A comprehensive 46-page document covering seven lectures. This document includes thoughtfully organised and easy-to-read lecture notes covering neuro-constructivism and the causal model, single gene disorders and complex developmental disorders, autism, ADHD, emotional disorders, dyslexia, comorbid...
Covers neuro-constructivism and the causal model, single gene disorders and complex developmental disorders, autism, adhd, emotional disorders, dyslexia, comorbidity and heterogeneity.
Contents Page
Contents
Section 1: Neuro-constructivism and the Causal Model ......................................................................... 2
Section 2: Single Gene Disorders and Complex Developmental Disorders ........................................... 6
Section 3: Autism .................................................................................................................................. 18
Section 4: Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) ............................................................ 27
Section 5: Emotional Disorders ............................................................................................................ 36
Section 6: Dyslexia ............................................................................................................................... 43
Section 7: Comorbidity and Heterogeneity ........................................................................................... 47
, Section 1: Neuro-constructivism and the Causal Model
Developmental Disorders:
• Refers to complex health concerns that start in childhood
• Developmental disorders affect around 15% of children worldwide
• Diagnoses cut-offs are somewhat arbitrary
• DSM-5:
o Categorizes the following seven disorders under developmental disorders:
Intellectual disabilities, communication disorders, autism spectrum
disorder (ASD), ADHD, specific learning disorders, motor disorders
and other neurodevelopmental disorders
o Developmental disorders also encompass other conditions that affect physical,
learning, language or behaviour areas
o DSM-5 has five further DDs: disruptive, impulse-control and conduct
disorders, feeding and eating disorders, elimination disorders, trauma and
stress-related disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.
How Do We Decide If Behaviour Is Atypical:
• Age- is the behaviour age-appropriate?
• Culture and environment- cultural norms
• Impact on everyday life- functional impairment to performing everyday tasks
• Distress- how does the behaviour affect the child and those around them
• Other behaviour, and psychological norms (diagnostic criteria, such as DSM-5).
Development:
• Lifelong trajectories: they can manifest before 1 month of age
• Can be diagnosed before children enter primary education
• May persist throughout adolescence and adulthood (ADHD, ASD)
• Others are more likely to alleviate as the child grows (communication disorders)
• The difficulties are often more salient for children diagnosed with more than one
disorder
• Can lead to social and behavioural difficulties
• Reduced independence.
,Morton and Frith’s (1995) Causal Framework:
• Prominent model
• Highlights four different levels of explaining a developmental disorder
• Flow is not unidirectional
1) Aetiology- genetic and environmental
influences that shape brain development,
cognition and behaviour
2) Neurobiology- differences in brain structure or
function that are associated with particular
disorders
3) Cognition- differences in how the world is
perceived and how we think about the world
4) Behaviour- overt characteristics that define the
disorder.
Traditional Cognitive Neuropsychology:
• Concerned with understanding how the structure and function of the brain support
psychological processes e.g., how perisylvian regions of the brain support language
o Study of adult brain damage
o Focus on modularity (Fodor)
o Domain specificity
o Fixed neural architecture
o Examination of dissociations in cognitive/ behavioural profile and double
dissociations
o Dissociations:
Lack of normal integration of thoughts, feelings, and experiences into
consciousness and memory
o Double dissociations:
When two related mental processes are shown to function
independently of each other
For example, a lesion of the brain area A impairs function 1 but not
function 2 but a lesion to brain area B impairs function 2 but not
function 1.
• Problems with this approach:
o Cognitive neuropsychology (CN) focuses on status behaviour
▪ Neuro-constructivism emphasises development and the need for
longitudinal studies
o CN suggests ‘hard-wired’, innate abilities
▪ Neuro-constructivism focuses on learning
o CN focuses on bottom-up processing
▪ Neuro-constructivism highlights interactive and top-down processing
o CN focuses on double dissociation
, ▪
Neuro-constructivism argues these are rare in development, and that
associations are just as important
o CN focuses on outcomes of behaviour
▪ Neuro-constructivism focuses on the process- how people solve
various tasks.
Can Lessons Still Be Learned from Cognitive Neuropsychology:
• Castles et al (2014)- yes
o Dissociations and double dissociations can inform developmental disorders
but sophisticated methodological approaches are needed
o Dissociations are also used outside of cognitive neuropsychology (e.g.,
diagnosis)
o Cognitive neuropsychology is interested in associations
o Case studies can be informative- group means can be misleading for
heterogeneous developmental disorders
o Data from acquired cases can inform developmental disorders
o Needs to be done in the context of strong, testable theory and hypotheses.
Neuro-constructivism:
• Brain changes across development:
o Regional differences in the neonatal cortex are not innately specified, they are
domain-relevant
o ‘Modules’ are an outcome of development through processes of learning and
emergent specialisation
• Therefore, neuro-constructivism is a dynamic model of development
• Karmiloff-Smith (1998;2009):
o Disruptions in pre-and post-natal neurological development
o Emphasises the importance of ‘plasticity’ in typical and atypical development
o Cognition is an important mediatory between the brain and behaviour
o Innate representations are rare
o Importance of ‘emergent specialisation’
o Domain-general computational/ perpetual abilities become fine-tuned for more
specific tasks, the importance of developmental timing and downstream
effects
o Phenotype is variable:
▪ Both syndrome-specific and general behavioural outcomes are
important (theoretically and functionally)
▪ Must explain both associations and dissociations
▪ Interactions between all levels of explanation- timing is important
(gene expression and environmental events)
▪ Longitudinal studies are paramount- study not just what a child can
and can’t do, but how they do it (brain imaging techniques).
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