Download J15 Environment and working with children

Child Psychopathology
Environmental causes
Family factors
Working with children
Reading for today: Chapter 2
Biological approaches: What is going on in
this picture?
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Evoked Response Potentials (ERP’s)
Polygraphs
HR
BP
Differentiation of emotions
Excitement
Positive emotions
Negative Emotions
surprise
interest
joy
anger
sad
pain
Emotional regulation in children
• What is emotional regulation?
• Is emotional regulation a “normal” developmental
goal?
• Why is it important that children learn to regulate
their emotions?
• What are the biological and environmental
influences in ER?
• What problems may emerge for children who do
not learn ER?
Child temperament and ER
• Temperament = tendency to behave in
certain ways
• Influenced by ER and how environment
responds to a child
• Three primary temperament dimensions:
– Positive affect and approach (Easy)
– fearful or inhibited (Slow-to-warm-up)
– Negative affect or irritability (Difficult)
• Response to child’s emotions shapes this
Behavioral and cognitive
approaches
• Applied behavioral analysis (ABC’s)
involves an operant approach (e.g., fighting
is reinforced by parents)
• Classical conditioning (CR’s, CS’s)
approaches (e.g., fighting whenever
intoxicated)
• Social learning, modeling (fighting because
of television violence)
Social learning, cognitive mediators,
and observational learning
• Cognitive structures and content make up a
child’s schema, which is a guideline that
affects expectations and information
processing from the environment
• Cognitive deficts and distortions are present
in various childhood disorders (e.g. ADHD)
• Social information processing: How do
children adapt to unfamiliar situations (e.g.,
frosh week)
Interpersonal processes in
psychopathology: Attachment theory
• Early interactions with caregivers gives rise to
expectations about self and other
• Later personality, self-reliance, and success in
relationships affected by early attachments
• Interpersonal problems contribute to child
psychopathology
• Evolutionary theory
• Table 2.2 from text links three attachment styles to
specific outcomes
Family and society
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What is the family context of a child?
The broader social context is also important
Bronfenbrenner’s model Figure 2.6 of text
Group activity: Using this model, describe
exactly how poverty may have a negative
impact on child development and
psychopathology
You are conducting an assessment of this girl.
What do you want to know about her?
Working With Children
• Children like to draw pictures
• Children like to please and agree with you,
so you need to emphasize “any answer”is
okay
• Children have less power than adults
• Children do not always understand the
meaning of adult behavior
• Children’s relationships are less stable, but
seem very important to them