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We need to talk about Kevin
What can we do to help children
with disruptive behaviours?
Eva Kimonis interviewed by Loren Smith
K
evin Khatchadourian is a 15-year-old
boy who committed a massacre at
his high school and killed his father
and sister. Growing up, he exhibited early
signs of psychopathy: chronic unrest
during infancy, failure to bond with
others, animal torture and sibling abuse.
He was also precociously intelligent and
displayed no emotion – other incipient
hallmarks of the disorder.
Although Kevin is a product of novelist
Lionel Shriver’s imagination, there are
children like him.
18
Children with callous traits comprise
about 2 per cent of the population.
Those with disruptive behaviour
disorders (including behaviours like
defiance of authority figures, angry
outbursts, lying and stealing) comprise
around 5 per cent. In roughly a third of
cases, these traits (callousness and poor
conduct) are comorbid. Their comorbidity
increases if they aren’t treated. In juvenile
justice centres, for example, the rate of
comorbidity is 50–60 per cent.
Full-blown psychopaths are estimated
to comprise 1 per cent of the population.
But, by nipping certain behaviours in the
bud, they could comprise less.
UNSW researchers are trialling a new
intervention aimed at stopping children
with antisocial personalities from
going full-Kevin. So far, the results are
promising.*
Twenty-three Australian families
with a child aged 3–6 years with
pronounced conduct problems and
callous‑unemotional traits underwent the
21-week intervention program. It involved
adapting a ‘gold standard’ program
for conduct disorders to cover callous
behaviour too.
“For … children who show poorly
developed levels of empathy and
remorse, existing interventions don’t
typically work well,” says lead researcher
Eva Kimonis.
Campus Review spoke with Kimonis,
who is an associate professor of
psychology and the director of the UNSW
Parent-Child Research Clinic, to find out
more about her work with these children.
CR: What prompted this research?
EK: Well, we know the gold standard
intervention program for children with
disruptive behaviour disorders doesn’t
work for all children. And it particularly
doesn’t work for a group of children
that show what we call callous and
unemotional traits. These are children
that have low levels of empathy and
remorse compared to other children their
age. They also have an uncaring attitude
towards others.
They’re also particularly insensitive
to punishment, so parents are saying
whatever discipline methods they’re
using are not working very well on these
children.
And we know that children with callous
and unemotional type conduct problems
are just not benefiting from our best
available treatment, like other children
with behavioural problems.