What to study

pp. 641–642: Note the vignettes for Victor and Pauli.

p. 643: Define psychopathology, developmental psychopathology

p. 644-645: What is the medical model? Note that the text says that its critics say that psychopathology is a “problem in living.” This is an attempt to deny any biological reality to psychopathology.

Box 15-1: Cultural differences in perceptions of the seriousness of behavioral problems.

p. 645: What is the statistical model of psychopathology?

p. 650: Note Table 17-1: Obviously, there are age-typical problem behaviors. When these are common for a certain age, they are not considered pathologies. p. 651: What trait exhibited in 8-year-old children did Caspi find predicted a variety of negative traits at age 30?

What are cumulative continuity, transactional stressors, and interactional continuity? Note that this contrast parallels the contrast between active genotype-environment interaction (niche picking) and evocative genotype-environment interaction discussed in Chapter 2e.

pp. 651-653: Define diagnosis, etiology, diagnostic reliability.

Note  that childhood depression has low diagnostic reliability while ADHD has high diagnostic reliability.
 

p. 653: What is the empirical method? ADHD is often diagnosed using this method.

pp. 654-655: What are the three main types of disorders?
Which one is said to be initially disturbing to others?
Which one is associated with phobias?
What is a psychosis?
Notice that pervasive developmental disorders are not the same as schizophrenia which typically does not emerge until adolescence.

What is co-morbidity?

p. 6: Conduct disorder: socialized versus unsocialized. Why is it considered to be a problem of undercontrol? Why would the sex difference in conduct disorder be predictable from the evolutionary theory of sex?
Note delinquency is a legal term, not a psychological term. What are status offenses and criminal offenses? Which sex and which racial group are more likely to be victims of violent crime?

p. 658-660: The data on ethnic differences in substance abuse are complicated. Black youths (along with Asian-Americans) are said to be least likely to use drugs. (But see Box 15-2)
What types of kids are more likely to become frequent drug users?
Kids who use drugs have parents and peer who use drugs. Marijuana use is liked to poor school performance in high school.
Notice the progression in drug use. Notice the “bad things go together” syndrome again: drug use associated with school dropout, instability in early marriage and childrearing and high levels of divorce; presumably also related to poverty because of lack of education.  Also, starting early is a bad sign (just as is early sexual behavior), and substance abuse is more common in some schools than others.

p. 660: Time out as a treatment for conduct disorder. This presumably trains the ability to inhibit impulsive behavior by effortful control.

Box 15-2: What did Catalano et all find on differences in use of alcohol and tobacco between European American children and African American children? Note that African-American adolescents were rated as more aggressive and more delinquent than European American adolescents. What were the parents of the African American adolescents like? Note that Catalano et al. suggest that the age differences found may only mean that problems among African Americans arise later.

p. 660-662: What is ADHD? Why do you think they include this as a problem of undercontrol?—or is that too obvious?
: Note conflicts with adults and with school. Note that adults can continue to have ADHD symptoms. Why do you think ADHD children are often undiagnosed prior to entry into school? Note the sex differences in prevalence. As usual, boys have disorders of undercontrol. Why does this make sense given the evolutionary theory of sex?
 What are the main characteristics of ADHD children? A good list is to focus on italicized words on p. 653.
p. 664: Notice some evidence for abnormalities in specific brain structures. Are the effects of psychostimulant medication on ADHD children truly paradoxical?
What is the evidence that ADHD is a genetic disorder?
According to Barkley (1998)  what happens to the mother-child interaction when the child is on stimulant medication?

p. 665-666: Note the dramatic improvement of ADHD children with psychostimulant medication. p. 666: Notice that treatments combining drugs with psychosocial intervention were the most effective.

p. 667: Depression: What are depressed kids like? Note that even though depressed kids are often distractible, they can be distinguished from ADHD children. Table 15-8: Depressive symptoms even in infants. Note that the symptoms change somewhat with age, but can you detect any common themes?

p. 692: Figure 15-4: Note age and sex differences in depression. Why would the evolutionary theory of sex predict that females would have higher rates of depression? On p. 668, the text suggests that children depression “at its fullest” can only be diagnosed in children with formal operations. (Can infants be depressed? Attachment theorist John Bowlby thought  so, if children lose their mothers. This is noted briefly on p. 693.)

p. 669: What are the sex differences in suicide and suicide attempts? Note that depression can arise as a result of an accumulation of adverse life events. 42% of adolescent suicides do NOT have a history of depression.

p. 670: What types of biological influences have been suggested for depression. Notice that children or depressed mothers are more likely to be depressed.  What are the interactions of children with their depressed mothers like, and what are the children of depressed mothers like?
What is learned helplessness?

Autism: p. 673-674: What are the symptoms of autism?
What were the results of the self-recognition test given to autistic children? Note that Autistic children have difficulty in understanding facial expressions and emotion, but also have difficulties in using gestures. Autistic kids don’t “chat.”
What is echolalia?  Obsessive self-stimulatory behavior? Idiot savant?
What is the best predictor of adult outcome?

p. 676: Shift from refrigerator parent theory (what is it?) to biological causes, still unspecified. Note the results of twin studies and that it seems to run in families.
p. 677: What is operant behavior theory? Is it successful in getting autistic children to use generalizable language skills?