Developmental Differences

Question 1

What are developmental disorders?

Answer 1

Divergence from typical development, identified in childhood

Often lifelong, although some remit in adulthood

Can include atypical cognitive, behavioural, language or motor development

As many as 1:10 children may have developmental differences

Question 2

What is typical development?

Answer 2

Trajectory of emergence of new behaviours and skills

Question 3

What does it mean for a developmental disorder to have a genetic basis?

Answer 3

Inherited

Random mutation

Possible to do genetic screening

Question 4

What are examples of developmental disorders that have a genetic basis?

Answer 4

Down’s syndrome

Fragile X

Rett’s syndrome

Turner syndrome

Williams syndrome

Question 5

What does it mean to have a putative genetic basis?

Answer 5

Assume there is genetic basis because of circumstantial evidence

Look at twin studies

Some genetic basis but don’t know what genes important

Question 6

What are examples of developmental differences have a putative genetic basis?

Answer 6

Autism

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Language disorders

Question 7

What does it mean to have an environmental cause or to be influenced by environmental factors?

Answer 7

Access to therapy

Features of home environment

Nutrition

Question 8

What are examples of developmental disorders that have an environmental cause?

Answer 8

Cerebral Palsy

Question 9

How are developmental differences diagnosed?

Answer 9

Usually parents take child to GP when they have concerns

GP refers child to specialist assessment services

Assessments completed by paediatricians and clinical psychologists

Look at diagnostic criteria and see what diagnosis

Takes a long time (up to 2-3 years)

Question 10

What are diagnostic assessments?

Answer 10

History of difficulty

Standardised assessments

Observations

Questionnaires completed by parents and teachers

Question 11

When was autism first described?

Answer 11

Mid 20th century

Leo Kanner (1943)

Hans Asperger (1944)

Question 12

What is autism?

Answer 12

Marked by differences in social interaction, communication and Restricted Interests and Repetitive Behaviours

Lifelong differences maintained into adulthood

1 in 44 children in US have autism

On a spectrum

Question 13

What type of presentation does autism have?

Answer 13

Heterogeneous presentation

Can be present in people with high and low IQ

Historically more common in boys than girls

Approximately 40% of autistic people are non-verbal

Question 14

What is the cause of autism?

Answer 14

Putative genetic cause

Not caused by vaccines or bad parenting

Don’t know genetic basis

Question 15

What is the Theory of Mind hypothesis for autism?

Answer 15

Don’t have ability to understand other minds

Children completed an unexpected transfer test

Autistic children performed worse than verbal and non-verbal ability matched groups

Could this account for broad range of social difficulties?

Question 16

What is the theory of weak ‘central coherence’ for autism?

Answer 16

Proposed to account for non-social differences and perceptual strengths seen in autism

Autistic individuals faster and more accurate on embedded figures task and block design task

More likely to focus on parts, not whole

Question 17

What is the history of ADHD?

Answer 17

First recognised in early 1900s - “hyperkinetic disorder”

Renamed ADHD in 1987

Question 18

What is ADHD marked by differences in?

Answer 18

Attention
- unresponsive yet distractable

Hyperactivity
- seem to have internal dynamo
- fidgeting
- impossible to sit still

Impulsivity
- unwilling to queue
- unable to wait in turn in games

Question 19

What is ADHD?

Answer 19

Occurs in 8 in 100 people

More common in boys than girls

Some children remit whereas others maintain diagnoses into adulthood

High heritability estimates - 75%
But affected by environmental factors - diet

Question 20

What did Barkley (1997) say about ADHD?

Answer 20

Primary differences in executive functioning

Flexible thinking, organisation, etc, rely on executive functioning

Question 21

What did Sonuga-Barke (2005) say about ADHD?

Answer 21

Primary differences with reward and motivation

Difficulty with delayed gratification

Question 22

What are language disorders?

Answer 22

Prevalence about 7:100

More common in boys than girls

Question 23

What language areas of the brain are implicated in some of these language disorders?

Answer 23

Broca’s area

Wernicke’s area

Question 24

What is developmental dyslexia marked by?

Answer 24

Difficulty in reading and spelling that’s not explained by generally poor ability

Struggle to identify how many syllables a word has

Struggle to identify rhyming words

Difficulty discriminating between sounds of different letters

Question 25

What is the basis of developmental dyslexia?

Answer 25

Although has genetic basis, affected by environmental factors

Whether or not a language is “transparent” (letter patterns map onto phonetics)

Question 26

What is the medical model of disability?

Answer 26

Focus on individual being the problem

Disability caused by something internal to individual

Focus on curing disability

Question 27

What is the social model of disability?

Answer 27

Not person’s problem, way we’ve constructed the world has put up barriers

Focus on barriers in the world

Question 28

What is the neurodiversity take on disability?

Answer 28

Difference not disability

Neurological differences respected as any other human variation

View celebrates different forms of communication and self-expression

Not searching for a cure