General

Question 1

What are developmental cascades?

Answer 1

refers to the cumulative consequences for development of the many interactions and transactions occurring in developing systems that result in spreading effects across different systems or generation

Question 2

sufficient cause

Answer 2

event always = outcome

e.g. extra chromosome 21 material = down syndrome

Question 3

insufficient cause

Answer 3

event does not always = outcome

e.g. meningitis and cerebral palsy

Question 4

necessary cause

Answer 4

you cant have the outcome without this specific event

e.g. to have down syndrome you must have extra chromosome 21 material

Question 5

not necessary cause

Answer 5

a specific event is not necessary to have the outcome

e.g. cerebral palsy can be caused by either trauma or infection (thus, neither are necessary causes)

Question 6

why study atypical development?

Answer 6

• to improve the ability to diagnose and the development of interventions
• to improve our understanding of typical development

Question 7

what are the 7 main challenges with studying atypical development?

Answer 7

1. developmental approach (vs static approach)
2. diagnostic discrepancies
3. interventions need to be based on clear theoretical perspectives
4. the matching issue (comparing to “control groups”)
5. standardised tests
6. non-significant findings
7. cultural differences

Question 8

what is a mental disorder?

Answer 8

-disturbance in an individuals cognition, emotion, regulation or behaviour
- caused by dysfunction in the psychological, biological or developmental processes underlying mental functioning
is ‘clinically significant’: it has to cause either a significant amount of distress of impairment in an important domain (i.e. social, occupational)

Question 9

what are neurodevelopmental disorders?

Answer 9

conditions with onset in developmental period and extended into adulthood without showing relapse or remission

Question 10

issues with diagnosis

Answer 10

• arbitrary cut-offs (i.e. 2nd percentile)
• false positives
• sometimes we get diagnostic criteria wrong

Question 11

RDoc (research domain criteria)

Answer 11

= a new approach to investigating mental disorders disgined for research

• integrates many levels of info to explore the full range of human behaviour
• combines genetics, neural function/brain/cell function, cognition, behaviour, mood, etc (and looks at individual level & the different levels combined)
• is broader than DSM, but not meant for diagnoses

Question 12

6 systems in RDoc

Answer 12

1. negative valence
2. positive valance
3. cognition: i.e. working memory, general intelligence
4. social processing: i.e. ToM & attachment
5. arousal & regulatory: i.e. homeostatic & reactive systems
6. sensorimotor: control of motor skills

Question 13

RDoc units of analysis

Answer 13

• each system are mapped onto these
• genes
• molecules
• cells
• circuits
• physiology
• behaviour
• self-report
• paradigms (pattern of something/a model)

Question 14

individual vs group differences

Answer 14

• individual differences: each person differs from everyone else (e.g. RDoc questions)
• group differences: how one group differs from other groups (e.g. DSM questions)

Question 15

relative strength

Answer 15

= a specific area of functioning that is significantly stronger than the individuals own level of performance

Question 16

normative strength

Answer 16

= a specific area of functioning that is stronger than 85% of same-age individuals