Special Populations

Abnormal

• anything that deviates from the norm

  • tall or short

  • could be a talent

    • whether deviating negatively or excelling

• people are not abnormal

  • it’s not that it’s a bad word in nature

  • but there is a lot of stigma

  • but we don’t want to call people abnormal

    • there’s a lot of differences across people

• the purpose of studying

  • not to put apart the differences

  • but rather to describe or identify patterns that are seen as atypical that are causing distress to the individual and provide resources

psychopathology

• the scientific study of mental disorders

• doesn’t mean the same thing as abnormal — abnormal being more broad

psychopathology — important to consider it within the psychological triad

• emotion

• behaviour

• cognition

when looking at a child we have to consider that emotion and cognition are private and internal

• if the child is young it’s even more difficult to observe the internal things

• behaviour is the only thing we can objectively observe

  • directly observable

• when we consider behaviour

  • have to consider that not all behaviour that is abnormal is necessarily indicative of a mental health problem

atypical behaviour should reflect deviations in underlying processes

• self-harm

• bed-rotting

• lethargy

• shaking and pacing

  • anxiety

• avoiding eating

  • depression

• We also need to consider age and developmental level

Developmental norms

• typical rates of growth, sequences of growth and forms of physical skills, language, cognition, emotion, and social behaviour

• generally a pattern of behaviours that are typical

  • a pattern of growth that we typically see

  • generally there are average ages we associate with these mile stones

• must consider

  • behaviour frequency

  • behaviour intensity

  • duration of behaviour

  • situational context

    • ex: if someone is screaming in a situation, we might think it’s abnormal if we don’t think about the situation they’re in, but it can be normal if they are in pain, roller coaster etc

Normal Distribution or bell curve

• usually when looking at behaviour or cog or emo people fall into an average — a bell curve

• think about how many people are represented under the curve

  • bigger area is more people

  • small area less people

  • most people fall into the middle/average

• ex: IQ

  • most people fall on average middle of bell curve (100)

  • consider variability or deviations

    • look at anyone who falls under 1 standard deviation of the mean it ends of 68% of people

      • basically most people are falling around average

    • 2 standard deviations

      • 95% of people fall around average

  • we only really care about the bottom 2.5% in this context

    • because it could be distressing, dysfunction

  • deviations cause either: distress or dysfunction

not all normal distributions will behave the same way

• ex: sleeping hours

  • focus on both top and bottom here

  • bottom because not enough sleep

  • top because too much could be an indicative of other issues

Deviations interfere with adaptation

• adaptation: fitting into the circumstances of your life

• 3 main things that make up circumstances of you life

  • school, work or both occupational or academic

  • connect socially

    • being able to communicate

    • taking care of yourself

      • cleaning up after yourself

      • bills

      • cleaning home

      • things you need to do

• we need to be able to do all these things with minimal distress

• adaptation will look different for everyone

  • everyone’s life circumstances look different

  • the degree to which we adapt will look different for everyone

• ex: two girls

  • first is in a society in which everything she wears is made with buttons

    • she needs to learn how to do buttons to adapt

  • another girl where everything she wears is made with zippers

    • she needs to know how to use zippers to adapt

    • she wouldn’t need to know how to use buttons so it wouldn’t be a maladaptation

adaptation

fitting into the circumstances of your life

abnormality isn’t all or nothing

• there’s a spectrum

• normal

  • able to do all of the things you need to do in your everyday life

  • and able to do these things with little to no stress at all

• abnormal

  • a lot of issues with distress

• middle area

  • experience a little dysfunction and or distress and not be considered abnormal

  • think about people dealing with mental health struggles that don’t meet criteria for a disorder

mental disorder:

• syndrome of clinically significant behavioural cognitive or emotional disturbances that reflect dysfunction in underlying mental processes, and that is associated with distress or disability in important areas of functioning

• doesn’t have to be all three at once

• has to be clinically significant

  • are we concerned about this person

• should be diagnosed by an expert

Difference between mental illness and mental health

• just because you have no mental illness does not mean you have good mental health and vice versa

• ex: maybe you have schizophrenia that is a mental disorder, but maybe they are on top of treatment

  • they feel great even

  • that would be good mental health despite have a mental illness

• intersecting spectrums of mental illness and mental health

neurodivergent

non-medical term used to describe people whose brains function differently than the ‘typical’ population

