitious thinking makes up one of the stranger and more misunderstood aspects of OCD. When my patients try to describe their symptoms, they preface their explanation with, “I know this sounds crazy, but….” The presence of magical thinking is probably the main reason why many with OCD have been misdiagnosed over the years as schizophrenic. Superstitious thinking makes strange and magical connections between things which logically don’t seem to connect in the real world, thus the apparent ‘craziness’. Some common examples would be the idea that thinking of an unlucky number can ruin your day, that clothing you wore to a funeral can lead to more unhappiness if you wear it again, or that thinking of the name of a disease will cause you or someone else to get that disease.