heories and Causes:
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Quick Recap:
- Atypical development is multiply determined: need to consider multiple levels of analysis
(interdisciplinary)
- Typical and atypical development are mutually exclusive
- Both child and environment actively and reciprocally contribute to adaptive and maladaptive
behavior (interdependent and transactional)
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Atypical development may involve continuities and discontinuities:
- Continuity:
- Continuity refers to patterns of behavior, rather than specific symptoms
- Development changes are gradual and quantitative, and early behavior patterns can
predict future patterns
- Homotypic continuity: similar observable behaviors over time
- Heterotypic continuity: behavioral manifestations will change, but there is continuity and stability
at the level of an underlying trait
- Discontinuity:
- Developmental changes are abrupt and qualitative
- Early behavior patterns are not predictive of future behavior
- The degree of continuity or discontinuity can be influenced by risk and protective factors and the
transactions between the child and these factors.
Etiological Perspectives:
- Biological Perspectives in Developmental Psychopathology:
- Some key assumptions:
- Neural function is critical in the development of many psychological disorders
- Specific genes, brain regions, neurotransmitter activity, and neuroendocrine
responses have been implicated in certain disorders
- The environment can impact biology at multiple levels
- Neural plasticity happens across the lifespan
- Considering all of this from a developmental perspective can help us understand
what, when, and howkey processes are operating andwhat might happen if they
are disrupted.
- Brain growth across development:
- Rapid brain development early on jumps to 25% at birth to 70% at 1 year of life.
- Increase in myelination across the first 2 years.
- Ages 0-6: rapid myelination of deep structures in the first 2 years,
followed by more protracted myelination of association areas.
- Proliferation and pruning of synaptic connections
- An adult brain has ~ 70-90 billion neurons. It's estimated that a single
neuron has ~1000 connections.
- Infants have all the neurons they need but do not have all of the
connections yet.
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- The brains of babies overproduce neurons.
- Neural Plasticity:
- The brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming, modifying, and
strengthening neural connections in response to both internal and
external changes across the lifespan
- Ideally adaptive, but can also be maladaptive (e.g., strengthening of
pathways that reinforce negative behavior/cognitive patterns)
- Mechanisms include:
- Synaptic plasticity:
- Structural plasticity (incl. Synaptogenesis and neurogenesis):
- Functional reorganization:
Major Brain Regions
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Limbic System
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Neurotransmitters:
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hemicals that act on receptors to help neurons communicate throughout the
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body
- Categorized as excitatory (activates neurons) or inhibitory (prevents neurons
from firing)
- Psychiatric medications (and recreational drugs) alter neurotransmitter activity
(e.g., increase or decrease the amount of neurotransmitter at the synapse)
- Neurotransmitters implicated in child psychopathology include:
- Serotonin
- Dopamine
- GABA
- Norepinephrine
Stress response system
- Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis
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here is a feedback loop. Cortisol thats secreted, sends a message back
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saying like hey were all good. If disrupted, you can be in a stressful
situation, and this isn’t stopped.
Genetic Contributions:
- Behavioral genetics: study of familial patterns of inheritance
- Twin studies (MZ vs DZ), sibling pairs, etc.
- Cytogenetics: Study of chromosomal abnormalities
- Duplications/missing chromosomes or regions
- Molecular genetics: Study of the variation of DNA sequences
- Polymorphisms (changes, additions, deletions of bases in DNA)
- Epigenetics: Modification (e..g., methylation) of DNA which affects transcription
- It could be caused by the environment, chemicals, or a normal process of
development (methylation patterns change throughout the lifespan)
- E.g., puberty
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Psychological Perspectives in Developmental Psychopathology:
- Temperament:
- An organized style of behavior that appears early in development
- Shapes child’s approach to environment (and vice versa)
- Linked ot development of psychopathology
- Also linked to adult personality characteristics
- Temperament dimensions
- “Easy”: Positive affect and approach, adaptive to the environment, able
to regulate functions well.
- “Slow to warm up”: Fearful or inhibited, cautious, variable
self-regulation/adaptability.
- “Difficult”: negative affect or irritability, not very adaptable.
- Emotions:
- Emotional perception and understanding develop throughout childhood and into
adulthood.
- Play a key role in how we interact with our environment - what to pay attention
to, what to avoid, and what to ignore, among other things.
- Important for internal monitoring.
- Influence social interactions and relationships.
- Emotional Reactivity and Regulation:
- Emotion Reactivity: individual differences in the threshold, intensity, and
speed of emotional experience in response to some stimuli.
- Emotion Regulation: the ability to manage emotional arousal (e.g.,
self-soothing, inhibiting, enhancing, maintaining).
- Behavioral and Cognitive Influences: More than one model may be concurrently
responsible for the child’s maladaptation.
- Operant Conditioning: Explains behavior as a function of its antecedents and
consequences (ABA is one example)
- Classical Conditioning: Involves paired associations between previously neutral
stimuli and unconditioned stimuli
- Social Learning: Observational learning, social cognition (how children think
about themselves and others)
- Cognitive Models: How thought patterns and attributional styles develop over
time and how they influence behavior.
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Family, Social, and Cultural Perspectives in Developmental Psychopathology:
- Caregivers play a crucial role in helping babies learn to regulate their emotions
- Infant-Caregiver Attachment
- Process of establishing and maintaining an emotional bond with
caregivers
- “Strange Situation” (Mary Ainsworth)
- Standardized procedure mimics the experience of familiar and
unfamiliar people in children’s lives
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ey observations of the child: exploration, reaction to parent
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leaving, reunion with parent.
- Patterns of Attachment:
- Secure
- Insecure – anxious-avoidant
- Insecure – anxious-resistant (also called anxious-ambivalent)
- Disorganized, disoriented.
- Infant attachment is linked to later child/adolescent emotional
development and regulation
- Insecure attachments are implicated in several childhood disorders.
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model:
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Risk Factor: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
- Potentially traumatic events in childhood that negatively impact physical, mental,
emotional, and behavioral development
- Types of ACEs
- Abuse: Emotional, Physical, Sexual
- Neglect: Emotional, Physical
- Household Challenges: Substance misuse, mental illness,
suicidal thoughts and behaviors, divorce or separation,
incarceration, intimate partner violence or domestic violence
- Other Adversity:
- Bullying
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ommunity Violence
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Natural Disasters
Refugee or wartime experiences
Witnessing or experiencing acts of terrorism
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DC-Kaiser data showed that a graded dose-response relationship between the number of
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ACE categories reported and negative health and well-being outcomes in adulthood.
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Mechanisms by which ACEs influence health and well-being throughout the lifespan
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