Conduct Disorder

Conduct disorder, as defined in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), includes evidence of a chronic and persistent pattern of rule-violating behavior on the part of an individual, typically a child between the ages of 10 and 18 years. The behavior is of a significant nature and typically involves the violation of the rights of others or violation of age-appropriate societal norms. Children with giftedness, creativity, or talent are not protected from the possibility of experiencing conduct disorder or some associated disorder. Past and current literature suggests that children who are gifted, creative, or talented suffer from mental illness or disorders in numbers similar to the general population. In addition, children who may be gifted, creative, or talented may go unidentified due to presentation of conduct disorder behaviors that mask their unique abilities. Furthermore, gifted, creative, or talented children who have been identified as such may experience an interruption of valuable school-based services due to excessive office discipline referrals, school suspensions, or school expulsion that may be associated with conduct disorder behaviors that cause subsequent significant problems in the school setting. Consequently, in both cases these children fail to meet their life potential due to lack of social/emotional/behavioral adjustment. It should also be noted that high intelligence may make the behaviors of the conduct disordered child more planful, dangerous, and complex. Whereas the average conduct disordered child might simply aggress against people in the nearby environment, the gifted conduct-disordered child might engage in such aggressive activities as hacking into computers, engaging in cyber-bullying, and planning elaborate ways of breaking rules or laws. It is therefore critical that conduct disorders of gifted students be identified early so that interventions can be developed to protect both the student from his or her risk taking as well as to protect family, school, and community from the student's potential aggression.