Neurodiversity

• things like ADHD autism, fetal alcohol

• people arguing it’s not a disorder just a natural divergent from typical function

• evidence that suggests that people who have neurodivergent things they have some strengths too

• people argue if proper accommodations or society was different they would function just fine

• people starting to call for change of language

  • call it things like neurodiversity instead of disorder

Cultural Relativism Theory

• there are no universal standards or rules by which we can judge behaviour cognitions and emotions to be atypical or abnormal

• these can only be considered atypical when compared to relevant cultural norms

Shyness - Canada and US

• shyness considered quite concerning

• worry about psychosocial adjustment, social skills

Shyness - China

• collectivist cultures see it as a sign of maturity, self-control, and obedience

• tend to emerge with more adaptive outcomes

• have positive peer relationships, social competence, positive psychosocial adjustment

• less likely to exhibit social gaze

• less likely to speak or smile

• more concern spreading in China recently

  • study in 2014 reported childrens shyness associated with peer dislike

  • another study showing parents not liking

• could be globalization

• need to consider heterogeneity

Kong et al. 2023

• anxious shyness: fear or anxiety in social situations

• regulated shyness: self-conscious avoidance of public attention and social restraint in behaviour

  • preoccupied with ourselves and how we come across to people

  • can be looked as a good think in moderation

• Canada vs China

  • which children are more likely to experience social anxiety as a result of these shyness's

• anxious shyness

  • social anxiety arose in both Canada and China

  • mean age of around 4 years old

• regulated shyness

  • social anxiety arose in Canadian children

  • not in Chinese children

    • appears to be a good shyness

    • appears to go along with what is valued and expected in that culture

• can see that shyness can be adaptive in china

Eye Contact

• nonverbal communication that can impact social behaviour

• western cultures

  • expected

  • signals honesty and attention

• some Latin, Asian, and African cultures

  • can seen as not positive

  • rude confrontational and aggressive

  • not as common

Externalizing Problems

• examples include aggression, rule breaking, other conduct problems

• North America

  • more patience around rule breaking and aggression

  • more accepting and typical in young children

  • as a result we have lower expectations for young children

• Thailand

  • do not accept these behaviours

  • teachers report many more conduct problems

• when actually comparing

  • American actually presenting more problems but Thailand reporting more

  • cultural expectations different

The Changing Nature of Culture

• western societies

  • look at eating disorders

  • used to be that they were only in western societies and at lower rates

    • because they focused more on a slim figure

• now that globalization happens

  • the standards are present everywhere

  • now see the prevalence rates similar all around the world

Opposing Cultural Relativism

• should cultural norms always be able to dictate what is normal and abnormal

• Thomas Szasz (1961,2011) → societies label groups as abnormal to justify controlling or silencing them

  • ex: WW2 the Nazis viewed Jews as abnormal

  • ex: Soviet Union labelling people as mentally ill and arresting those who are not

however, culture can influence

• the way in which symptoms are expressed

  • ex: some Asian and Latin cultures experience more bodily symptoms while white individuals experience more cognitive symptoms

  • ex: some people in some cultures go through rituals

  • ex: think about symptoms of psychosis

    • common symptoms is feeling that you are on top of the world and having superpowers

    • what those powers look like might be based on your religious background

• people’s willingness to admit to certain behaviour, thoughts, and feelings

  • Hattian or indigenous people less likely to admit to anger

  • depending on culture anger is either valued or suppressed

• treatments deemed acceptable or helpful

Scientific Method

• observation/question

• research topic

• hypothesis

• test

• analyze

• report

• start again

• psychology is different in how we analyze

operationalizing constructs

• psychological constructs are intangible aspects of one’s psychology, which can’t be measured directly

  • behaviour is the only directly observable measure

  • but even that has underlying cognitions

• victimization, shyness, well-being

  • when it comes to measuring not possible directly

• researchers rely on operationalization, or translation of the construct concrete, measurable terms

  • making sure the thing were interested in is defined in a very specific way

  • and in a very measurable way

• operationalization

  • important in our own research

  • need a consistent definition

Systematic Observation

• watching children and recording what they say or do

• naturalistic observation

  • behaviour observed in real-life situation

  • not too far out of their routine

Naturalistic Observation

• time sampling

• event sampling

time sampling

• when we are assessing whether a behaviour occurred or not in a specific time frame

