Child Psychopathology

Uniqueness of child psychopathology

1. Not often clear what the issue is because a adult must refer them (can be wrong) and children can’t ask for help

2. Typical and atypical development

3. Interventions focus on promoting further development

Psychological Disorders

Patterns of behavior cognitive, emotional, or physical symptoms linked with one or more of the following: Distress, impairment, and increased risk of further suffering/harm

Psychological disorders are impacted by

Culture, context, and normal developmental milestones

Psychological disorders are conceptualized in terms of 

Relationships

Mental health stigma

Negative attitudes and beliefs toward individuals with mental health disorders

Mental health stigma characteristics

Adults often think that children are over diagnosed, overmedicated, and poorly parented

Affiliate stigma

Affiliation with someone with a disorder causes other to stigmatize you

Affiliate stigma Eg.

People think that you are a bad parent because your child has a mental health concern

Language

Labels describe behavior not people

Risk factors

Increase the probability that a negative outcome will occur

Risk factors precede a

Negative outcome

Individual risk factors

Age, IQ, Temprament

Family risk factors

Abuse, genetics, housing/work insecurity, neglect, food, education

Social risk factors

Isolation, rural vs. urban location, food, education

The total number of risk factors experienced by be more important than

type

The impact of risk factors depends on

The age at which they occur

Individual Protective factors

Increased IQ, Good coping strategies, good self-esteem

Family protective factors

Supportive family

Social protective factors

Close friends, church, mentors, teachers, cultural acceptance of mental health, accessible resources in the community

Resilience

Adaptation despite adversity

Protective factors impact

An individuals resilience

Racism

Web of economic, social, political, and cultural structures, actions, and beliefs that systemize resources and power in favor of a racial group at the expense of other racial groups

Racism equals

Power + Racial prejudice

Reverse racism does not exist, but there can be

Racial discrimination or racial bias towards white people

Adultification bias

Perception that children of color or more adult-like than same-age white peers

Focusing on biomedical factors reduces the importance of social and contextual factors when it comes to

Mental and physical health diagnosis and treatment

Anti-oppressive practices

Center client experiences and are power sharing collaborative

Anti-racist practices

Examine internalized racism and its impact

We should work towards equal outcomes not

Uniform treatments

Sensitive (critical) period

Time in development where brain is ready/needs to learn or experience something 

Neural Plasticity

The development and modification of neural circuits

Neural Plasticity 1

Occurs due to both positive and negative experiences

Toxic stress

When the stress response system is constantly activated without adult intervention as a buffer

During toxic stress

Neurons begin to break down when the child should be gaining synapses connections

Toxic stress can result in

Damage to emotional and intellectual departments in the brain

Serve and return builds

Brain architecture

The biological model

Genetic influences may be expressed early or later in life

Epigenetics

When our genes respond to the environment

Nature

Genotype

Nurture

Environmental exposure

If the environment causes the DNA to coil up

The gene will not be expressed

If the environment causes the DNA to loosen up

The gene will be expressed

Emotions guide how we

Appraise and act on situations

Emotional Reactivity

Individual difference in the threshold and intensity of emotional experiences

Emotional Regulation

Enhancing, maintaining, or inhibiting emotional arousal, often for a particular purpose or goal

Emotional Socialization

Interactions with agents in one’s environments

Emotional Socialization is teaching through

Verbal and nonverbal practices

Maladaptive Responses in terms of emotional socialization

Discouraging children from expressing their emotions by sending them to their rooms or telling them to not be so emotional

Validating and comforting a child who is having a emotional outburst is important for promoting

Emotional well being

Adaptive emotional socialization

A parent responding calmly to a child’s injury to show the child that everything is okay

Parents of minority children may use more nuanced approaches for emotional socialization because of

Discrimination

Eg. Of nuanced approach to emotional socialization with minority children

Code switching

Operant learning

Positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction

Reinforcement 

Increases behavior

Punishment

Decreases behavior

Positive in operant conditioning means

Something is introduced to the environment

Negative in operant conditioning means

Something is removed from the environment

Extinction in operant conditioning is when

Previous reinforcement is discontinued

Classical conditioning

Neutral stimulus paired with unconditioned stimulus 

Social (observational) learning

Modeling

Social (observational) learning example

Albert Bandera’s doll experiment

Cognitive models

Social cognition, cognitive distortions, and cognitive schemas

Social cognition

How children think of themselves and others (mental representation)

Cognitive distortions

Inaccurate and irrational thoughts about experiences

Cognitive schemas

Beliefs or expectations representing cumulative knowledge of experiences

Family and sociocultural models

Family models, sociocultural models, ecological models

Family models

Consider family dynamics to understand psychopathy

Sociocultural models

Emphasize the importance of the social context

Ecological Model

Deep layering of child’s environment through interconnected structures (micro, meso, macro, and chronosystem)

Race-based traumatic stress

Race-based events of any degree of severity that cause harm to a child

Negative stereotypes can lead to

Unfair rules, disproportionate monitoring, and disciplinary actions, silencing youth, and racial bullying

Microaggressions

Commonplace indignities that communicate hostile, negative, and/or derogatory insults towards BIPOC

Historical Trauma 

Cumulative wounding across generations that results from massive, catastrophic events targeting a community

Examples of events that may contribute to historical trauma

Holocaust, segregation, slavery, native american boarding schools

Historical trauma can cause

Depression, anxiety, anger, self destructive behaviors, low self-esteem, and sensitive fight or flight reactions

People experiencing historical trauma may come to believe that

Mental health systems don’t support them

Racial bias starts within the

1st year of life and can persist without intervention

Myth of meritocracy 

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality

Clinical Assesment

Systematic collection of information from different informants in a variety of settings, using a variety of methods

The goal of a clinical assessment is to

Find an answer to what is happening and what can be done for treatment 

Assessment looks to find

The intensity, frequency, and severity of the child’s symptoms, as well as how long symptoms have occurred

Culture-bound syndromes

Recurrent patterns of maladaptive behaviors and/or troubling experiences associated with different cultures or locations

Cultural Humility

Valuing the centrality of culture and committing to lifelong learning

Cultural Competence

Self-awareness of influences from own identities and associated privilege, power, and oppression

Race considerations

You need to be able to accurately identify and conceptualize individual and systemic racial dynamics 

Classification

A system for representing major categories or dimensions of disorders (eg. DSM-5)

Diagnosis 

Assigning individual children to specific classification categories

Categorical classification assumes that

There are groups with relatively similar patterns of disorder 

Dimensional Classification

Identifies key dimensions of functioning and dysfunction (emphasizes differences in degree)

Treatment goal

To build children’s abilities to adapt (targets child, family, and societal outcomes)

Core principles of therapeutic change

Feeling calm, increasing motivation, repairing thoughts, solving problems, and trying the opposite 

Racial socialization

Facilitating/supporting development of positive self-concept (racial/ethnic identity) within a oppressive society

Racial socialization can act as a

Protective factor against racism

Neurodevelopmental disorders

Delays or deficits in normal development (intellectual, cognitive abilities, communication, learning, social skills, or self care)

Neurodevelopmental disorders are diagnosed 

1st in infancy or adolescents

Neurodevelopmental disorders can be

Limited or Pervasive

Limited

Affects single domain

Pervasive

Affects many domains

Historical perceptions of intelligence

People with intellectual challenges were ignored or feared by the medical profession and blamed for societal problems

Intellectual developmental disorder

Significantly sub-average intellectual functioning. Deficits in adaptive functioning, conceptual, social, and practical domains