How to detect whether your child has impulsivity and how to go

Having a child with impulsive features is a completely normal fact. However, if this impulsivity lasts in time and affects their coexistence and performance, it can affect their well-being and have important consequences .

What are the symptoms of impulsivity in childhood and adolescence?

The symptoms of these children and adolescents may evolve over time and become behavioral disorders. Children and adolescents with poor control of their impulses may have the following symptoms:- Speak and act without thinking- They hasten on the answers- They do not learn the consequences of their actions- They lose their patience with ease- They are disorganized- Have poor planning skills- They show excessive changes from one activity to another- Interrupt the activities and conversations of others- They need constant supervision- They often have accidents- Discuss, reply and reply- They always want to win- They fight easily- It's hard for them to wait their turn- Demand immediate satisfaction and response to their demands- Do not tolerate frustration- Sometimes, by these actions, they are rejected by their companions

Impulsivity: Are There Biological Causes?

According to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience (2016), impulsive adolescents may have differences in their brain structure. This study, prepared by Dr. Avram Holmes, of Yale University, along with other clinical researchers at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital, has confirmed - through the use of neuroimaging (MRI) - that increased impulsivity is related to clear differences in structures cerebral. In this sense, the areas involved in decision making and self-control have a thinner cerebral cortex, especially in the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial frontal gyrus.Traditionally, it has always been thought that socio-educational causes are responsible for the behavioral problem in adolescents and young people. However, with this study it is clear that the environmental factor is important, but not decisive. Thus, there may already be a vulnerability in the genes (gene SIRPB1 of chromosome 20) that facilitates a low control of the impulse and that conditions the maturity and the development of the cerebral cortex.This aspect is basic in the prevention of behavioral problems, since any clinical intervention by the specialist of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry will be more useful if it is precocious, and more in a developing brain.