'Mind the Kids': an ACAMH podcast

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Is developmental language disorder linked to law breaking?
In this episode of Mind the Kids, hosts Dr. Jane Gilmour (Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Child Development Programme Director at UCL) and Professor Umar Toseeb (Professor of Psychology at the University of York) flip the format — Umar takes the guest seat to discuss his own new paper on developmental language disorder (DLD) and youth offending.
They dig into 'Developmental Language Disorder and Offending: A Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study with Linked Education and Crime Data', published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, by Megan Frith, Hannah Hobson, Jo Hutchinson, Anna Leyland, Nathan Hughes and Umar Toseeb. The study used the ALSPAC birth cohort (the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), linking childhood language assessments at ages 7-9 with school records and police crime data on offences committed between ages 13 and 29.
In this conversation on developmental language disorder, special educational needs, school exclusion and the youth justice system, Jane and Umar unpack:
- What developmental language disorder (DLD) actually is — a "hidden disability" affecting 7-9% of children (roughly two per classroom) — and how it differs from normal language delay or being a "late talker"
- Why DLD is diagnosed in the absence of autism, sensory impairment or physical causes, and how it overlaps with (but isn't the same as) social communication difficulties
- The headline finding: young people with DLD are significantly more likely (74% higher odds) to have a recorded offence — arrested, cautioned or charged — than those without DLD
- Why school suspension is a key mediator linking DLD to offending, supporting a "school-to-prison pipeline" hypothesis
- Why being formally identified with special educational needs (SEN) at school did not reduce the risk of offending
- Why DLD did not affect how young people were treated once in the justice system — no difference in caution vs. charge, or in reoffending rates
- The idea that "behaviour is communication" — how unrecognised language difficulties in the classroom can be misread as defiance, disengagement or bad behaviour
- Why awareness of DLD lags far behind autism, ADHD and dyslexia, and what that means for police, teachers, and the "appropriate adult" safeguarding system
- Practical implications for schools considering suspension as a response to persistent disruptive behaviour
📄 Read the full paper: Frith, M. L., Hobson, H., Hutchinson, J., Leyland, A. F., Hughes, N., & Toseeb, U. (2026). Developmental Language Disorder and Offending: A Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study with Linked Education and Crime Data. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.70182
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#MindTheKids #ACAMH #DLD #DevelopmentalLanguageDisorder #SEN #SpecialEducationalNeeds #SchoolExclusion #YouthJustice #YouthOffending #SpeechAndLanguageTherapy #ChildPsychology #EducationalPsychology #JCPP #ALSPAC #SchoolToPrisonPipeline

📅 Professor Sam Cartwright-Hatton is hosting an ACAMH webinar, 'Helping Anxious Parents Raise Confident Children: Preventing the Intergenerational Transmission of Anxiety', on 17 November 2026 at 2pm UK time.
📷 Follow Fearless Labs on Instagram for practical, evidence-based tips for parents and professionals: @fearless.labs
In this episode of Mind the Kids, hosts Dr. Jane Gilmour (Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Child Development Programme Director at UCL) and Professor Umar Toseeb (Professor of Psychology at the University of York) sift through the data, dilemmas and debates around childhood anxiety disorders — before bringing in special guest Professor Sam Cartwright-Hatton, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sussex and Director of Fearless Labs.
Drawing on Tamsin Ford's influential editorial, 'Why I am now convinced that emotional disorders are increasingly common among young people in many countries', published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Jane and Umar open by questioning society's mixed messaging around anxiety, before Sam joins to unpack the evidence on prevention, parenting and treatment.
In this conversation on childhood anxiety, parenting and prevention, mental health literacy, and digital interventions, the trio unpack:
- Why distinguishing "I'm anxious about this" from "I have an anxiety disorder" matters — and why avoidance, not anxiety itself, is often the real problem
- The latest UK prevalence data: around 3.9% of 5-10 year-olds and 13.1% of 17-19 year-olds have a diagnosable anxiety disorder, according to the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey
- Why it's genuinely difficult to know if anxiety disorders are truly increasing, given changing questionnaires and growing openness about mental health — and the "dark side" of destigmatisation flagged by researcher Lucy Foulkes
- Why anxiety is an adaptive personality trait that evolution needed — and what determines whether it tips over into a disorder
- Sam's "Three L's" framework for parents: Love, Limits, and Little -Pushes — and why good behaviour management matters just as much for anxious kids as for behaviourally-challenged ones
- Why universal, whole-classroom anxiety and mindfulness programmes (including findings from the MYRIAD trial) show weak or even harmful effects — and why targeted, opt-in approaches may work better
- How the school environment itself — nutrition, exercise, relationships — functions as a passive mental health intervention
- Evidence from a randomised controlled trial of over 1,800 families showing that a scalable, unsupported digital parenting course, Parenting with Anxiety, produced real reductions in child anxiety symptoms with no reported harms
- Why an app being popular or "feeling helpful" doesn't mean it's evidence-based — and why unregulated mental health apps could do more harm than good
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This episode of the Mind the Kids podcast is called "Parenting Intervention: Finding the Goldilocks Zone." Hosts Dr. Jane Gilmour, honorary consultant clinical psychologist and Child Development Programme Director at UCL, and Professor Umar Toseeb, Professor of Psychology at the University of York specialising in children and young people's mental health and special educational needs, are joined by a trio of experts: Julia Ruggiero, advanced PhD student in clinical psychology at the University of Oregon, Dr. Xiaolan Liao from the University of Oklahoma, and Professor Elizabeth Skowron from Penn State University.
The guests are co-authors of "Effects of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Dosage on Child and Parent Outcomes: Differentiating Child-Directed Interaction and Parent-Directed Interaction Session Impacts in Child Welfare-Involved Families," published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (JCPP). Drawing on a sample of 204 child welfare-involved families, the study examines how the dosage of the two phases of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) — child-directed interaction (CDI), which builds warmth and relationship quality, and parent-directed interaction (PDI), which teaches safe, effective discipline and limit-setting — shapes parenting skills and child behaviour outcomes.
The conversation explores:
- What Parent-Child Interaction Therapy actually looks like in the room, including the therapist "in the parent's ear" coaching model
- Why the relationship-building CDI phase and the limit-setting PDI phase teach parents distinct skills, and how the two phases interact with each other
- The evidence base for PCIT with child welfare-involved families, including striking three-year re-abuse rates and cost-effectiveness data
- Why the study's key finding — that dosage in one phase interacts with dosage in the other — challenges the assumption that "more sessions" always means "better outcomes"
- Barriers to engagement facing families experiencing deprivation, and practical strategies (transport, childcare, food, community-based delivery) that improve treatment completion
- How the core principles of PCIT, connection before correction, might translate differently across developmental stages, from preschoolers to teenagers
- Why caution is needed before drawing strong causal conclusions from dose-response data that wasn't itself randomised
This episode is essential listening for clinical psychologists, child welfare practitioners, family therapists, researchers, and policymakers interested in evidence-based parenting interventions, child welfare services, and how treatment dosage and sequencing affect outcomes for vulnerable families.
📄 Read the full paper, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry: 'Effects of parent–child interaction therapy dosage on child and parent outcomes: differentiating child-directed interaction and parent-directed interaction session impacts in child welfare-involved families'
Xiaolan Liao, Julia P. Ruggiero, David E. Bard, Adon F. G. Rosen, Elizabeth A. Skowron
First published: 03 February 2026 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.70106
Mind the Kids is brought to you by ACAMH (Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health), translating the latest child and adolescent mental health research into evidence-based conversation.
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#MindTheKids #ParentChildInteractionTherapy #PCIT #ChildWelfare #EvidenceBasedParenting #ChildMentalHealth #ParentingSupport #ACAMH #MentalHealthResearch

