Lecture 1: DP fundamentals
Goal of course: understand what developmental psychopathology is
- The essence
- How and when it occurs
- How it develops overtime
→ Multifactorial model.
In other words, problem behaviors for both the youth and his/her environment).
We use an ecological perspective. In this, problem behavior is not just something that you
have but instead a complex interaction of social, cognitive, and biological, and social factors,
that can both strengthen and diminish the persons development of the persons behavior.
Defining and identifying
What is abnormal behavior?
- It is atypical behavior, but also harmful
- It's developmentally inappropriate, so it doesn't really fit into the time perspective of
the development of a child. The development of a child varies to certain degree but
a lot of times there are certain areas and timing, what we call developmental tasks.
- We consider a variety of variables. Begin with always looking at multivariate models
age in this situation the context.
o Age
o Situation/context
o Gender
o Culture (ethnicity, race)
- Parents and professionals may fifer on their views of a child in what is considered
inappropriate. This is also because DV takes place within a scale of disciplines.
Developmental Psychopathology
Abnormal development is multiply determined
- Must look beyond current symptoms
- Consider developmental pathways and interacting events
Children and environments are interdependent, it is a transactional view
- Constant transaction between person and environment
- Both children and the environment as active contributors to adaptive and
maladaptive behavior
Abnormal development involves continuities and discontinuities
- Continuity: developmental changes are gradual and quantitative: predictive of future
behavior patterns/in order, steps are equal.
- Discontinuity: developmental changes are abrupt and qualitative: not predictive of
future behavior patterns
Depending on the context, behavior is adaptive or maladaptive. Example with flight: for a
car, it is adaptive, for a social context it can be maladaptive.
Changes in typical and atypical behavior
Developmental overview
,Some behavioral problems occur more in certain stages/ages.
Developmental tasks
Developmental tasks occur during moments in your development, when you’re ripe in
multiple areas (cognitive, emotional, mentally) for new behaviors that will build of your
previous behavioral sets, to grow as a person.
- These can also be clustered in age groups.
Behavioral indicators of abnormal behavior
- Behavioral delay: developmental tasks learned later
- Developmental regression or deterioration: a learned behavior disappears
- Extremely high or low frequency of behavior
- Extremely high or low intensity of behavior
- Behavioral difficulty persists over time
- Behavioral inappropriate to the situation
, - Abrupt changes in behavior
- Several problem behaviors
- Behavior qualitatively different form normal
Factors involved in judgements of (ab)normality
Commonality
- 5.4 to 35.5% of youth aged 4-18 have problems
- 15-20% have “clinic levels” of disorder symptomology
According to the APA:
- 10% of youth have serious problems
- 10% have mild or moderate problems
Infants and toddlers are also at risk
Variability in rates due to
- Different estimation methods
- Different populations
- Different definitions of psychopathology
- Many do not receive help (making it harder to estimate)
Impact of developmental level
There is some evidence that disorders have a particular age of onset, but this sometimes is
very insidious, thus hard to recognize. For example, a child with ADHD has difficulty focusing
as well as being hyperactive, but it is also a developmental task for children to explore the
world around them and thus not focusing on one thing.
, A reason why some disorders are diagnosed most in some phases is because that phases
asks new things from the child, or makes the already learned abilities more intense, longer,
etc.
Impact of gender
- Timing (first occurrence) differs between genders
- Severity
- Expression
o Expected behaviors play a role in this. Are some disorders more tilted toward
a gender’s specific way of expression?
o For example, two kids roughing outside: with boys the reaction would be
boys will be boys, and with girls it would be a problem indicator
o Expected behaviors also have an effect on children themselves
- Concerns about gender bias exists, but it is not playing into expectations
Gender prevalence differences
In general, the prevalence of externalizing problems in males is higher than in females.
Internalizing problems increase more in females than in males.
Historical influences
Early explanations of psychopathology
- Adult-focused
- Demonology (“Possession”)
- Somatogenesis (“Bodily imbalances”)
- Strong focus on a single cause
Nineteenth century
- Classification of problems by Kraepelin
o Name giving, looking at symptoms
o Most important by Kraepelin was mental retardation
o Some childhood disorders identified Mental retardation received attention
- Progress made on conceptualization of etiology
- Sigmund Freud & Psychoanalytic Theory
o His psychosexual theory of development was one of the first developmental
stage theories
- Behaviorism (1950/60)
Goal of course: understand what developmental psychopathology is
- The essence
- How and when it occurs
- How it develops overtime
→ Multifactorial model.
