Psych Disorders Chapter 13: Childhood Disorders

Externalizing disorders

Characterized by more outward, direct behaviors

• Aggressiveness, noncompliance, overactivity, and impulsiveness

Internalizing disorders

Characterized by more inward-focused experiences and behaviors 

• Depression, social withdrawal, and anxiety

ADHD

Symptoms of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interfere with school, work, or relationships 

Heritability: .7-.8

Inattention

A characteristic of ADHD that involves making careless mistakes, not listening well, not following instructions, being easily distracted, or being forgetful in daily activities 

Hyperactivity-impulsivity

A characteristic of ADHD that could include fidgeting, running about inappropriately, acting as if “driven by a motor”, interrupting or intruding, or talking nonstop.

Inattentive presentation

A specifier of ADHD that includes children whose difficulties are primarily those of poor attention 

Hyperactivity-impulsive presentation

A specifier of ADHD for children whose difficulties result primarily from hyperactivity/impulsive behavior 

Combined presentation

A specifier of ADHD for children who have both inattentive and hyperactivity-impulsive presentation.

Stimulant medciations

Treatments for ADHD that include Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, and Strattera

They can reduce disruptive behaviors and impulsivity and improve the ability to focus attention

Side effects: loss of appetite, changes in weight, stomach pain, reduction in height, and sleep problems.

Intermittent explosive disorder (IED)

A disorder that involves recurrent verbal or physical aggressive outbursts that are far out of proportion to the circumstances

• Aggression is impulsive and not preplanned toward others (as opposed to conduct disorder) 

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)

A disorder that is diagnosed if a child does not meet the criteria for conduct disorder (does not have extreme physical aggression) but exhibits behaviors like losing their temper, arguing with adults, repeatedly refusing to comply with requests from adults, deliberately annoying others, and being angry, spiteful, touchy, or vindictive 

• Frequently occurs with ADHD 

• Children are more deliberate in their behavior 

Conduct disorder

A disorder marked by a pattern of repeated destructive and harmful behaviors

• Defined by the impact of the child’s behavior on people and surroundings

• Prevalence rates are between 5-6%

Family Checkup (FCU)

An intervention for conduct disorder with 3 meetings to get to know, assess, and provide feedback to the parents about their children and parenting practices

Parent Management Training (PMT)

A treatment for conduct disorder in which parents are taught to modify their responses to their children so that prosocial behavior is consistently reinforced 

Fast Track intervention

A prevention program for conduct disorder that is designed to help children academically, socially, and behaviorally, focusing on areas that are problematic in conduct disorder 

• Delivered over the course of 10 years, with the more intensive treatment in years 1-5

Separation anxiety disorder

A childhood disorder characterized by constant worry that some harm will happen to the child’s parents or the child themself while they are away from their parents 

Coping Cat

A treatment of childhood anxiety disorders that focuses on confrontation of fears, development of new ways to think about fears, exposure to feared situations, and relapse prevention

SPACE

A family-based intervention for childhood anxiety disorders that focuses entirely on the parents

• Involves psychoeducation but also teaches parents how to bolster coping skills and confidence in children and alter the accommodations they make

Specific learning disorder

A condition in which a person shows a problem in a specific area of academic, language, speech, or motor skills that is not due to intellectual disability or a deficient educational opportunities

Dyslexia

An impairment in reading that involves significant difficulty with word recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension 

Written expression impairment

Refers to problems in spelling, grammar, and the clarity and organization of written work 

Dyscalculia

Math impairment that involves difficulty prodigy or understanding numbers, quantities, or basic arithmetic operations

Speech sound disorder

A communication disorder that involves correct comprehension and sufficient vocabulary use, but unclear speech and proper articulation

Childhood-onset fluency disorder

(Stuttering) A communication disorder that involves difficulty with verbal fluency that is characterized by frequent repetitions or prolongations of sounds, long pauses between words, substitution of easy words for those that are hard to articulate, and/or repeating whole words 

Language disorder

A communication disorder that involves problems in developing and using language 

Social (pragmatic) communication disorder)

A communication disorder that involves difficulties in using verbal and nonverbal cues alone in social communication 

Tourette’s disorder

A motor disorder that involves one or more vocal and motor tics that start before age 18

Developmental coordination disorder

A motor disorder that involves difficulties in the development of motor coordination not explainable by intellectual disability or a disorder like cerebral palsy

Stereotypic movement disorder

A motor disorder that involves repetition of purposeless movements over and over that interferes with functioning and could even cause self injury

Intellectual disability

Significant problems in intellectual functioning (usually assessed using an IQ test)

Down syndrome

An intellectual disability that refers to having an extra copy of chromosome 21 

Fragile X syndrome

An intellectual disability that involves a mutation in the FMR1 gene on the X chromosome 

• Symptoms include large, underdeveloped ears and a long, thin face 

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

A recessive-gene disease in which the infant begins to suffer from a deficiency of a liver enzyme which causes phenylamine and phenylpyruvic acid to build up

Applied behavior analysis

A treatment of intellectual disability in which therapists can use operant conditioning to teach children a targeted behavior in small, sequential steps 

Functional communication training (FCT)

A treatment of intellectual disability in which involves replacing a problem behavior with a more socially appropriate behavior 

Augmented and alternative communication intervention (ACC)

A treatment of intellectual disability in which interventions are aimed at helping with speech and communication 

• Includes the use of sign language and other nonverbal forms of communication (like computer-assisted instruction)

Autism Spectrum Disorder

A disorder characterized by profound problems with the social world

Joint attention

An interaction that requires two people to pay attention to each other. This is impaired in people with autism

Echolalia

A symptom of ASD when the child echoes what they hear another person say

Pronoun reversal

A symptom of ASD that in the child echoes what they hear another person say