• did the behaviour occur within the epoch

• good at sequentially understanding children’s behaviour

• this ex we have 5 second epoch’s

  • is the child smiling within the first 5 sec yes or no

  • are they active yes or no

• really important to have a video of the behaviour

  • maybe we are interested in multiple children

  • able to validly observe the behaviour

  • need to consider the operational definition of each behaviour

  • what is a smile

  • what is active

• doesn’t need to binary either

  • could say intensity

  • depends on the experiment and the goal

event sampling

• how many times did the child engage in the behaviour the whole time

  • like the big chunk of time

• count how many times they engaged in the behaviour of interest

• not the intensity

• how many times they smiled in the 20 minutes

• usually for longer periods of time

• and also interested in less behaviours

• interested in fewer things than time sampling

• challenge

  • knowing when a behaviour begins and when it starts

Systemic Observations

• watching and recording what they say or do

• naturalistic observations: behaviours observed in real life-life situation

  • might not always engaged in desired behaviour

• structured observation: researcher creates setting likely to elicit behaviour of interest

  • can also use either time sampling or event sampling

Structured Observation

• ex: is a child likely to help an adult in need

  • adult purposely drops something

  • observing whether they help or not

  • we could be interested in

    • what strategy they used to help

    • using words

    • actually picking it up

    • positive affect

    • do they care

    • how long does it take to start helping

• ex: child did a lab and warmed up then experimenter leaves then a stranger leaves and they start talking to the child,

  • called the stranger approach

  • the stranger uses a script and waits a certain amount of time between each line

  • slowly approaches the child

  • interested in

    • are they going to respond fearfully

      • what is an indictor of fear

        • facial expression

        • what they say

        • the degree to which they are close or far

        • body language

        • runs away?

Behavioural coding

• operational definition: what exactly does the behaviour look like?

• definitions will be outlined in a coding scheme: a document that contains all the rules for coding a set of behaviour for a given task or set up

  • ex: includes

    • is a child really showing shyness if they’re saying they’re scared of something else

    • if they do something weird or funny do we still code?

  • used so multiple people look at them and they all agree or come up with the same conclusions

  • not easy

    • everyone comes with biases

    • everyone has different perceptions

• fidgeting arms:

  • children told they are going to give a public speech with no preparation

  • 0 = arms remain at sides

  • 1 = arms hinge at the elbows, upper arms remain at side

  • 2 = upper arms move away from sides

  • 3 = arms life above shoulders

  • fidgeting is not coded if child’s arms are moving for the purpose of expression

Systematic Observation Limitations

• observer influence (Hawthorne Effect): participant changes their behaviour because they are being observed

  • younger children are easier to avoid this

• habituation: allows participant to get used to researcher’s presence

• Observer bias: expectations influence decisions

  • may notice behaviours that support the hypothesis and discount those that do not

  • may interpret behaviour in such a way that they support the hypothesis

Inter-Rater Reliability

• are behaviours coded in a consistent way across independent coders?

  • making sure people aren’t working together to come up with the same outcome

  • making sure two or more researchers can come up with the same outcome separately

• compare ratings for 15-30% of the sample

  • we need to make sure were in agreement for a smaller part of the sample before we do the rest separately

percent agreement

• to what degree did we agree

  • if we agree 50%, 70% etc our inter-rater reliability is __

• depends on how many kids we are looking at though

intraclass correlation

• used when codes have variability

• used to assess inter-rater reliability when looking at things like time,

  • we wouldn’t agree exactly but we are correlated

Kappa statistic

• best way

• actual agreement as a proportion of the potential agreement following correction for chance agreement

• the degree to which we could agree after we account for change agreement

• ranges from -1 (less agreement than can be expected by change) to +1( perfect agreement)

• researchers generally aim for a Kappa of 0.7 or higher

• need stats programs

• need what we are doing

• need data from rater 1 and 2

What does a smile look like?

genuine Smile

• lips turned up

• balls of cheek prominent

• squinty eyes

Controlled smile

• might not have raised cheeks

• might not have squinting eyes

• but lips still turned up

Operationalization

• provides a good definition

• but will still be disagreement

  • everyone has personal bias

  • agree to the extent we can get reliable statistics

The Birthday speech

• instructed to give a speech about their most recent birthday in front of a camera

• this task commonly used to assess

  • anxiety

  • shyness

  • any other uncomfortable behaviour

• first video

  • swinging side to side

  • arms at sides hands in pockets

    • could this be anxious or regulative

    • could be a squirmy kid and this is his baseline

    • could be excitement

  • stuttering

    • could be anxious

    • could be baseline

  • redness in cheeks

  • he was facing the person he was speaking to

    • a little bit of confidence

    • attention to the conversation

  • smiling

    • excitement?

