Disorders of Childhood Flashcards
What do parents of children with a mental disorder report higher levels of? (4)
Stress, mental health problems, marital conflict and problems with work functioning.
What do siblings of children with a mental disorder report higher levels of? (4)
Stress, confusion and anxiety and a sense that they are left out.
What are risk factors?
Characteristics or hazards that increase the possibility of occurrence, severity, duration or frequency of later psychological disorders.
Explain the differential susceptibility hypothesis.
Genes previously seen to increase the risk for developing mental health problems have been found to operate more like plasticity genes that vulnerability genes, therefore making individuals more susceptible to positive as well as negative environmental effects.
In contemporary diagnostic approaches, the most common forms of psychological disorders in children can be categorised as either:
Externalising or internalising.
What does the developmental approach emphasise?
The need to examine child behaviour and adjustment across development and to examine both normal and abnormal development to gain a clear understanding of the precursors and course of psychological difficulties.
Give the eight categories of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders in the DSM-5.
Intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder), communication disorders, attention-deficits/hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disorder, autism spectrum disorder, tic disorders, motor, disorders, and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Give the two categories of childhood anxiety disorders in the DSM-5.
Separation anxiety disorder and selective mutism.
Give the two categories of childhood depressive disorders in the DSM-5.
Disruptive mood and dysregulation disorder.
Give the two categories of childhood trauma and stressor related disorders in the DSM-5.
Reactive attachment disorder, and disinhibited social engagement disorder.
Give the three categories of childhood feeding and eating disorders in the DSM-5.
Pica, rumination disorder, and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.
Give the four categories of childhood elimination disorders in the DSM-5.
Enuresis, encopresis, other specified elimination disorder and unspecified elimination disorder.
Give the two categories of childhood disruptive, impulse control and conduct disorders in the DSM-5.
Oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.
What are neurodevelopmental disorders characterised by?
Emergence in the early developmental period.
Neurodevelopmental disorders cause deficits in: (4)
Personal, social, academic and occupational functioning.
Define attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
A disorder marked by deficits in attention, controlling impulses and regulating activity levels.
What symptoms is ADHD defined by? (3)
Inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Inattention includes symptoms such as: (5)
Not paying attention to task details or making careless mistakes, having difficulty sustaining attention over time, being easily distracted, and being forgetful.
Hyperactivity symptoms include: (3)
Fidgeting, moving about excessively and not being able to stay seated.
Impulsivity symptoms include: (3)
Difficulty waiting turns, blurting out answers or interrupting.
ADHD can be diagnosed in three ways:
Combined presentation, predominately inattentive presentation or predominately hyperactivity/impulsive presentation.
What do girls with ADHD show less that boys, and what to they show more?
Less hyperactivity, inattention, impulsivity and externalising problems, and more intellectual impairments and internalising problems.
Which disorder does ADHD have a high level of comorbidity with?
Oppositional defiant disorder.
Define executive functions. (4)
Functions of the brain that involve the ability to sustain attention, use abstract reasoning, plan, initiate and monitor goal-directed behaviours, and shift from maladaptive patterns of behaviour to more adaptive ones.
What did Brown believe about executive functions and their relation to ADHD?
Problems lie within switching executive functions on and off rather than problems with the function itself.
Give evidence for Brown’s hypothesis about ADHD.
Individuals with ADHD can attend to a task as long as it is interesting.
What, similar to adults with externalising disorders, is seen in children with ADHD?
Autonomic under-arousal.
What do children with ADHD have a lower response to and what does this mean?
Reinforcement, meaning that they need stronger motivators to change behaviour.
Interventions targeting what are more effective than interventions targeting biological factors in the treatment of ADHD?
Interventions targeting both biological and parenting factors.
What is the Feingold diet?
A food elimination program to treat symptoms of hyperactivity.
The consumption of what has been implicated in the development of ADHD? (3)
Artificial sweeteners, colours and preservatives.
What does the Feingold diet eliminate? (5)
Artificial colours and flavours, aspartame, preservatives and salicylates.
