Lesson Structure: Developmental Psychology BPS210

1. Introduction
   • Theoretical approaches and key concepts
   • Lifelong growth, nature/nurture theories …psychodynamic, behavioural, social cognitive, cognitive, lifespan
2. Early childhood
   • Cognitive & social development in the first 6 years
   • Genetics, personality, cognition, recognition, memory, social relationships
3. Middle childhood
   • Cognitive, moral & social development in the school years
   • Motor skills, cognitive and language development, relationships with family and peers, moral development
4. Challenges of middle childhood
   • School and learning, sense of self, achievement, peer pressure, family breakup, grief and trauma
5. Adolescence
   • Cognitive, moral and social development
   • Cognitive development, moral development, identity, relationships with family and peers
6. Challenges of adolescence
   • Sexuality, peer groups, identity vs role confusion, trauma, depression, values and meaning
7. Adulthood
   • Cognitive and psychosocial development in early and middle adulthood
   • Sexuality, parenthood. work and achievement, moral reasoning, gender roles, cultural perspectives, adult thinking 
8. Challenges of adulthood
   • Marriage and divorce, grief, depression, parenting, dealing with change
9. Late adulthood
   • Cognitive and psychosocial changes in the elderly
   • Intelligence, learning and age, physiological influences, cognitive abilities, personality changes, relationships
10. Challenges of late adulthood
    • Loss, mourning, depression and elderly suicide, aging brain … dementia etc, integrity vs despair, loss of independence.

Learning Goals: Developmental Psychology BPS210

• Explain the nature, scope and impact of developmental problems in children and adolescents.
• Explain autism, including its diagnosis, and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners.
• Explain Asperger’s disorder, including its diagnosis and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners
• Explain a range of pervasive developmental disorders, including their diagnosis and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners
• Explain a range of attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorders, including diagnosis and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners
• Explain conduct disorders, including its diagnosis and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners
• Explain a range of learning disorders, including their diagnosis and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners
• Explain a range of communication disorders, including their diagnosis and appropriate responses that may be made by family, friends, teachers, carers and practitioners
• Create and present a plan of support for a child with a specific condition.

Practicals:

• Learn key theories and concepts in the study of developmental psychology;
• List major ethical concerns when studying development, and one step a researcher can take to reduce each;
• Identify cognitive and social aspects of a small child development and some key inherent and external influences;
• Describe the phases of language acquisition in infants, and what can adversely affect it;
• Describe major cognitive, moral and social developments in middle childhood and how they influence behaviour
• Compare short term memory with long term memory in middle childhood, and discuss how this affects the child’s ability to learn;
• Identify common psychological challenges faced by children from ages 6 to puberty;
• Reflect on your own success and failure experiences, and your own sense of competence in middle childhood. Consider how they affected your perceptions of yourself as you matured;
• Identify areas of change that will affect adolescent behaviour and thinking;
• Explain post formal thought, and consider how it can contribute to an adolescent’s ability or willingness to make moral choices;
• Identify challenges common to adolescence, and ways to deal with them;
• Explain individuation. Discuss its importance, and how it can both challenge and complement group identity;
• Identify changes that can occur in early and middle adulthood and influence behaviour;
• Explain K. Warner Schaie’s stages of adult thinking and explain why Schaie’s model might be more relevant to understanding adult cognition than Piaget’s cognitive model;
• Identify some key challenges faced in adulthood and ways of coping with them;
• List some changes that are typically associated with “midlife crisis”. Discuss both negative and positive aspects of “midlife crisis”.
• Identify effects of physiological changes and life experience on the aged person’s cognitive and psychosocial experiences;
• Explain how ‘cognitive plasticity’ can affect an older person’s ability to learn despite brain cell loss;
• Research depression and suicide among the elderly;
• Research ways that an older person can be made to feel more independent and automonous.
• Consider in your response what family members can do to respect the older person’s need for autonomy.

