[PRELIMS] Unit 1: Overview of Exceptionality

The process in which society uses to address differences by creating descriptors to identify people who vary significantly from the norm.

Labeling

True or False. Common descriptors used to describe people with differences (i.e. disorder, disability, handicap) are terms that are not synonymous with one other.

True

It is the broadest of the three terms that refers to a general disturbance in mental, physical, or psychological functioning.

Disorder

Results from a loss of physical functioning or from difficulty learning and social adjustment that significantly interferes with typical growth.

Disability

It is a limitation imposed on the individual by the demands in the environment and is related to the individual’s ability to adapt or adjust to those demands.

Handicap

It may be used to describe an individual whose physical, intellectual, or behavioral performance differs substantially from the norm.

Exceptional

True or False. People described as exceptional include those with extraordinary abilities (such as gifts and talents) and/or disabilities (such as learning disabilities or intellectual disabilities).

True

True or False. Labels are only rough approximations of characteristics.

True

True or False. Labels describe permanent characteristics.

False

True or False. Labels communicate whether a person meets the expectations of the culture.

True

True or False. Labels are often based on facts, not ideas.

False

True or False. Labels can promote stereotyping, discrimination and exclusion.

True

Which does NOT describe labeling?

Often based on facts, not ideas

Result from an interaction of biological and environmental factors

Human differences

It can be desribed statiscally, by observing in large numbers of individuals those characteristics that occur most frequently at a specific age.

Typical Development

What perspective/approach defines “normal” by societal values?

Cultural

True or False. Cultural approach considers the frequency of behaviors to define differences, while developmental approach suggests that differences can be explained partly by examining values.

False

What do they consider people as when they do something that is disapproved of by other members within the dominant culture?

Deviant

True or False. Self-imposed labels reflect how we perceive ourselves, not how others see us. Conversely, a person may be labeled by society but not accept that label.

Both True

True or False. The environment in which the observations are made can bias the perception of what is normal.

True

It plays a role in brain development, with transaction occurring between ongoing brain development and environmental experiences.

Experience

It is an organized, hierarchical process that builds on earlier functions, with brain structures restructuring and growing throughout the lifespan

Brain Maturation

They are the basic physical and functional units of heredity.

Genes

True or False. Most of our behavior, personality and intelligence are determined by many genes, each of which contributes largely.

False

True or False. Genes produce tendencies to respond to the environment in certain ways, but they do not determine behavior.

True

Which among the following is of particular interest to researchers of psychopathology?

I. Limbic System and Basal Ganglia

II. Cerebral Cortex

III. Frontal Lobes

IV. None of the above

I, II, III

It regulates certain processes in the body through the production of hormones.

Endocrine system

What do you call the regulatory system that the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands make up and is involve in several disorders such as anxiety and mood disorders?

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

They are like biochemical currents of the brain that make connections between different parts of the brain.

Neurotransmitters

True or False. Changes in neurotransmitter activity may make people more or less likely to exhibit certain behaviors as they directly cause behavior.

False

True or False. Neurotransmitters that are most commonly implicated in psychopathology include serotonin, benzodiazepine—GABA, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

True

Which of the following is part of the neurobiological contributions of theoretical foundations?

All of the above

Which is NOT part of the biological perspectives of theoretical foundations?

Emotional Influences

They serve as important internal monitoring and guidance systems designed to appraise events as either beneficial or dangerous.

Emotions and affective expression

They are core elements of human psychological experience that can also provide motivation for action.

Emotional influences

True or False. To young children, emotions are a primary form of communication that permits them to explore their world with increasing dependency.

False

It refers to individual differences in threshold and intensity of emotional experience.

Emotion reactivity

It involves enhancing, maintaining, or inhibiting emotional arousal.

Emotion regulation

True or False. Emotion reactivity involves enhancing, maintaining, or inhibiting emotional arousal often for a particular purpose of goal. While threshold and intesity of emotional experience provide clues to an individual’s distress and sensitivity to the environment.

False, True

These are important signals of normal and abnormal development.

Emotion reactivity and Emotion regulation

Psychological perspective that refers to the child’s organized style of behavior that appears early in development such as fearfulness.

Temperament

True or False. Temperament is a subset of the broader domain of personality, often considered an early building block of personality.

True

The three primary dimensions of temperament

Positive affect and approach, Fearful/inhibited, Negative affect/Irritability

True or False. The 3 primary dimensions of temperament have relevance to the risk of abnormal development.

True

Principles emphasized in behavioral and cognitive explanations for abnormal child behavior?

Principles of learning and cognition

Which principle/s shape children’s behavior and their interpretation of things around them?

Principles of learning and cognition

It examines the relationships between behavior and its antecedents and consequences.

Applied Behavior Analysis

True or False. In ABA, there are no implicit assumptions made about underlying needs or motives that contribute to abnormal behavior.

True

Which principle is ABA based on?

Operant learning principle

Four primary operant learning principles that ABA is based on?

Positive reinforcement, Negative reinforcement, Extinction, and Punishment

Which among the following is NOT part of the four primary operant learning principles of ABA?

Rewards

It explains the acquisition of deviant behavior on the basis of paired associations between previously neutral stimuli and unconditioned stimuli.

Classical conditioning

It can help explain many adjustment problems in children and adolescents, although we do not typically know what the original ? may have been.

Paired associations

It considers the influence of cognitive mediators that may influence the behaviors directly or indirectly.

Social learning

True or False. Social settings can affect the child even without direct experience with these influences.

True

What were the three disciplines discussed that are concerned with supporting people with disabilities and their families in the community setting?

Medicine, Psychology, Sociology

It is one of the dimensions from the medical model that is defined as the absence of biological problems.

Normalcy

It is one of the dimensions from the medical model that Is defined as the alterations in an organism caused by disease.

Pathology

True or False. Normalcy can result in a state of ill health that interferes with or destroys the integrity of the organism.

False

Model that focuses primarily on the biological problems and on defining the nature of the disease and its pathological effects on the individual.

Medical/Disease model

True or False. The medical/disease model is universal and does not have values that are culturally relative.

True

True or False. The person who has a biological problem is labeled the patient, and the deficits are then described as the patient’s disease.

True

He believed that the environment, in conjunction with physiological stimulation, could contribute to the learning potential of any human being.

Jean Marc Itard

French physician primarily concerned with mental illness and one of those who influenced Itard.

Philippe Pinel

English philosopher that was one of those who influenced Itard.

John Locke

He maintained that the people characterized as insane or idiots needed to be treated humanely.

Philippe Pinel

He described the mind as a “blank state” that could be opened to all kind of stimuli.

John Locke