Psychology 241 Final Flashcards
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Severity = level system
Deflicts in social communication
Deflicts in social emotional reiprocity - failure if emotions
Non verbal communication
Social interactions are poor
Deflicts in developing, maintaining, understanding relationship
Restrictive and repetitive patterns
Clinical Autism
Social reciporcity
reduced abilkty to engage in joint attention, eye contact, gestures. language and shared moments
Limited theory of the mind
reduced ability to attribute mental states
ex = beliefs, intents, desires, emotion, knowledge
Clinical autism
Communication Deflicts
- vary in language related skills (25% don’t develop speech)
- lack facial expressions + tones
- May develop repetition of speech
- May engage in one-sided convos
Clinical Autism
Both 1 and 2 can negatively affect development/maintence/understanding of relationships
Autism stereotypes
repetitive motor moements, use of objects, or speech.
Hours of making stereotyped movements
Rigid ritual + obessive interests
Maintenance
need to maintain things in certain order, to maintain stable routine
Interference may cause anxiety and tantrums
Fixated interests
Excessive or low sensitivity sensory input
3 Levels of ASD
(1)
requring support
- issues with poor organization, switching activities, poor social skills, making friends odd/unsucessful
Level 2 of ASD
Requiring substancal support
- Difficulties in verbal/nonverbal, repitive behaviours, difficulties chaning activities /focus
Level 3 ASD
Requiring very substanical support
- Severe verbal/nonverbal issues, very imited speech, ood/repetitive behaviour, may express basic needs only
Onset
Symptoms identified between 12-24 month of age eary developmental delays
- losses of social/language
Causes
Genetic
- May be associated between ASD + genes (low oxytocin) responsible for brain chem oxytocin (bonding, trust, reduce, fear)
400-1000 genes responsible
Biological
- Brain has abnormal pattern of connectivity and functional organization of brain network
- Delay in maturation of frontal cortex
- Amygdala overgrowth - involved in emotional perception/response, enhanced fear, anxiety (social withdraw)
- atypical in volume/shape of hippocampus
Smaller cerebellum ( social cognition, body/mind reading
Mood
Predominant feeling state of individual
Low = depression
High = Mania
Unipolar Mood disorder
- Mood remains at one pole of depression-mania continuum
- Depressive of unipolar mania
Bipolar Disorder
Mood travles between depression mania poles
Major depressive disorder
- Depressive Mood
- Loss of interest/pleasure
- Weight gain/loss
- Insomnia/hypersomnia
- Psychomotor agitation or retardation
- Fatigue
- Feeling of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
- Diminished ability to think or concentrate
- Recurrent thought of death (not fear of dying) suicidal
permpartum
Baby Blues – Mood swings, 1-5 days after birth, 40-80% of women
Peripartum/postpartum: 10% of women have during pregnancy or within first year (normal in first 4 weeks.
Persistent Depressive Disorders
- Poor appetite or overeating
- Insomnia or Hypersomnia
- Low energy or fatigue
- Low self esteem
- Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions
- Feelings of hopelessness
Neurobiology of depressive disorders
- Chemical Imbalance: Low levels of serotonin
SSRI – increase levels of serotonin and are effective – depression is related to low level of serotonin - Endocrine Response
Excessive production of cortisol from the adrenal cortex - Structural Difference
* Greater activity in the right side of brain (prefrontal cortex)
* Biological vulnerability to depression
* Amygdala overly active when processing negative info
* Reduce volume of grey matter (hippocampus)
Mood contribution
Psychological Contributions
- Dark cognitive triad (becks theory)
- Learned helplessness
Environmental Contributions
- Stress
- Traumatic events precede nearly all types of DE – 20%-50% individuals who experience traumatic event develop DD
- Lack of social support
- Marital dissatisfaction
pharmacological treatment for depressive disorder
- Drug treatment that are effective with adults, don’t work as well on children
- Goal – may not be recovery (happens naturally for the majority of people) Delay next episode or prevent it
- Electroconvulsive treatment: small electric currents passed through brain, intentionally triggering brief seizure
- Transcranial Magnetic stimulation: magnetic coil over head to generate a precisely localized electromagnetic pulse
- CBT: Emotions- Cognitions-Behaviours
Clients are taught to identify cognitive errors that characterize depression, treatment inclines correcting cognitive errors substituting less depressing more realistic thoughts