Behavioural Coding - activity

• operational definition

  • what exactly does the behaviour look like

• activity

  • pick two behaviours

    • what is it and what is it an indicator of

  • one time sampling and one event sampling

  • create operational definition for each

event = stuttering

• operational definition - any hesitation during speaking and use of filler words

• looking at number of occurrences throughout total event

• indicator of anxiety, excitement, nerves, could be baseline

time = swaying

• operational definition - shifting weight from one side to the other

• looking at the time spent swaying within the 30 sec epoch

• indicator of anxiety, excitement, nerves, could be baseline

Questionnaire Reports

• what makes them special

  • insight on what the person thinks and feels

• can get complicated when dealing with young children

• so should we be asking young children about their mental health symptoms?

  • the problem is they don’t have the best insight into their own thoughts and feelings

  • they may not have the best awareness about themselves

    • that can be a big issue

  • another big issue is language

    • some questionnaires may have big language

Collecting Information from infants

• of course differ to parents for information

  • school teachers

  • older siblings

  • basically any caregivers

• often do ask the kid to even if we don’t expect good things

Self Reports for young children

• Hearter self esteem scale

  • assessing children’s self esteem

  • first break it down into 2 options

    • on left side a girl who does puzzles well on the right side one who doesn’t

    • which one is most like you

    • then they have to make a forced choice

  • the gender depends on who is being asked

  • once made the forced choice break it down further

    • Likert Scale

    • select the circle that is most like them

    • 4 being really good at puzzles

    • the bigger the circle the better at puzzles

  • basically 2 forced choices

• we would start asking real questionnaires at 8

  • start to notice children begin to have more insight on their thoughts and feelings

The Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL)

• long and comprehensive checklist

  • not used for diagnostic

  • used for research

• helpful because

  • provides information on narrow and broad stuff

CBCL Scales

• narrow-band scales makeup broadband

  • broadband — an umbrella for some of the more narrow-band scales

• Internalizing Behavior (aka negative emotional or behavioral patterns directed inward) — broad-band scale

  • narrow-band scales:

    • Anxious/Depressed Behavior

    • Withdrawn Behavior

    • Somatic Complaints

• Externalizing Behavior (aka outward directed, disruptive behaviors) — broad-band scale

  • narrow-band scale

    • Rule Breaking

    • Aggression

• Other broad-band scales

  • Social Problems

  • Thought Problems

  • Attention Problems

How to score an CBCL

• looking at the questions in the CBCL and how they turn out

• horizontal dotted lines being a cut off t=70

  • helps us determine a borderline range

• T-score: value that describes how far a data point is from the population mean

• T-scores of 70 or higher indicate clinical range functioning

  • anything above that 70 t-score they are clinical range

• T-scores between 65 and 70 are considered ‘borderline’

  • middle of both dotted lines

• T-scores below 65 indicate normal range functioning

  • below both dotted lines

Reversal Design

• also referred to as an ABA design

• A — baseline

  • are they actually engaging in positive behaviours? (class example)

  • if after day 4 we introduce an intervention will they change

• B—treatment

  • better than baseline

  • we want to make sure that the treatment is actually the thing impacting the behaviour

  • consider the ethics of removing that treatment

  • then remove it and see if behaviours go back to baseline

• does the participant worsen when treatment is not being provided?

• limited to interventions:

  • without lasting change (e.g., drugs)

    • can’t use this design if the intervention leads to lasting change

    • don’t want to use it on learned coping skills

  • where there is behavioural change

    • psychotherapy, coping skills, talk therapy not good candidates for this design

Multiple Baseline Design

• can account for more than one behaviour

• can account for the same behaviour in different settings

• looking at one behaviour (tantrums) or looking at throwing behaviour

• can also use multiple particpants

  • can see how different time points can impact the intervention

  • ex: looking at behaviours in school

    • look at first day

    • then look at 2 weeks

    • then intervention on the first day with a different child

    • then 2 weeks with different child

reactivity and behavioural inhibition

• high reactivity in a situation where a person is experiencing something new is a good indicator they are highly behaviourally inhibited

• behavioural inhibition is reactivity to new stimulus

Quadrelli et al. (2015) Do infants respond to ostracism?

• nfants responses to being ostracized

• 84 13-month-old infants

• baseline phase

  • both conditions experienced the same thing

  • baby playing pass the ball to the two experimenters

• Inclusion Condition

  • No exclusion

  • continued that game of pass

• Ostracism Condition

  • Excluded from ball- passing game during experimental phase

  • no longer passes to the baby

Quadrelli et al. (2015) Do infants respond to ostracism? Results 

• results

  • inclusion group doesn’t change much across the variable changes

  • exclusion group

    • active engagement

      • no change in inclusion group

        • because there is no asterisks

      • asterisks on ostracized group

        • statistically signifigant change

        • because they are essentially trying to get more involved in the game

        • maybe a show of infants not being good at self regulation

    • visual attention

      • similar to active engagement

• anything that denotes reactivity?

  • we are capturing the state representation

  • regulatory outcomes

Two main hypothesis about temperament - Spectrum

• can be low or high

• basically most people fall around average

• it’s not that temperament is a spectrum it’s more about how mental health fits in the spectrum

• saying that at the very high or lows depending on the temperament we are talking about that determines mental illness

Two main hypothesis about temperament - Risk Factors

• think shyness

  • social anxiety is more likely to happen when high in shyness and low in sociability

  • a bunch of temperaments acting as risk factors

Irritability

• low threshold for experiencing agitation, frustration, anger in response to a blocked goal or reward

  • usually characterized by negative mood and dysregulation

• more irritable a child is the more likely to be diagnosed with any DSM disorder

Diathesis Stress Model

• account for vulnerability (bio or psych) as well as additional stress

  • considering both at once when considering who will develop a disability or disorder

• Predispositions in combination with additional stress can lead to the emergence of a disorder

  • looking at different start lines

  • some have ones really far away — they don’t have a lot of vulnerabilities

  • some are closer to finish line — lots of vulnerability

  • stress will move you closer on the finish line

• Based on the diathesis stress model, plot what you might expect to see in:

  • an individual with high resilience

  • an individual with high vulnerability

    • experiencing negative outcomes with exposure to negative experience in environment

Model for vulnerability and resilience - Diathesis Stress

• x-axis: vulnerability continuum

• y-axis: how extreme the stress is

• in this iteration of the model

  • how severe is this disorder going to be

  • if a person is very vulnerable—they need relatively little stress to meet criteria for disorder

    • however when that vulnerable person meets more stress the severity of symptoms gets worse

  • on other end, someone who is very resilient

    • needs a lot more stress in order to experience any symptoms

    • might meet criteria if they get enough stress

    • because they are highly resilient person their symptoms won’t be that severe as vulnerable persons

Differential Susceptibility

• Some children can flourish in developmentally appropriate and encouraging environment

• before looking at that vulnerable person as someone who is relatively stable across environments— in this model we look at how some children based on certain traits they have will be malleable

  • some children with negative environments will have negative outcomes

  • some children with positive outcomes will flourish and have extremely positive outcomes

• a fixed individual will experience same outcomes regardless of the environment they are in

Differential susceptibility vs diathesis stress model

Differential susceptibility model 

Surgency model 

looking at surgency

• the degree to which a child is more likely to experience positive emotions due to relatively small things in their environment

• only looking at one thing in the environment

• the out come is one particular outcome

• so what kind of child will be relatively fixed

  • low surgency

• high surgency - high bio sensitivity/malleability

• common anecdote

  • in general we can think of these two types of children based on the kind of flower they are

• fixed child

  • considered a dandelion

  • be able to grow in any environment

  • but is it particularly flourishing—no

• malleable

  • orchid

  • flourishes in the proper environment

  • won’t flourish in bad environments

Interactionist model

• have to consider if it’s an interaction at all?

  • you need to look at whether the things looking at are crossing paths

  • if they are different slopes on the graph then they are not interacting

• can be longitudinal or may not be

• typically over time we look more at transactional model

  • interacting over time

Transactional model

• basically like crossing over each other over time

• interacting over time

Kappa Statistic Model

• accounts for correcting for chance

• acceptable 0.6

• 0.7 better

• anything below bad

Falconer Formula

• helps us to estimate heritability based specifically on twin studies

• assuming they are raised together

• multiplying 2(rmz - rdz)

  • correlation of mz-correlation of dz

Correlation or mediation

• to see if is a mediation we’d have to look at:

• IV sugar intake DV misbehaviour

• if we account for three variabes together and we saw the p value reduce itself to a .1 after being 0.01

• therefore initially statistically signifigant and now it’s not

• means that arousal mediates the intake of sugar and misbehaviour

• basicually if pvalue was signifigant then reduced to not being signifigant that is a mediating variable

• it better explains that relationship

Twin study monozygotic as similar as dizygotic twins

• outcome = gene + environment

• outcome = genetics + shared environment + unshared environment

• if monozygotic were almost as similar as dizygotic then genetics aren’t playing a big role

• unshared environment having a bigger role

  • the twins were raised together so shared environment has an equal role

  • big impact of the unshared environment — twins looking similar

What is a Psychological Assessment?

• Formal evaluation of individual’s functioning in one or more areas

  • standardized way to figure out whats going on

  • figure out if there’s a psychological diagnosis

  • how can we go forward in supporting them

• some areas we might look at in an assessment

  • Learning

  • Emotions

  • Behaviour

• Conducted by:

  • Clinical psychologists

    • the main people

    • especially when thinking about a comprehensive one

    • often involves standardized testing

    • especially when mental health is concerned

  • Psychological consultants with specific training (supervised)

when talking about a psych assessment and what the steps are

• referral

  • when someone brings themselves forward about wanting to get looked at

• intake

  • sitting down and talking about background information

  • first point of contact

• information gathering/testing

  • more hands on work with the client and peers of client

  • might test for things like intelligence, anxiety, attention etc.

• report

  • put the information in a formalized report

  • talk about what you learned about this person and what you will do now

• feedback meeting

  • talking about the results of that report

  • meeting with client to talk about it

• formulation

  • everything is a very back and forth process with everything

  • it’s a working concept about what is going on with this clien

Referral

• Setting (schoolboard, private clinic, etc.)

  • it can go through a lot of public methods

    • but waitlists very long

  • it can go through private

    • but money

  • can be community — family clinics

    • hospital

  • basically any professional in their lives

    • otherwise a parent

• Referee

  • the one to bring the assessment forward

  • because kids aren’t the ones referring themselves there might be a lot of motivation issues

• Referral question

  • vary

  • like a research question

  • Learning?

  • Attention?

  • Emotions? Behaviour?

  • Specific query (e.g., ASD? Gifted?)

Intake

• Consent; confidentiality

  • age based laws in Canada that determine that the kid you are working with is giving consent or if their parents are giving consent

• Interview

  • sometimes pretty short

  • getting information

• Top Hat: What types of questions / areas would we want to ask about during an intake interview?

• presenting concern

  • what is the concern first of all

• why now?

• when did they come up?

• different settings?

• how long?

• learning

  • what area of learning reading or writing?

  • specific difficulties

    • what exactly are they struggling with when it comes to the reading, writing or math

  • common mistakes?

  • who noticed and when?

  • feelings and attitude about learning especially?

• developmental history

  • labour/delivery? any complications, health concerns

  • injuries or hospitalization, medication, vision and hearing

  • milestones

• major life events

  • family death, big moves or transitions, COVID-19, trauma

• other

  • family life? emotions? behaviour

  • friendships and bullying

  • prior assessments

• strengths

  • what are they good at?

Testing

• Can look different

• Behavioural Observation

  • your direct observations about how the child is throughout the assessment

• Ability vs. Skill

  • ability — things we can do that are static

  • skills — can improve over time

• Typical battery

• Cognitive Functioning (verbal, non-verbal, visual spatial), Processing Speed Memory, Visual-Motor Integration, Phonological Processing, Oral Language, Achievement/Academic Functioning

• if there's concerns with mental health we might do questionnaires asking about:

  • Emotions/Mood

  • Behaviour

  • Attention

  • Executive Functioning

  • Adaptive Functioning

Report

• Varies

• Like a lab report

• Percentile ranks

  • how you compare with other children's results

  • every measure you use is normed to their age range

• Recommendations (school, home, attention, etc.)

  • based on everything we learned what would be helpful to support this child

• Percentile Ranks Client’s performance in relation to peers of the same age

  • easy way to explain a child’s scores in relatoin to other’s

Formulation

• basically putting together the story

• Interpreting data with context!

• Sometimes: Diagnosis

1. Feedback

• Depends on consent

• Emotions

• Clear and accessible

  • language you use matters

• Client/caregiver choice re. sharing

Classification - Hi top

• when we think about personality we think about 5 big personality traits that encompasses personality

• everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum

  • 5 orthogonal or spectrums you can fall on

The DSM (& other categorical approaches)

• problem with DSM is we need to have a cut off line

  • first of all there is heterogeneity within one disorder

• Heterogeneity within one disorder

  • if someone has anxiety their experience can be vastly different from another individual who has anxiety

• Comorbidity across disorders

  • the overlap quite oten

    • like depression and anxiety

at the very top General Factor of Psychopathology (p-factor) (adults)

• explaining all psychopathology within that one factor

• not the best way

• but there is evidence supporting it

next level down secondary scale - externalizing (adults)

• only secondary scale

• only covers two spectrums

  • disinhibited and antagonistic spectrums

3rd level down - 6 different spectra (adults)

• find strongest evidence for validity and reliability

• Internalizing: excessive negative emotions

• Disinhibition: excitement seeking, impulsivity, substance problems

  • typically issues with substance abuse

• Antagonism: aggression, callousness, grandiosity

• Thought disorder: delusions, hallucinations, paranoia

• Detachment: low social drive, social withdrawal

• Somatoform: unexplained medical symptoms and associated worry and reassurance-seeking

Youth version of the graph

changes in graph for youth version

• disinhibition is no longer a main spectra it’s below externalizing

• externalizing becomes one of the main spectra

• neurodevelopmental - more about inattention, obsessions impulsions, etc. is a new main spectra

• traumatic stress

• considers ages 11-17

Correlational design

• correlational studyL looks specifically at the relations between the variables as they exist naturally in the world

• what most of mental health research consists of

• looing at how things naturally exist in the world

  • how does mental health impact academic success

  • how does living with depression effect social relations

correlational coefficient r

• direction and strength of a relation between two variables

  • a line moving upwards is positive correlation

    • positive correlation will always be a positive r

    • as one variable increases so does the other

  • a line going down negative correlation

    • a negative correlation will always be negative r

    • if one increases the other will decrease

  • a straight sideways no correlation

  • but pay attention to the r and whether the p-value is below 0.05

Correlational vs. experimental design

• we can’t always no which variable is driving the other variable

• multidirectional

• we don’t know the driving variable

• correlation not equal to causation

• we also don’t know if there’s a third variable

  • confounding factors

Experimental Research

• two types

  • randomized: participants assigned to different groups using random assignment

    • when we randomly assign individuals to a group we hope that the groups will represent the larger sample from which we are drawing

  • quasi-experimental: subjects not randomly assigned

    • looking at differences between genders is an example

    • quite common in mental health research because a lot of the time were interested in healthy controls in comparison to mental health issues

• allows for causal conclusions

  • we are assuming the only difference between two groups is what we chose to look at

• involves: an independent variable (a cause that is tested) and a dependent variable (an effect that is tested)

• testing differences between groups with statistical tests to determine if the difference is larger than would be expected by chance

Experimental Design

• example: whether children are likely to share with a friend or stranger

• assign to condition

  • friends condition

  • no friends condition

• create standardized setting

  • lab and procedure

  • everything should be the same regardless of the group they’re in other than the assign condition

• manipulate the independent variable

  • play with friend

  • play with non-friend

• measure dependent variable

  • amount of time before child shares toy

• compare results

  • which group had the longer time

  • children share toys sooner with friends than non-friends

Case Study

• when we are looking at one or few participants

• intervention or experimental manipulation with a single participant

  • not an experiment cause no control or treatment group

• can be used when participants are unique or present with unique issues

  • like schizophrenia

• or when intervention is unique and expensive

  • ex: maybe we have a new robotic walking aid and it is really expensive we want to see if it’s worth making more

    • could run a case study with a child who has mobility issues and look at if that aid is working for them

designs for studying age related change

• cross sectional

• longitudinal

• accelerated longitudinal

Cross sectional design

• testing children of different ages at one particular point of development

• ex:

  • interested in infants 10yo 20yo

  • we would have three different groups all tested in the same year

  • we can then directly compare how they are performing on different tasks

• however issues

  • cohort effect

    • ex: if we test in 2020 and we have babies born in 2020 those babies will have a very different developmental journey then those who were born 10 or 20 years before then

    • it is possible those things could have effected the baby

  • consider we can’t assess continuity in the same individual

    • making big assumptions when assessing babies to 10yos etc

    • they are different people with different cultures, families, experiences

    • can’t make a ton of grand conclusions if they are not actually the same people

Longitudinal Design

• studying the same individuals observed or tested repeatedly at different points in their lives

• ex:

  • first tested in 2020 then again in 2030 and again in 2040

• issues

  • we do have to wait 20 whole years for kids to grow up

  • very expensive

  • attrition

    • when participants or participant families become uninterested in the research

    • basically drop out of study

    • sometimes there is systematic reasons for dropping out of a study

  • practice effects

    • depends on the study if its like 10 years between tests your good

    • but if it’s under 5 years then ya there will be

• practice effect: improvement over time might be attributed to practice with a particular test

• selective attrition: those who drop out of the study may be significantly different from participants who remain

• Cohort effects: developmental change may be particular to specific generation of people

Accelerated Longitudinal Design

• sequences of samples that are studied longitudinally

• can account for practice and cohort effects while maintaining continuity

• ex:

  • babies born in 2020 —> follow up 10 years later

  • 10 year old's tested in 2020—> follow up 10 years later

  • able to get same time points than we did before but getting it more quickly and account for practice and cohort effects

    • basically look at the 2 groups and see if they are similar to eachother in response when at same age

    • look at 10 year olds at 2020 and 2030 see if they give similar responses

• account for attrition

  • there is a high chance of high attrition if it is a long test

  • we can add in kids of that same age to keep our sample the right size

  • and helps with practice effects as well

Temperament

• Core emotional, cognitive, and behavioral characteristics around which later personality traits develop

  • characteristics you will have almost immediately

  • can look at them in fetuses before they are even born

    • some can regulate by sucking on thumb

    • others are more reactive

    • seeing individual differences very early on

• biologically-based behavioral styles that are stable across situations

• we don’t really use this term once you are older because by then you have environmental influences

• very evident from infancy

• stability

  • we do see that temperament is generally stable over time

  • the impact gets smaller as we grow up

• a broad definition

  • temperament is individual differences in emotional reactivity and self-regulation

Reactivity

• excitability, responsivity, and arousability of behavioural and physiological systems

  • threshold for some sort of response

  • to what degree are you going to feel sad while you watch a sad movie

  • look at it as a thermometer

    • everyone has a different size of thermometer

    • we all need a different level of stimulation to get a reaction

Self-regulation

• neural and behavioural processes functioning to modulate our underlying reactivity

  • the degree to which we can bring our reactivity back down

  • speed to which we can do it too

  • can be conscious but mostly unconscious

Co-regulation of Emotion

• parents help teach children how to regulate their emotions

  • we get physical comfort and touch from parents

• early on, touch and comfort is effective

  • think rocking, touching, stroking

• when close to our parents and our parents have calm physiology we see that this helps us synch up infant with parents physiology

• not just with infants

  • basically at any age if you are stressed it is helpful to have physical comfort

• later, parents will use distraction as a method of co-regulation

  • specifically they are going to try to distract the child away from the thing that is distressing

  • example: child receives disappointing prize

    • parent shifts child’s attention to accompanying stickers (just something else)

    • reframe prize → uses sock to make hand puppet

    • provide comforting support and understanding

Co-regulation of Emotion Western societies

• active problem-focused regulatory strategies

  • talk to child about emotions

  • try to solve the problem causing distress

  • directly focusing on emotions

Co-regulation of Emotion Asian Societies

• endurance of emotion to maintain social harmony

• being able to stick through negative emotion without engaging in too much behavioural response

• it is important we do need to be able to sit and feel uncomfortable

• but especially important in collective societies

Reactivity and Regulation

• generally, behavioral reactivity and regulation can be used as a measure/proxy for emotional reactivity and regulation

  • and likely underlying physiological systems

• how do we knowo how quickly a child reacts emotionally?

  • we look at facial expressions

  • behaviors

• how do we know that a child is regulating their emotions?

  • see how quick they calm themselves down

• we do have to consider age though

Emotion regulation - Infant

• fussing, looking away

• self-soothing

• even before born

• alert parents around them with crying