This episode of the Mind the Kids podcast is called "Problem Eating in a Community Sample: The Thin End of a Wedge." Hosts Dr. Jane Gilmour, honorary consultant clinical psychologist and Child Development Programme Director at UCL, and Professor Umar Toseeb, Professor of Psychology at the University of York specialising in children and young people's mental health and special educational needs, are joined by Dr. Clara Faria from the University of Cambridge to discuss eating difficulties and eating disorders in young people.
Dr. Faria is the lead author of "The Prevalence of Eating Difficulties in Children and Young People in England: A Large, Cross-Sectional School Survey," published in JCPP Advances, one of ACAMH's journals. Drawing on 2023 data from the OxWell Student Survey — a large school-based survey led by Professor Mina Fazel — the study found that eating difficulties are common among secondary school students, with a weighted prevalence of 62.5% reporting at least one type of eating difficulty. Using the DAWBA screening items, the most endorsed difficulty was believing you were fat when others said you were thin (47.3%), while the least endorsed, but still striking, was self-induced vomiting (17.7%).
The conversation explores:
- The difference between disordered eating, problem eating, and clinically diagnosable eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, ARFID (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder), OSFED, and binge eating disorder
- What the evidence says about the transition from disordered eating to a diagnosable eating disorder, including longitudinal and twin-study findings on body dissatisfaction and gender differences in risk
- Whether eating disorders sit within an internalising or externalising framework, and why binge eating disorder may not fit neatly into either
- The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on eating difficulties, body image, and screen time among young people
- What schools and clinicians can learn from family-based treatment and non-judgmental approaches such as the Body Project when supporting young people with problematic eating
This episode is essential listening for child and adolescent psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, researchers, educators, and school staff interested in youth mental health, eating disorders, body image, and evidence-based approaches to supporting young people with problem eating.
📄 Read the full paper, published in JCPP Advances: The prevalence of eating difficulties in children and young people in England: A large, cross-sectional school survey
Clara Faria, The OxWell Study Team, Mina Fazel, Emma Soneson, Tamsin J. Ford, Simon White
https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.70111
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Watch the interview on ACAMH Learn at https://bit.ly/Diagnosed-Experience and get a free CPD/CME certificate by registering for a FREE ACAMH Learn account at https://bit.ly/4fF4BBW
In this episode of Inside the Teen Brain, Dr. Jane Gilmour speaks with Rayne Huggins about the experience of being diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. Drawing on personal lived experience, Rayne reflects on what a diagnosis can mean for a young person and explores the pros and cons of receiving one. Together, they consider how a diagnosis can shape not only how a person understands themselves, but also their sense of identity and connection to a wider community. Honest and thought-provoking, the conversation offers a valuable first-hand perspective on living with Tourette syndrome and what diagnosis can come to represent.
Learning Objectives
A. To understand what it means to be diagnosed with tourette syndrome.
B. To explore pros and cons of attaining a diagnosis of tourette syndrome.
C. To explore how this may shape identity and community
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