Development👶🏽 Flashcards
(30 cards)
Why difficult to define atypical development
Difficult to define in context of:
Individual differences in development rate across children
Differences in traits, strengths, weaknesses
What is considered atypical
Extremes of individual differences in development e.g. advanced or delayed
May be associated with neurodevelopmental conditions e.g. autistic spectrum
How is development fluid
Delayed start can catch up to typical children
May have lower starting point but develops at rate equal to typical
Development regression
Skills develop along typical trajectory but lose skills previously acquired e.g. autism
Most often language and motor skills
Development in multiple domains
Adaptive behaviour, social, cognitive, physical, motor skills
Measuring development: adaptive behaviour
Vineland adaptive behaviour scale- structured interview carried out with teacher, parent
Question about communication, skills, socialisation, motor skills
Can be hard to rate, difficult to compare to other children of similar age so researcher helps with this
Measuring development: cognition
GENERALISED INTELLIGENCE TESTS- Weschler scales, British ability scales
Measure population norms, standardised
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS- face perception, theory of mind, inhibition(go-no-go)
Not necessarily standardised
Sub domains of WISC (weschler intelligence scales for children)
Verbal comprehension, visual spatial, fluid reasoning, working memory, processing speed = Full scale IQ
Full scale IQ broken into performance IQ and verbal IQ
How to make sure tests of child development are accurate
Administered the same each time, follow manual exactly (compare valid results against normative sample to be sure no differences in way you administer test vs population sample)
Choose appropriate control group (normal distribution)
Comparisons for child development
May be more helpful if compare against mental age matched peers if have known learning disability (very low when compared to chronological aged children)
Usual to compare against both groups to put skills into contexts, strengths in certain areas
But only considers ability at one point in time, less info about trajectory
Standardised scores for child development tests
Based on normative samples, scaled to account for factors such as age
Raw scores scales by converting to standard scores (may be shifts in society over time)
Most scores 1SD of the average (68% score)
T score
Average value is 50 (mean)
10 represents 1SD
Scaled against normative sample
Must consider population compared against e.g. gender, age
Benefits of standardised scores
Standardised performance across different groups, tests
Common language for performance regardless of how actual test is designed
Easily interpret
Number of ways to standardise scores
How to calculate standardised scores
Look up raw score based on normative sample to identify scaled score
Use table for appropriate age
Developmental conditions with known genetic cause
William’s syndrome
Down’s syndrome
16p.11.2
Developmental conditions with known environmental cause and unknown
Fetal alchohol syndrome
Unknown- autism, ADHD, intellectual disability
Language/context of disorders
Sensitive terms
Spectrum of some strengths as well as negatives
‘Difference’ rather than ‘disorder’, diversity important
Genes and chromosomes with disorders
DNA in every cells codes instructions for building proteins
DNA packaged into genes
Huge amount of genes contained in chromosomes (23 pairs)
Genetic abnormalities can occur when there are too many or few occurrences of genes
Some have extra chromosome or parts of chromosomes duplicated or deleted (copy number variant)
16p.11.2
Located Chromosome 16 on short part (p) in region 11.2
Developmental delay e.g. Autism and ADHD like symptoms when implicated
Duplications or deletions here, varied presentation
Generally only detected when in clinic with signs of developmental delay
William’s syndrome
Deletion at 7q11.2
Distinct facial appearance, cardiac anomalies, sociable, atypical cognition, connective tissue abnormalities
Affects about 1 in 10,000
Lower intellectual performance but stronger in verbal domain compared to performance IQ
How is William’s syndrome diagnosed
Confirmed with genetic test (blood test to identify presence or absence of elastin ELN gene)
Lab test: florescent in situ hydridisation
Objective, genetic biomarker
Diagnosing ADHD
Initial referral often made by school:
Primary care- GP or social worker
Secondary care- psychiatrist/psychologist working with child and adolescent mental health
Based on discussion about behavior in range of different settings, fun developmental and psychiatric history
Assessment of mental state
Reports from parents and teachers
Use Connor’s rating scales, strengths and difficulties questionnaire
Diagnosing autism
Referral made to secondary care
Question parents on concerns about child, home life, education, development
Medical and family history, physical health
Other conditions may co-exist
ADHD types
ADHD inattentive presentation-poor attention and listening, difficultly organising
ADHD predominantly hyperactive/impulsive presentation-figit and unable to sit still
Combined presentation
