About Conduct Disorder
What does it look like?
How common is it?
What causes it?
How long does it last?
What treatments are effective?
A review of the evidence
What's new?
Resources

How long does it last?
Infants who go on to develop conduct disorder may be irritable and hard to settle.  A negative interactional pattern can be established with the child’s mother/caregiver, who may react to what he/she perceives as rejection by the baby with harsh or punitive behaviour. This interaction tends to reinforce the child’s behaviour. 

Conduct disorder or its precursor behaviours can be identified in preschoolers. While most children with the aggressive behaviours eventually “grow out” of them, there is a significant group who do not.  Children and adolescents with conduct disorder are at significant risk for school and vocational failure and have an increased likelihood of becoming involved with the criminal justice system. Their hostility and aggression cause them to be rejected by other children and it is difficult for them to make enduring friendships.[1]

Surveys have shown that many children in juvenile detention facilities and older teens or young adults in prisons meet the criteria for a diagnosis of conduct disorder, and that most criminals were children with conduct disorder.  

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1.	U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 1999. Mental Health: A Report to the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.