Chapter 2 Theories and Causes

Question 1

What does defining what is abnormal entail?

Think 2Cs

Answer 1

The context of children’s ongoing adaptation and development
Sorting out the causes of identified problems

Question 2

Most clinical and research activity begins with a _______ for guidance and information (2 words)

Answer 2

theoretical formulation

Question 3

Theories are useful for formulation. Why? (2 points)

Answer 3

They allow us to assemble and communicate existing knowledge more comprehensively.

Can make educated guesses and predictions about behavior based on samples of knowledge,, moving us forward to explore possible explanations.

Question 4

What is etiology in the context of abnormal child psychology?

Answer 4

The study of causes of childhood disorders, which considers how biological, psychological and environmental processes interact to produce the outcomes that are observed over time

Question 5

What is one model that can be used in studying etiology in the context of abnormal child psychology

Answer 5

biopsychosocial model

Question 6

These causes are mainly seen as ______ and ____ associated with certain disorders.

Answer 6

risk factors and correlates

meaning causal role is not always clear.

Question 7

What is developmental psychopathology?

Answer 7

An approach to describing and studying disorders of childhood, adolescence and beyond in a manner that emphasizes the importance of developmental tasks and processes

Question 8

What are some advantages of using developmental psychopathology to study abnormal behavior?

Answer 8

Provides a useful framework for organizing the study of abnormal child psychology around milestones and sequences in physical, cognitive, socio-emotional and educational development.

uses abnormal development to inform normal development

emphasizes the role of developmental processes, the importance of context and the influence of multiple and interacting events in shaping adaptive and maladaptive development

Adopt this perspective as an organizing framework to describe the dynamic, multidimensional process leading to normal or abnormal outcomes in development

Question 9

What’s a central belief guiding developmental psychopathology?

Answer 9

to understand maladaptive behavior adequately, one must view it in relation to what is normative for a given period of development.

Main focus is on highlighting developmental processes, such as language and peer relations and how they function, by looking at extremes and variations in developmental outcomes.

This perspective emphasizes the importance and complexity of biological, familial, and sociocultural factors in predicting and understanding developmental changes.

Question 10

List 3 assumptions derived from a developmental psychopathology perspective and how they have shaped our approach to abnormal child psychology.

Answer 10

1. Abnormal development is multiply determined.
2. Child and environment are interdependent
3. Abnormal development involves continuities and discontinuities.

Question 11

What does it mean when abnormal development is assumed to be multiply determined?

Answer 11

Looking beyond the child’s current symptoms and consider developmental pathways and interacting events that, over time, contribute to the expression of a particular disorder

Scientific method emphasizes the need to simplify variables to those of the most importance, but focusing on one primary explanation rather than identifying and allowing for several possible explanations fails to consider the concept of developmental pathways.

Question 12

What does it mean when child and environment are interdependent?

Answer 12

Extends the influence of multiple causes by stressing how the child and environment are interdependent - how they influence each other.
• Concept departs from the tradition of viewing the environment as acting on the child to cause changes in development, and instead argues that children also influence their own environment
Children elicit different reactions from the same environment; different environments , such as home or school, elicit different reactions from the same child

Question 13

The dynamic interaction of child and environment is called an _________.

Answer 13

transaction

Question 14

What does a transactional view propose about this assumption about child-environment interdependency? (3)

Answer 14

both children and the environment as active both contributors to adaptive and maladaptive behavior.

children’s psychological disorders do not reside within the child, nor are they due solely to environmental factors.

Although a transactional view considers general principles of development that apply to all children, it is also sensitive to individual circumstances in the child’s family or biological makeup that influence or alter typical outcomes.

Question 15

What does continuity refer to?

Answer 15

Implies that developmental changes are gradual and quantitative (expressed in amounts that can be measured numerically) and that future behavior patterns can be predicted from earlier patterns

Question 16

What does discontinuity refer to?

Answer 16

implies that developmental changes are abrupt and qualitative (cannot be measured numerically) and that future behavior is poorly predicted by earlier patterns.

Question 17

What does it mean when abnormal development involves continuities?

Answer 17

Few disorders or impairments come without at least some warning signs or connections to earlier developmental issues.

Question 18

What does it mean when abnormal development involves discontinuities?

Answer 18

Other problem behaviors, such as eating disorders, seem to follow a more discontinuous pattern; they occur more suddenly and without much prior warning.

In such cases, there are few good behavioral predictors from early childhood as to why a particular child begins to restrict eating or to purge food during early adolescence.

Sometimes discontinuity can refer to an unexpected or atypical outcome, such as a child who shows normal development until about 18 months of age and then displays loss of language and reduced social engagement.

Question 19

What are developmental cascades?

Answer 19

Process by which a child’s previous interactions and experiences may spread across other systems and alter his/her course of development, somewhat like a chain reaction.

Question 20

What do developmental cascades help to explain?

Answer 20

Help explain how processes that function at one level or domain of behavior can affect how the child adapts to other challenges later

Developmental psychopathology perspective adds developmental relevance and richness to categorically based DSM-5 disorders and to early intervention possibilities.

Question 21

What does a neurobiological perspective consider about psychological disorders in children and adults?

Answer 21

Considers brain and nervous system functions as underlying causes of psychological causes in children and adults

Question 22

What are some biological influences on a child’s brain?

Answer 22

Genetic and constitutional factors
neuroanatomy
rates of maturation

Question 23

The brain shows _____________ throughout the course of development

Answer 23

neural plasticity.

Question 24

what does neural plasticity mean?

Answer 24

brain’s anatomical differentiation is use-dependent.

nature provides the basic processes, whereas nurture provides the experiences needed to select the most adaptive network of connections, based on the use and function of each.

Question 25

Use the transactional view of development to explain how neural plasticity can influence outcomes.

Answer 25

A child’s brain structure remains surprisingly malleable
for months and even years after birth; therefore, transaction occurs between ongoing brain development and environmental experiences—neither nature nor nurture is sufficient to explain the complexity of the developing brain