Atypical development Flashcards
Why do we study atypical development?
To improve quality of life and outcomes using interventions
To develop theoretical and empirical knowledge of developmental conditions
Studying atypical developmental can also inform our understanding of cognitive development
What did Newport (1990) find about sensitive period in language acquisition?
Newport (1990 ) signing accuracy in deaf adults is related to the age at which they acquire sign language
first acquired. Can inform us about the nature of language
What are the two important issues in atypical development research
Difficult to deliver early prognosis - huge invariance as not all neurotypical children develop in the same way and they are all different from each other . Development and heterogeneity. Most research doesn’t take this into account as uses snapshots not the whole picture.
What does Karmiloff-Smith suggest researchers do to accurately study development?
The key to developmental disorders is development itself
Brain specificity develops over the lifespan (e.g., fusiform gyrus for face perception) and so it is important to study how developmental disorders develop overtime not just examine them at one point in time
Give an example of ‘snapshot research’
Traditional studies match children with atypical development (i.e., dyslexia) and typically developing children on IQ and chronological age
Describe developmental trajectory research - why does it show the harm of snapshot research ?
William syndrome is similar typical development at 6 years but becomes significantly impaired at 11 years.
There are no major differences between LD and High functioning autism at 80 months but there are significant differences at 130 .
Give an example of overgeneralisations of children with ADHD
Westerberg et al tested the visa-spatial working memory of children at 7 ½ years = no difference between ADHD and TD (typical development)
Differences however increases with age…
Research to find out why it does not increase at the same rate needs to be conducted
What can snapshot research lead to?
Snapshot research may lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding presence/absence of impairments
How can the issues of snapshot research be remedied?
Longitudinally: following children’s development
OR
Developmental trajectories: Recruiting children from a wide age range and plotting developmental trajectories, as in examples in previous slides
= study over time
Explain the overgeneralisations found in developmental research
Even though studies show significant differences between neurodivergent and controls, There is significant overlap between autism and comparison samples in fMRI studies, eye tracking and ToM.
Only report significant effect sizes which over emphasises a difference between the groups
What can we conclude about individualism in neurodivergent people?
No definite characteristic (at any level) common to all autistic people. Little knowledge of what IS universal to all
Often, significant differences are masking that many -if not the majority- do not have show any difference
What does the DSMV define autism as?
Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts
What is executive function responsible for? What does this involve?
Responsible for flexibility of thought and behaviour. Planning, cognitive flexibility, attention shifting, inhibiting inappropriate actions, selecting relevant information, fluency, working memory
Why can’t executive function be used to explain autism alone ?
Every other developmental condition (dyslexia, ADHD, Down Syndrome, William Syndrome,…) has also been linked to EF difficulties,
What is central coherence?
‘Tendency of the cognitive system to integrate incoming information into meaningful representations’
(Frith, 1989)
What tendency is weak in autism?
Central coherence is weak in autism and so difficulty integrating information in its context and superiority in local processing.
Evaluation of weak central coherence
✅ can account fir the reported experience of sensory overwhelming
✅Demonstrated by monotropism : the tendency to have a strong attentional focus on a limited number of interests at the expense of others
✅ Murray suggests this tendency is at the heart of the characteristics usually found in autism
✅Can explain sensory issues ❌but not social difficulties
❌ and repetitive behaviours to some extent only
Explain Milton’s double empathy problem
Refers to a breach that occurs between people of different dispositional outlooks and personal conceptual understandings when attempts are made to communicate.
Does the neurotypical have a ToM for autistic people?
Sheppard et al. (2016) found that non-autistic people often struggle to understand autistic people’s thoughts and feelings, showing that social difficulties are mutual, not one-sided.
Explain further support for Sheppard’s findings (ToM)
- Negative first impressions lead to non-autistic peers less willing to interact with autistic people (Sasson et al, 2017)
- Neurotype mismatch, not neurotype per se, creates communication difficulties (Crompton et al, 2020ab).
- Autistic interactions are unconventional but functional (Heasman & Gillespie, 2019a)
Explain practical implications for research into autism
Neurodiversity movement (Kapp, 2020): Shift towards an understanding developmental conditions as part of natural variation
Shift in focus of interventions: Need to adopt a holistic approach that supports both autistic people but also non-autistic people by promoting acceptance and reduce stigma and stereotypes
Anti ableist language (Bottema-Beutel et al., 2021):
