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ADAA’s 2025 conference in Las Vegas (April 3 – 5) will focus on youth mental health, which is currently a global crisis. Drs. Fitzgerald and Forbes, this year's conference co-chairs, are dedicated to and passionate about youth mental health. Read the blog to learn more about our 2025 conference topic.

In a world that values immediate gratification and ease, it can be challenging to teach kids how to tolerate these feelings without intentional practice.

An upsetting myth about Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has been circulating online, saying that CBT “blames” individuals for their problems. Nothing could be further from the truth, and this profound misunderstanding could prevent people from seeking treatment that thousands of studies have demonstrated is effective in helping people get well and stay well.

The headlines and the CDC report are indeed alarming, but they should serve as a wakeup call to all of us. Yes, we should think seriously about why we are seeing a steep decline in the mental health of teenage girls, but we have to come together now as parents, family, friends, educators, clinicians, providers, and as a society to support, enhance and establish more preventive measures for our youth.

Thanks to research, we know more about depression in children and adults with autism than we used to. Whereas scientists have studied the rates of depression, risk factors, and ways to diagnose it in people on the spectrum, we know far less about how treatments traditionally used on the general population work for those with autism.

As a young child with autism, Ben had trouble putting his feelings into words, except when he was angry. During one outburst, he told his mother he didn’t want to live. Although she took him to mental health providers, they focused on treating him for anxiety, rather than depression.