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ISSA Roundtable, October 14, 2009

The Promotion of Healthy Mental Functioning Stuart G. Shanker Distinguished Research Professor Director, Milton & Ethel Harris Research Initiative. ISSA Roundtable, October 14, 2009. At the Point of School-Entry, approximately…. 1.1% of children with have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder

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ISSA Roundtable, October 14, 2009

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  1. The Promotion of Healthy Mental FunctioningStuart G. ShankerDistinguished Research Professor Director, Milton & Ethel Harris Research Initiative ISSA Roundtable, October 14, 2009

  2. At the Point of School-Entry, approximately… • 1.1% of children with have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder • 4% of children will have an externalizing disorder (e.g., conduct disorder, aggresion) • 5:5 of children will have an internalizing disorder (e.g., depression, anxiety disorder) • Between 7-12% of children will have ADHD

  3. A True Population Problem • Research by Doug Willms (2002) suggests that approximately 26% of all children are vulnerable • Further research by Rimm-Kaufmann, Pianta & Cox (2001) suggests that a further 25% of all children, while not mentally ill, can neither be said to be mentally healthy

  4. Why Can’t We Change Trajectories? • After decades of trying, it has turned out that it is extremely difficult to alter any of the above problems or to change educational trajectories • This led to the famous hypothesis by Herrnstein & Murray (1994) that the answer must be in the genes

  5. Two Key Revolutions • Probabilistic epigenetics: genes don’t operate in anything like the manner postulated by the genetic determinists (see Gottlieb 1997) • The real source of the child’s problems lies in effortful control (Rothbart 1989; Posner & Rothbart 2006)

  6. Self-Regulation • If the 20th Century was The Century of the Gene (Fox-Keller 2000), the 21st Century will be the Century of Self-Regulation (Shonkoff & Phillips, From Neurons to Neighborhoods, 2000)

  7. Research at MEHRI • Our research shows that autistic children are, in fact, capable of genuine implicit learning, where the only rewards for engaging in social interaction are the social interaction itself • We see a significant shift, as a result of early intervention, from automatic or reactive to voluntary or learned forms of self-regulation

  8. Scaling Up • How do we apply these results to the whole population • How do we mitigate, if not prevent, the sorts of problems outlined at the start of this talk? • How do we enhance the self-regulation of every child?

  9. The Pascal Report: With our Best Future in Mind (2009) • The province of Ontario has just initiated a massive integrated approach to Early Child Development 0-8 • Among its highlights are: • Universal preschool for 4 and 5 year-olds • Turning schools into community hubs

  10. The Key to Scaling Up • A new approach to teacher-training • The Ontario teacher-training curriculum Every Child Every Opportunity is built around maximizing self-regulation • Specialists trained in human development: in understanding the experiences that promote self-regulation and those that may actually exacerbate problems

  11. Secondary Altriciality • Early plasticity enables the child’s brain to be highly attuned to the environment in which she is born • Synaptic growth in the first 2 years is massive • There is huge over-production of synapses that, at 8 months, will start to be ‘pruned’ back • Synaptic pruning is regulated by baby’s emotional interactions with her caregivers

  12. 04-212 Sound Vision Smell Touch Proprioception Taste Neal Halfon

  13. The Role of the Primary Caregiver in Early Brain Growth • The primary caregiver serves as an ‘external brain’, regulating and stimulating the baby’s brain • Dyadic experiences are vital for: • Sensory integration • Sensory/motor integration • Emotion-regulation • Effortful Control

  14. Development of Self-Regulation • Baby is born with limited capacity to regulate her own arousal, pay attention, control impulses, etc. • This function is performed in early months by caregivers (Fox & Calkins 2003) • Infant develops the capacity to self-regulate by being regulated • This goes on for a considerable length of time, e.g., as the caregiver helps the child learn how to express emotions, how to regulate stress

  15. Five Levels of Self-Regulation • Biological (temperament, reactivity) • Emotional (regulation of emotions, stress) • Cognitive (sustained attention; inhibit impulses; ignore distractions; cope with frustration, delay) • Social co-regulating • Self-reflection (awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses)

  16. The Brain-to-Brain Interactive System • Nature provided us with an exquisitely sensitive interactive system, in which specific types of experiences result in the delivery of specific types of stimuli to systems that come ‘online’ hierarchically • There are three key stages in this process: • Proximal • Distal • Verbal • In each of these stages, early brain development is fundamentally dyadic

  17. Reading • Fogel, A, King, B & Shanker, S (2007) Human Development in the 21st Century (Cambridge UP) • Greenspan, S & Shanker, S (2004) The First Idea (Perseus) • McCain, M, JF Mustard & SG Shanker (2007) Early Years Study II: Putting Science into Action. • Shanker, SG (2008) ‘In Search of the Pathways that lead to mentally healthy children’, Journal of Developmental Processes

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