Lectures Developmental Psychopathology

Lectures DP

Lecture: fundamentals part 1
- The course uses an ecological perspective as an important guiding principle.
- Problem behavior isn’t just ‘’something you have’’ but a complex interaction of social,
cognitive, biological and social factors that can both strengthen and diminish the person’s
development of the problem behavior.

What is abormal behavior?
- Not just atypical, but can also be harmful
- Developmentally inappropriate
- You need to consider a variety of variables:
 Age
 Situation/context
 Gender
 Culture
- Parents and professionals may differ on their views of a child and what is considered
inappropriate

So… abnormal development is multiply determined
- Must look beyond current symptoms
- Consider developmental pathways and interacting events

Children and environments are interdependent – transactional view
- Both children and the environment are active contributors to (mal)adaptive behavior

Abormal development involves:
- Continuities: developmental changes are gradual and quantitative; predictive of future behavior patterns
- Discontinuities: developmental changes are abrupt and qualitative; not predictive of future behavior patterns

Behavioral indicators of abormal behavior:
- Developmental delay
- Developmental regression or deterioration
- Extremely high or low frequency of behavior
- Extremely high or low intensity of behavior
- Behavioral difficulty persists over time
- Behavior inappropriate to the situation
- Abrupt changes in behavior
- Several problem behaviors
- Behavior qualitively different from normal

How common are problems?
 5.4 to 35.5% of youth aged 4-18 have problems
 15-20% have “clinic levels” of disorder symptomology

Variability in rates due to:
 Different estimation methods
 Different populations
 Different definitions of psychopathology
Many do not receive help (making it harder to estimate)




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Impact of Developmental Level
- Some evidence that disorders have a particular age of onset
- Sometimes onset is insidious




Gender impact:
 Timing (first occurance)
 Severity
 Expression (‘’expected behaviors’’)  modeling (from parents, or on tv etc.)  gender bias




Historical Influences
Early explanations of psychopathology
 Adult-focused
 Demonology (“Possession”)
 Somatogenesis (“Bodily imbalances”)
 Strong focus on a single cause

Nineteenth century
 Classification—Kraepelin
 Some childhood disorders identified
 Mental retardation received attention
 Progress made on conceptualization of etiology

Historical Influential Theories

- Sigmund Freud & Psychoanalytic Theory:
His psychosexual theory of development was one of the first developmental stage theories

- Behaviorism:
Behavior is learned—caused by interactions with the environment (e.g., Skinner)



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- Social Learning Theory:
Learned behavior also comes from observations of one’s environment (e.g., Bandura) (cognitive model)

Perspective and Theory
 Perspective: view, approach, cognitive set
 Paradigm: perspective shared by investigators, assumptions and concepts, methods for
evaluation
 Theories of psychopathology: Micro and Macro

Models
Interactional
- Variables interrelate to produce an outcome
- E.g., Vulnerability stress model (a predisposition)

Transactional/Systems
- Ongoing, reciprocal transactions of environment and person
- E.g., Gottlieb’s biopsychosocial model
- Environment variables can be close (“proximal”) or distant (“distal”)

So what does Developmental Psychopathology exactly study?
- DPP studies the origins and developmental course of disordered behavior
- DPP also studies adaptation and success
- DPP is the integration of various theories




Causal Factors
- Direct cause: variable X leads straight to outcome
- Indirect: variable X influences other variables that in
turn lead to outcome
- Mediating factors: explain the relationship between
variables
- Moderating factors: presence or absence of a factor
influences the relationship between variables

Types of Causal Factors
- Necessary cause - must be present for disorder to
occur
- Sufficient cause - can be responsible alone
- Contributing cause - not always necessary nor sufficient for cause itself




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Pathways to Development




Continuity of DPP symptomology
- Homotypic continuity: stable expression of symptoms
- Heterotypic continuity: symptom expression change with development
- Cumulative continuity: child in an environment that perpetuates maladaptive style

Pathways to DPP symptomology
Multifinality: a problem/an issue leading to possible outcomes
 e.g. early childhood maltreatment can lead to an eating disorder, mood disorder, conduct disorder or… normal
adjustment

Equifinality: possible beginnings leading to a particular outcome
 e.g. a specific genetic pattern, specific family characteristics, specific environmental features can lead to a conduct
disorder

Risk factors
- Constitutional (genetic & health)
- Family
- Peers
- Emotional and interpersonal
- Intellectual and academic
- Ecological (e.g., criminal living environment)
- Non-normative life events (e.g., outbreak of war)
 The more risks, the poorer the outcome
 Timing of risk is important
 Risk for onset may differ from risk for persistence
 Risk can accumulate over time
 Some risk is tied to specific outcomes

Resilience
Positive outcome in the face of risk. Trio of protective factors:
1. Individual (e.g., Self-efficacy and Self-Control)
2. Family (e.g., Support and Authoritative parenting)
3. Extrafamilial (e.g., Peers, Bonds to positive adult role models)
 Can occur with one protective factor or may require more
 Can occur in one domain (emotion) and not another (academic)
 Can be linked to neurobiology (e.g., a child’s temperament)

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