Emotional and behavioral problems in preschool stage. Normative extremes or signs of mental disorders

Abstract

Contemporary developmental psychology offers evidence that preschoolers are much more cognitively and emotionally competent than it was believed in former decades. Developmental psychopathology shows multiple ways of early abnormal development and establishes that, to the degree that early manifestations of mental disorders can be identified, we can achieve a major understanding of the disorder and develop ways of psychotherapeutic intervention for children in pre-school age. Considering that the first years in life consist of maximum neuroplasticity and of multiple critical periods in cognitive and socio-emotive development, we emphasize that this intervention will be especially efficient. Once we have identified the risk factors, child psychotherapy, validated on the evidence, is a means of prevention, which has to be … and developed in a systematic way, in order to delay the beginning of the disorder, diminish the intensity of the symptoms or event prevent its onset before the symptoms get worse.