Definitions for "Reactive attachment disorder"
Keywords:  rad, infancy, relatedness, neglect, dsm
Disorder of infancy resulting from severely deficient or abusive parenting, signaled by a child's failure to thrive, to gain weight, and to engage in the social interaction expected at his/her age.
A disorder of childhood or infancy characterized by the failure of the child to develop normal social relatedness prior to the age of five. The disturbance is marked either by persistent failure of the child to initiate or respond appropriately to social interaction. The disorder is due to neglect of the child's basic physical and emotional needs. It can also be due to the child having multiple care givers, thus preventing them from making the appropriate bonds. In early childhood, the child with RAD may show autistic-like behaviours. Without intervention the child frequently develops Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Antisocial Personality Disorder or characteristics of these disorders.
Refers to attachment disorder. In 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association added the term “reactive” to what had initially been referred to as “attachment disorder”. At that time, the DSM III manual used “Reactive Attachment Disorder” to include only those children suffering from attachment disorder under the age of eight months, but was later revised to include older children. It is now officially termed Reactive Attachment Disorder of Infancy or Early Childhood. For practical purposes, the terms attachment disorder, detachment disorder, and reactive attachment disorder are used interchangeably.