1.11.

23 Notes
Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology

Historical Views on Children and Psychopathology

- Before 18th Century
- Children not fully viewed as persons, subjected to harsh treatment
- Mental illness was explained using religious concepts (demonic possession)
- Early Biological Approach
- Treatment of infectious diseases strengthened belief that psychological disorders
are biological problems
- Intervention was limited to visible disorders
- Fear of contamination (communities used sterilization an institutionalization)
- Early Psychological Approach
- Psychological influences on child development considered in late 19th and early
20th century
- Increase in leisure time following industrial revolution
- Psychoanalytic theory: Freud linked mental disorders to childhood experiences
- Established a developmental approach
- Behaviorism: Laid foundation for empirical study of how abnormal behavior
develops and can be treated through conditioning
- Pavlov’s dogs, Watson’s application with Little Albert and the rat, etc.
- Cognitive psychology: Increasing focus on how children perceive and interpret
their environment
- Defining Psychopathology in Children
- Definition: Behavior, cognitions, or emotions that deviate from societal/cultural
and developmental norms
- Must cause impairment, distress, or risk for future harm to be considered a
disorder
- Diagnosed on the basis of behaviors, not causes
- Usually exists on a continuum (i.e. degree of severity) but diagnosed using a
categorical approach (e.g. all or nothing)
- Features that distinguish child/adolescent from adult disorders
- Problems may involve a failure to show expected developmental progress
- Interventions often intend to promote further development, rather than
restore previous level of functioning
- Many problem behaviors shown by children and youths are not actually abnormal
- Children do not usually self-refer

- Competence
 - The ability to successfully adapt in the environment
- An active process, not just the absence of maladjustment
- Goes beyond focus on abnormality and also considers skills and characteristics
that promote positive adjustment
- Ex. social competence
- Significance of child mental health problems
- Approx. 1 in 8 children has a mental health problem that impairs functioning
- Many others are at risk for later development of psychological disorder
- Majority of children and youth needing mental health services do not receive
them
- Due to poor identification of mental disorders and/or limited access to
intervention
- Developmental Psychopathology
- Approach to describing and studying disorders that considers developmental
processes/pathways
- Reflects transactional and systemic influences on psychopathology
- Transactional: Reciprocal effects between sources of influence
- Systemic: Interdependent influences that are organized at different
levels
- Multidisciplinary and integrative
- Unites all subfields of psychology: cognitive, developmental, clinical,
social psychology, and neuroscience
- Developmental Pathways
- Sequence, timing, and connections that characterize the development and
progression of adjustment or maladjustment
- School problems → delinquency → depression
- Equifinality: When multiple pathways lead to the same outcome
- Ex. Depression can result from genetic factors or negative life experiences
- Multifinality: When one cause can lead to a variety of different outcomes
- Ex. Poverty is associated with conduct problems, depression, and anxiety
- Heterogeneity: A single disorder can be expressed very differently among
different children
- Risk and Resilience
- Risk factors: Variables that precede a negative outcome and increase the chances
that the outcome will occur
- Ex. childhood maltreatment, poverty
- Protective factors: Variables that reduce the chances of a child developing a
disorder
- Ex. High IQ, good neighborhood (can sometimes neutralize a risk factor)
- Risk and protective factors come from a wide variety of sources
 - Dispositional: From within the child (ex. temperament/personality)
- Strongly influences by genetics, but may be influenced by
environment
- Environmental: From outside the child (ex. parenting)
- May be influenced by genetics, parenting influence, or the child
- How do risk/protective factors influence psychopathology?
- Additive influence: probability of negative outcome based on sum of risk and
protective factors experienced by an individual
- Risk 1 + Risk 2 + Prot. 1 = Negative outcome
- Poverty + Difficult Temperament + Parental Supervision = Delinquency
- Interactive influence: Effect of one risk/protective factor is moderated by presence
of another factor
- Moderator alters one’s susceptibility to the risk/protective factor
- Risk + Moderator -/-> Negative Outcome
- Loss → Depression
- Loss + Social Support -/-> Depression
- Indirect influence: Chain reaction of risk factors where the effect of a risk factor
on an outcome is mediated by another risk factor
- Mediator transmits the effect of the risk/protective factor to the outcome
- Risk factor → Mediator → Outcome
- Poor supervision → Negative peer group → Delinquency
- KNOW: Difference between mediator and moderator
- Confounding factors
- Risk/protective factors that are correlated with another risk/protective factor and
its outcome can disguise their true relationship
- Ex. Genetic risk confounds the true relationship between smoking during
pregnancy and child risk for ADHD
- Very difficult to rule out entirely without experimental control, make it
difficult to know whether a risk factor is actually a cause