What are the most common medications used to treat ADHD?
Stimulants like ritalin and dexedrine.
How do stimulant medications treat ADHD symptoms?
The increase the availability of dopamine and reduce the overactivity, impulsivity and inattentional characteristics of ADHD.
What is the current opinion for the use of stimulant medications for ADHD in children?
Don’t use it unless it is in combination with psychosocial treatment and only in the short-term.
Define specific learning disorder.
A disorder of learning characterised by lower than expected performance in a particular area of learning relative to the child’s chronological age and intellectual ability.
When is a specific learning disorder diagnosed?
When a child’s academic achievement is lower that what is expected given their age and not accounted for by intellectual disability.
How is academic achievement assessed?
Through standardised testing.
What is the most common subtype of learning disorder?
Reading.
Learning disorders include subtypes of:
Reading, mathematics and written expression.
Define reading disorder.
A learning disorder involving deficits in reading ability.
What is reading disorder characterised by?
Difficulties in reading accuracy, fluency and comprehension that are unexpected in relation to the child’s chronological age.
In order to be diagnosed with reading disorder reading problems must not: (5)
Be the result of general developmental disability, intellectual disability, sensory impairment or access to appropriate education or sociocultural opportunities.
What can persistent reading disorder result in?
Poor school grades, early school leaving and limited employment opportunities.
There is a __% chance of a boy being reading disabled if his father was reading disabled.
50.
Deficits in what can result in reading disorder? (3)
Phonological awareness, working memory and the speed of processing written language.
What is phonological awareness?
Understanding the sound structure of oral language.
What may phonological limitations lead to inefficiencies in?
Working memory.
Define working memory.
A processing resource of limited capacity involved in preservation of information while simultaneously processing the same or other information.
How do difficulties in phonological decoding lead to reading disorder?
They take up too much space in working memory, and lead to insufficient processing of other components of reading.
What can occur when working memory is deficient (in reference to reading disorder)?
The process of holding all the parts of the word and then putting it together becomes much more difficult.
Impairments in what have been found in children with reading disorder?
Verbal working memory.
What does written language processing speed refer to?
Time taken to read aloud words presented in the form of lists.
What does slow word reading create?
A bottleneck in the information processing system, where the readers attention is largely devoted to identification instead of understanding.
What are the most effective interventions for reading and writing?
Combine phonological and strategy-based approaches.
What is autism spectrum disorder characterised by?
Impairments in social communication and interaction, and repetitive behaviours, interests an activities.
What kind of impairments in social interaction are typical of autism spectrum disorder? (3)
Social-emotional reciprocity, abnormalities in eye contact or an absence of interest in peers.
Autism spectrum disorder is characterised by repetitive and restricted patterns of behaviour, such as: (3)
Preoccupation with a specific activity, an insistence on sameness in routines, or motor mannerisms.
Children with autism spectrum disorder are defined by two essential core deficits:
Social communication problems in the form of deficits in social-emotional reciprocity and difficulty comprehending non-verbal communication, and deficits in theory of mind ,
What is theory of mind?
An understanding that others have a perspective that differs from their own.
What are the predictors of good outcomes for people with autism spectrum disorder? (3)
Acquisition of language skills before age 6, IQ above 50 and having an area of greater strength.
What is the concordance rate for autism in monozygotic twins?
60%.
What psychosocial factors are implicated in the development of autism?
Extreme social deprivation.
What is the aim of interventions for autism?
To help the child develop better social and emotional relationships, learn communication skills and decrease stereotypic behaviours like head banging.
What kind of programs are helpful in improving the functioning of children with autism?
Behavioural modification.
What do behavioural modification programs begin with?
An analysis of the child’s environment to assess the environmental conditions and contingencies that can be used to help the child acquire skills.
After an analysis of the environment in behavioural modification programs, what takes place?
Reinforcement procedures for increasing desirable behaviour and reducing undesirable behaviour are implemented.
Define intellectual disability.
Group of disorders characterised by deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning.