Transdiagnostic Specifiers: Challenges in Children and Adolescents Psychiatry Classification

The last twenty years have been one of debate and controversy around changes in the classification of mental disorders in general but particularly in children and adolescents (de la Peña & Feria, 2021). The original proposals for diagnostic validity mentioned by Robins & Guze (1970) and Feigher et al. (1972) are far away from new classification approaches. The clinical descriptions of the current classifications diagnoses are complex and involve symptoms in affects, cognition, behaviors and social interactions that are present among the different categories, this condition generates shared clinical manifestations. This situation impedes an adequate categorical delimitation. Current detailed brain imaging and function approaches, genetic or neuropsychological studies are still not of complete diagnostic utility for clinical work in children and adolescents psychiatry. Follow-up studies and long-term treatments have only partially helped to understand some aspects of the pathophysiology of disorders and their evolution over time.