Assessment of cognitive organization in emotionally disturbed adolescents: a way of reducing parental perplexity?

Four adolescents of comparable age and IQ scores were described, two with primarily psychiatric diagnoses and two with additional CNS organic injuries. Despite the normal IQ scores, two had a combination of cognitive disabilities that make them highly suspect as being unable to manage their own affairs without the massive support usually reserved for the retarded population. Piaget's description of the cognitive abilities developed during the concrete operational stage of development were found to be invaluable in separating these more perplexing adolescents. Their inability to decenter, to reverse, to conserve, and to classify and abstract from this classification leads to a major series of cognitive defects and difficulties, difficulties that if not clarified for the parents, will leave them as perplexed as the professional working with these children.