Week 15: Cog. and Mental Health Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is the role of OT in supporting social skills and behavior?
Environmental access; teaching new behaviors and social skills; remediation or compensatory; nonverbal skills are explicitly taught; play; parent training;
What is the impact of early social experiences on child development?
Temperament, goodness of fit, attachment
Temperament includes…
Activity Level, Rhythmicity, Response to Novelty, Emotional intensity, Sensory Threshold, Mood, Adaptability, Distractibility, Persistence.
Goodness of fit includes…
Is the child’s temperament compatible with parental expectations?
Easy Child, Difficult Child, Slow-to-Warm-Up Child.
Attachment
- A healthy term infant is biologically prepared for interactions with a competent caregiver.
- Attachment occurs when an infant is confident that his/her needs will be met.
- Quality early attachment may predict later relationships.
- “The quality of early relationships is far more significant on early learning than are educational toys, preschool curriculum or Mozart CDs”.
The impact of the environment on social and behavioral development
- Long-term social stress may negatively impact child development and social participation
- Poverty (17% of children live in poverty)
- Social discrimination
- Severe family dysfunction
- Impacts ability to gain resources; attitudinal environment; decreases opportunities; different family routines and habits that may not seem normative
What defines mental health?
- Behaviors and beliefs are subjective.
- Expectations of “normal development” vary between cultures.
- Majority of mental health diagnosis are made based on behavior.
- Perception of an “increase in mental health diagnosis” in society.
- Stigma associated with mental health diagnosis.
- Surgeon General: “Mental health is a state of successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity.”
- How does poverty impact mental health: motivation, exposure, basic needs not met– so how to deal with mental health; barriers to resources; constant anxiety and living unsure; kids are expected to take on more adult roles; stigma how peers view them;
Social-emotional and cognitive development are influenced by executive functioning skills
- Goal, plan, do, check
- Simplified version for children
- One step can look different for everyone, and for people with mental or cognitive deficits
- “child is to execute plan”– what does this mean, specifically? In that sequence? unable
Development of Executive Functioning Skills
- Brain’s ability to identify problems, analyze relevant data, make a decision, execute a plan and self-reflect for efficiency.
- Requires complex analysis from many regions of the brain, but managed by the frontal cortex.
- First seen in infants as their ability to transition smoothly between sleep/awake states and maintain quiet, alert state. (initiation, implementation, executing a task)
- In kids: development, lack of insight, progression of executive functioning skills
- 25 years to fully develop!
Response inhibition
the ability to control impulses
Working memory
purposeful recall of data to develop a current response (pneumonic devices; writing things down; habits and routines; pictures)
Self regulation of affect
emotional control and expression
sustained attention
: continuous attention despite internal and external distractions (positive reinforcement; increase motivation; environmental mods; teaching compassionate reciprocity)
task initiation
starting a task in a timely manner (breaking up the task into manageable portion; what things do you need to start? Whats the first step?)
planning
making decisions through effective prioritization (talking about it outloud; checklist; connection to goal and outcome)
organization
ability to arrange by a thoughtful system (material checklist)
time management
accurately estimate, allocate and meet time constraints (using a timeline they understand; rugrats episodes!;
flexibility
adapting to changing conditions (some kids need time to transition, some don’t’; give them a schedule (pictures); give kid some control)
goal directed persistence
to identify and work towards a goal (putting together small steps; have visual of the goal; incorporating idea/goal throughout; grading goals; having them set goals; having consistency)
metacognition
self-reflection and monitoring, ability to analyze your own thinking and see situations from the perspective of other people (stories; write social story; role-play; how does your engine run?)
context-dependent attention
the child will attend to a given task if it is novel, interesting, “fun” and immediately rewarding (not using higher level skills; basic; not long term dependent)
goal directed persistence
the child can attend to a range of tasks and demands as they are able to adapt their attention to a range of ideas and circumstances
OT process with executive functioning skills in children
As an OT, we analyze the relationship between the child’s abilities and demands of the task and environment and make accommodations or train weaknesses.
context-dependent attention (#2)
- The child with a disability tends to be context-dependent for attention. (too hard to wait; to hard to reach the goal)
- Their interests tends to fall within a narrow range. (they are good at that; don’t want to fail; less effort; limited access; lack of exposure)
- In elementary school, children are expected to be “generalists”
- In higher grades, children can begin self-selecting to their strengths on some level.
