Capacity and competence in children as research participants

Abstract

During the past few decades, there has been an explosion in the development and use of neurogenetic technologies that promise to improve and even to enhance the lives and minds of children. These technologies offer cognitive and behavioural improvements, risk assessments for mental or personality disorders in later life, and interventions to counteract traumatic memories. Alongside the growth in neuro‐interventions is a burgeoning list of mental disorders, fuelled by a growing understanding of the biological and genetic roots of disease, as well as by the need to justify the expanding use of an ever‐increasing number of medical interventions. ![][1] Children present a healthy market both for mental disorder diagnoses and for neuro‐interventions. In many Western countries, childhood psychiatric diagnoses and paediatric use of psychotropic drugs has grown substantially during the past decade. The use of psychostimulants has been an area of particular concern. A Canadian survey observed a tenfold increase in stimulant prescriptions for children between 1990 and 1996 (Miller et al , 2001); a similar study found a 3.5‐fold increase in such prescriptions for Israeli schoolchildren between 1998 and 2004 (Vinker et al , 2006). > In many Western countries, childhood psychiatric diagnoses and paediatric use of psychotropic drugs has grown substantially during the past decade Existing and emerging neurogenetic technologies are dramatically shaping crucial dimensions of early childhood and adolescent experience, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Many social critics and ethics observers have remarked on the implications of these technologies for children, including their identity, autonomy, individuality, free will, sense of personal responsibility, future health outcomes, and peer and familial relationships. It is most surprising, therefore, that the ethical and social debates that follow from these developments in medical technologies so rarely include the voices of children themselves. Children tend not to be consulted on their … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif