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Chapter 1. Introduction to Abnormal Psychology of Childhood. Themes of Your Textbook. 1. Research Protects Children Sound research allows us to base treatment on objective, controlled studies
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Chapter 1 Introduction to Abnormal Psychology of Childhood
Themes of Your Textbook 1. Research Protects Children • Sound research allows us to base treatment on objective, controlled studies • Research on psychopathology helps children by revealing sources of their illnesses and separates effective interventions from fads or ill-founded beliefs.
2. Children develop in contexts, including family, neighborhood, and cultural settings • Developmental psychopathology stresses that maybe multiple causes of a particular psychological problem • Few adjustment problems arise from the child in isolation, but rather result from external influences
3. Behavior has biological and genetic roots • Advances in neuroscience are rapidly changing child psychopathology field, expanding brain-behavior links
4. Development is fundamental • Children not “mini-adults” • Children’s memories of events are quite unreliable at earlier than 2-3 years and improve thereafter • Developmental differences must be considered in psychopharmacological treatment of children
What is Child Psychopathology? No universally accepted clear distinction between normal and abnormal behavior
Three major criteria • In order to be diagnosable, child’s actions or emotions must be painful or objectionable to himself or others. The behavior causes distress to child or others • Behavior interferes with child’s everyday functioning • Behavior is highly inappropriate culturally or socially
Normal Behavior Is Age-Appropriate • Sex Differences in Problem Behavior: Boys Will Be Boys • Boys: More likely to taunt, hit, bully others, throw things, destroy property, use a weapon. Show more attention problems and hyperactive behavior
Girls:While younger boys and girls are equally likely to be diagnosed with depression, in mid-teens girls depression rates increase greatly. In adolescence girls develop eating disorders
Role of Adults’ Expectations and Experience: Babies Shouldn’t Cry • Some adults fail to understand why babies cry, misinterpret crying as sign of malice or disobedience • Adults familiar with a particular child and able to observer child closely for long period more likely to classify child’s behavior as normal or deviant
Which Problems Are More Persistent? • Factors related to continuity or discontinuity of disordered behavior • severity of problem • whether problem occurs in multiple settings – can indicate general orientation or set of attitudes
children’s personal strengths and characteristics • close confiding relationship with at least one parent and a secure attachment to a parent • a caring adult
Resources for Parents and Teachers • Self-Help books • Websites • Child and Family Webguide (http://www.cfw.tufts.edu) • APA’s Committee on Children, Youth and Families (http://www.apa.org/pi/cyf)