While little research exists in this area, it is believed that children with RAD are at increased risk of alcohol and drug abuse, aggression, and other forms of delinquent behavior. In addition to making children more vulnerable to abuse, RAD creates other risks. These are extreme cases of RAD-most children with RAD do not engage in that level of dangerous behavior-but children who do not receive appropriate support and intervention can end up at that end of the RAD spectrum. A teen in a residential placement because of her history of running away and seeking out strangers for sex escaped from her school and had sex with three strangers over 24 hours.Īnother child, age nine, was placed in residential treatment after her foster family could not stop her from asking strangers on the street if they wanted to have sex with her. In recent years at the Bennington County Vermont Special Investigations Unit, we have had some tragic cases involving youth with RAD. Without intervention, a child with RAD is a train wreck waiting to happen. It is a vicious cycle that is difficult to stop. Worse still, they lack the ability to distinguish between safe and unsafe situations when they are seeking that attention if they have been abused in the past, they may even seek out similar abusive “attention.”įor all children with RAD, additional abuse only makes the RAD more uncontrollable. It can be extremely dangerous for any child to seek attention from a stranger, and children with disinhibited RAD seek attention from strangers routinely. For children with inhibited RAD, their behavior-which can be socially inappropriate, defiant, belligerent and violent-creates a risk of further abuse as their behavior can make people angry.įor children with the disinhibited RAD, the risk of further abuse is also a concern. One disturbing aspect of RAD is the disability makes a child who has already been abused more vulnerable to additional abuse. Adopted children can develop RAD even though there is no abuse or neglect in the adopted home.

RAD is very common in children adopted from orphanages in foreign countries and children who have been in multiple foster care placements. RAD can result from early child abuse, neglect, fetal alcohol exposure or drug abuse, or something as simple as multiple changes in caregivers. According to the DSM IV-TR, a child with disinhibited RAD “demonstrates a persistent failure to discriminate socially to create selective attachments that are appropriate,” and they often develop “diffuse attachments as manifest by indiscriminate sociability with marked inability to exhibit appropriate selective attachments (e.g., excessive familiarity with relative strangers or lack of selectivity in choice of attachment figures).”Īccording to the Mayo Clinic, children with disinhibited RAD “seek attention from virtually everyone, including strangers.” 4 Causes of RAD According to the DSM IV-TR, a child with the inhibited form is unable “to initiate or respond in a developmentally appropriate fashion to most social interactions, as manifest by excessively inhibited, hypervigilant, or highly ambivalent and contradictory responses.” As the Mayo Clinic explains on its website, these children “shun relationships and attachments to virtually everyone.” 3 DisinhibitedĪ child with disinhibited RAD engages in behaviors at the other extreme: these children are incapable of differentiating between caregivers and total strangers, and are often dangerously comfortable with people they do not know. 2 InhibitedĪ child with inhibited RAD is incapable of developing normal “attachments” to caregivers and behaves in socially inappropriate and inhibited ways. Children can manifest symptoms from one type, but many children have symptoms of both types. The disability develops in two forms: (1) inhibited behavior, and (2) disinhibited behavior. RAD TypesĪccording to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV–TR), RAD symptoms develop before the child is five years old. 1 Many older children who have delayed disclosure of their early abuse also suffer from undiagnosed RAD.īecause these children frequent our criminal justice system, both as victims and offenders, lawyers need to learn to accommodate their special needs. In one study of toddlers in foster care who had been maltreated, 38-40% of the children met the diagnostic criteria for RAD. While RAD is rare in the general population, it is common in abuse cases.

It is essential that lawyers who work with children Reactive Attachment Disorder (“RAD”) is a common disability for children who were abused or neglected when they were very young. The views expressed herein have not been approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association, and accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association.

Teachung kids with rad disorder