3/4 Lecture

Question 1

Take Home Message

Answer 1

• The brain requires inputs from the environment to develop normally
• Most of our perceptual, cognitive, social, and emotional capabilities are built upon the scaffolding provided by early life experiences
• When the expected environmental inputs are absent, long-term changes in brain and behavioral development may result

Question 2

Institutionalization

Answer 2

1. Isolation
   * Little interaction with peers or adults
   * No response to distress
2. Lack of psychological investment by caregivers
   * Rotating shifts
   * High child/caregiver ratio
3. Insensitive care
   * Regimented schedule
   * Non-individualized care

Question 3

IQ

Answer 3

• Foster care’s children have higher IQ than institution
• Institution children’s IQ decreases overtime (42 months vs 54 months)
• Foster care children’s IQ stay constant and never get to normal
• The earlier they get out of the institution, the higher IQ they are

Question 4

Language at 42 months

Answer 4

• Words and morphemes
• Leaving institution before 24 months, have better language skills
• Leaving institution after 24 months have similar language skills with institution group

Question 5

Working Memory

Answer 5

*Foster care group has better working memory than institution group but not as high as community

Question 6

Planning

Answer 6

*No differences in higher cognitive skills in foster care and institution

Question 7

Cognitive Development

Answer 7

• Environmental deprivation-> changes in cognitive development
  1. Lower IQ
  2. Reduced expressive language ability
  3. Deficits in executive functioning
• All can be remediated by psychosocial intervention before 24 months with exception of executive functions

Question 8

Emotion Recognition Task

Answer 8

• Looking at different faces with EEG test
• No differences on emotional recognition task between foster care group, institutionalized group, and never institutionalized group

Question 9

Emotion Eliciting Tasks

Answer 9

*Peer Evaluation Task, Trier Social Stress Task, Frustration Task, Reward Sensitive Task

Question 10

Trier Social Stress Test

Answer 10

• Asked to deliver a speech about what makes a good friend in front of two teachers that they have never met before
• Preparation: 5 mins
• Speech: 5 mins
• Math: 5 mins
• Institution group: Not much response to stress
• Foster care group: more response to stress

Question 11

Emotional Development

Answer 11

• Environmental deprivation have some effect but not all aspects of emotional processing
  1. No effect on emotional perception or ERP responses
  2. Strong effect on physiological responses to stress, such that children in deprived environments are less responsive
• Identification of emotion is a domain that is relatively preserved following sever environmental deprivation while emotional responding to stress is not

Question 12

Internalizing Disorders at 54 months

Answer 12

*Institution group are much more likely to have anxiety and depression

Question 13

ADHD at 54 months

Answer 13

• There are not much differences between institution and foster care
• 1 in 4 who are in institution meet criteria of ADHD

Question 14

Mental Health

Answer 14

• Environmental deprivation is associated with increased risk for common forms of psychopathology
• Internalizing Disorders (Anxiety and depression)
• Externalizing Disorders (ADHD and conduct problems)
• Psychosocial intervention was associated with dramatic reductions in internalizing disorders but not effect on externalizing disorders

Question 15

Attachment Security at 42 months

Answer 15

• Stranger Experiment
• Almost non of the kids in institution are secured
• 10% of kids in institution are secured
• Foster care have 50-50% of them are either in insecure or secure

Question 16

Stranger at the Door

Answer 16

• Most 54 months and 8 years old kids who lived in institution left with the strangers
• Most 54 months foster care kids stay
• 50-50% of foster care 8 years old children either stayed or left
• Stranger familiarity
• So desperate to have relationships with adult
• Don’t know what are safe or unsafe

Question 17

Social Skills at 8 years

Answer 17

• Placing in foster care after 20 months have similar social skills with Institution group
• Placing in foster care before 20 months have similar social skills with noninstitutionalized
• Attachment earlier in life have better social skills later

Question 18

Social Development

Answer 18

• Environmental deprivation is associated with atypical social development
• Insecure attachment
• Indiscriminate social behaviors
• Poor social skills
• Psychological intervention was associated with improvements in all social domains particularly intervention before 20 months

Question 19

Cortical Grey Matter

Answer 19

• 8-10 years old, the peak of grey matter

* Institution kids have less grey matter

Question 20

Functional Significance

Answer 20

• Superior Cortex: executive function, cognitive control
• Temporal Cortex: social cognition
• Attention
• Cortical thickness differences in regions associated with working memory, impulsivity, attention, and other aspects of cognitive control

Question 21

Institutionalization and Inattention/Hyperactivity

Answer 21

• 64% relationships between institutional deprivation and inattention
• 81.7% relationships between institutional deprivation and hyperactivity

Question 22

Cortical White Matter

Answer 22

*Institution has less white matter than foster care

Question 23

Brain Development

Answer 23

• Environmental deprivation is associated with profound differences in brain development
• Reduced cortical grey matter
• Reduced cortical white matter
• Dramatic cortical thinning, particularly in regions that support executive function and social cognition
• Psychosocial intervention was associated with improvements in white matter development, but had no effect on gray matter development

Question 24

Take Home Message

Answer 24

• The brain is remarkably plastic
• Psychosocial interventions can have a powerful effect on brain and behavioral development, even in children exposed to the most severe forms of deprivation