DEFINITION OF ASPERGER’S DISORDER

In the past, Apserger’s Syndrome has been considered as something separate to autism, but still a disorder on the autism spectrum. But recently, it has become classified within the autism spectrum.  However, as the symptoms of Asperger’s are quite significant, this lesson will consider Asperger’s in more detail.

Asperger’s Syndrome, or Asperger’s Disorder, is a disorder on the Autism Spectrum.  Usually a child with Asperger’s Disorder will have a severe and sustained pattern of impairment in social interactions, not unlike that observed in autism.

The child will have restrictive and repetitive patterns of behaviour, activities and interest. They may exhibit repetitive motor movements like finger clicking or rocking back and forth.

Their behaviours cause impairment in their social, occupational, and other areas of their functioning and development. Unlike autism, the child will not tend to have delays in their language acquisition or cognitive development, but may have some difficulties in learning the subtle “rules” of communication, such as the give and take in conversations.

Often children are seen to develop normally until around three years of age when they demonstrate a lack of warmth to others and their conversation becomes very monotonous. They spend a lot of time pursuing narrow interests and whilst they do show more interest in other children than those with autism, they struggle to share interests and pleasures with them and lack spontaneity.

Their speech may exhibit many long monologues on the same subject and sometimes they are viewed as being somewhat eccentric.

THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF ASPERGER’S DISORDER

The two key features of Asperger’s syndrome are severe impairment to social interactions, and stereotyped and limited interest and activities. These must cause significant problems in one or more areas of functioning.

1) Impaired Social Interactions

Impairments to interactions are marked and sustained. The individual may show impairments in the use of non-verbal behaviours used in interactions such as eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, and body language. They do not seem to understand how to use these mechanisms appropriately in order to regulate interactions with others.

They may fail to reciprocate emotions, and may be unable to share enjoyment and interests with others. Whilst they may prefer solitary pursuits and use others as tools in their games, their lack of reciprocity is more usually because they follow a self-interested or one-sided approach to others rather than through the social or emotional indifference observed in autism.

They might also embark on friendships with peers outside their developmental age. Often younger children show little interest in relationships and may have no friends at all.

Whilst older children become more interested in others they still struggle with social conventions.

2) Repetitive Behaviour

The repetitive patterns of behaviour observed in Asperger’s syndrome are similar to those of autistic disorder. They often have very narrow interests which they may be preoccupied with. Often they spend an awful lot of time pursuing these interests at the expense of other activities and interests.

CAUSES OF ASPERGER’S DISORDER

The cause of Asperger’s disorder is not known. It may be a variant of autism or a separate syndrome. There may well be a genetic influence since there is an increased risk of developing the disorder amongst family members who have it.

The History of Asperger’s Disorder

Asperger’s disorder was first described by Hans Asperger’s in the 1940s. He identified a pattern of behaviour and difficulties that was similar to those described as autism by Kanner (challenges with social and communication skills, and an absorption with a particular interest).

The difference to Kanner’s description was that the language development and intelligence was normal, and the onset appeared to be later. Asperger’s recognised the special talents of children with Asperger’s disorder – he considered them to be “little professors” because of their ability to talk in great depth about their particular area of interest.

He saw them as having the capacity to achieve success and make valuable contributions as they used their special talents into adulthood. Interestingly, it was said that Asperger’s exhibited many of the features that he identified in the children – he was a socially withdrawn child with few friends, and a passionate interest in language, being able to quote his favourite writer’s poems.

It took some time for Asperger’s work to be adopted in the English speaking world – his work was written in German, and many professionals saw Asperger’s disorder as being a mild form of autism, and used the term “high functioning autism to describe these individuals.

In 1981, the term gained popularity through the work of Lorna Wing – a British Researcher. In 1994 Asperger’s Disorder was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as a separate disorder from autism.

But as mentioned earlier, Asperger’s Disorder was replaced in the DSM-V by higher functioning Autism.

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