Six year old who shot teacher in Newport News Virginia update:

[Irish_Dem]

53. Yes exactly.

When you are evaluating a child, of course the age of the child is important.

For example when you get a young child acting out sexually, where does that come from?
Is the child being abused, or living in a highly sexualized household with adults acting
out in front of the child. Or porn on the TV all the time, etc. Could the source be babysitters or
other family members.

One exception could be psychotic or bipolar children who can just act out on their own.

When I was doing these kind of evaluations, I liked using diagnostic drawings with young children.
Asked them to start making drawings of the friends and family, etc.
You can learn a lot that way. Same with puppets and dolls.

But yes the older the child the more independent they are and can learn behavior from a variety of sources.
But they are more verbal and can tell you what is going on.

When you do these kind of assessments, it requires a great deal of training but also an ability to be
a good detective, and a desire to find the truth to help the patient. And to keep everyone safe.