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Practitioner Review: School Refusal: Issues of Conceptualisation, Assessment, and Treatment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Julian G. Elliott
Affiliation:
University of Sunderland, U.K.
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Abstract

Developments in the assessment and treatment of school refusal have often been hampered by a failure to recognise its essentially heterogeneous nature. This paper provides a review of major conceptual complexities that have helped to undermine developments in clinical practice. In particular, it considers the distinction between school refusal and truancy, and school phobia and separation anxiety. Common approaches to the assessment and treatment of school refusal are outlined. Although behavioural and cognitive behavioural approaches are now widely accepted as central to treatment, it is increasingly recognised that individually tailored programmes, utilising a range of approaches, are most likely to prove successful. An approach focusing upon the functions, rather than the symptoms, of school refusal is advocated as having most promise for assessment and the subsequent formulation of individual prescriptive treatment.

Type
Practitioner Review
Copyright
© 1999 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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