In other words, problem behaviors for both the youth and his/her environment).
We use an ecological perspective. In this, problem behavior is not just something that you
have but instead a complex interaction of social, cognitive, and biological, and social factors,
that can both strengthen and diminish the persons development of the persons behavior.
Defining and identifying
What is abnormal behavior?
- It is atypical behavior, but also harmful
- It's developmentally inappropriate, so it doesn't really fit into the time perspective of
the development of a child. The development of a child varies to certain degree but
a lot of times there are certain areas and timing, what we call developmental tasks.
- We consider a variety of variables. Begin with always looking at multivariate models
age in this situation the context.
o Age
o Situation/context
o Gender
o Culture (ethnicity, race)
- Parents and professionals may fifer on their views of a child in what is considered
inappropriate. This is also because DV takes place within a scale of disciplines.
Developmental Psychopathology
Abnormal development is multiply determined
- Must look beyond current symptoms
- Consider developmental pathways and interacting events
Children and environments are interdependent, it is a transactional view
- Constant transaction between person and environment
- Both children and the environment as active contributors to adaptive and
maladaptive behavior
Abnormal development involves continuities and discontinuities
- Continuity: developmental changes are gradual and quantitative: predictive of future
behavior patterns/in order, steps are equal.
- Discontinuity: developmental changes are abrupt and qualitative: not predictive of
future behavior patterns
Depending on the context, behavior is adaptive or maladaptive. Example with flight: for a
car, it is adaptive, for a social context it can be maladaptive.
Changes in typical and atypical behavior
Developmental overview
,Some behavioral problems occur more in certain stages/ages.
Developmental tasks
Developmental tasks occur during moments in your development, when you’re ripe in
multiple areas (cognitive, emotional, mentally) for new behaviors that will build of your
previous behavioral sets, to grow as a person.
- These can also be clustered in age groups.
Behavioral indicators of abnormal behavior
- Behavioral delay: developmental tasks learned later
- Developmental regression or deterioration: a learned behavior disappears
- Extremely high or low frequency of behavior
- Extremely high or low intensity of behavior
- Behavioral difficulty persists over time
- Behavioral inappropriate to the situation
, - Abrupt changes in behavior
- Several problem behaviors
- Behavior qualitatively different form normal
Factors involved in judgements of (ab)normality
Commonality
- 5.4 to 35.5% of youth aged 4-18 have problems
- 15-20% have “clinic levels” of disorder symptomology
According to the APA:
- 10% of youth have serious problems
- 10% have mild or moderate problems
Infants and toddlers are also at risk
Variability in rates due to
- Different estimation methods
- Different populations
- Different definitions of psychopathology
- Many do not receive help (making it harder to estimate)
Impact of developmental level
There is some evidence that disorders have a particular age of onset, but this sometimes is
very insidious, thus hard to recognize. For example, a child with ADHD has difficulty focusing
as well as being hyperactive, but it is also a developmental task for children to explore the
world around them and thus not focusing on one thing.
, A reason why some disorders are diagnosed most in some phases is because that phases
asks new things from the child, or makes the already learned abilities more intense, longer,
etc.
Impact of gender
- Timing (first occurrence) differs between genders
- Severity
- Expression
o Expected behaviors play a role in this. Are some disorders more tilted toward
a gender’s specific way of expression?
o For example, two kids roughing outside: with boys the reaction would be
boys will be boys, and with girls it would be a problem indicator
o Expected behaviors also have an effect on children themselves
- Concerns about gender bias exists, but it is not playing into expectations
Gender prevalence differences
In general, the prevalence of externalizing problems in males is higher than in females.
Internalizing problems increase more in females than in males.
Historical influences
Early explanations of psychopathology
- Adult-focused
- Demonology (“Possession”)
- Somatogenesis (“Bodily imbalances”)
- Strong focus on a single cause
Nineteenth century
- Classification of problems by Kraepelin
o Name giving, looking at symptoms
o Most important by Kraepelin was mental retardation
o Some childhood disorders identified Mental retardation received attention
- Progress made on conceptualization of etiology
- Sigmund Freud & Psychoanalytic Theory
o His psychosexual theory of development was one of the first developmental
stage theories
- Behaviorism (1950/60)
