Can a Child Be a Psychopath?

I tend to agree with Liz Klimas:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/should-children-as-young-as-5-be-branded-as-fledgling-psychopaths/

It's not normal for a five-year-old to have any empathy. Even one-year-olds can learn what others are likely to reward, and repeat that behavior, and even infants seem to learn what others do to stop another infant screaming, and try to imitate that behavior. Awareness that others feel pain more or less as we do seems to begin around puberty. People who may be very good at behaving in ways others will reward, but never develop empathy, can be identified as psychopaths.

Children can, however, absorb the concept of punishment--deliberately doing things others don't like--and, due to their lack of real empathy, can learn to do cruel things in order to punish sensitive parents who may have hoped to teach the children empathy. People who continue this kind of behavior after puberty have traditionally been known as sadists.

Since sadists have been considered less dangerous than psychopaths, it seems unfair to stick the harsher label on a child whose behavior is closer to the other end of the spectrum. If the goal is, as Jennifer Kahn says, to teach the child empathy...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

...branding him a "fledgling psychopath" is an unpromising way to start.