Child Psychology

Child Psychology

1. Autism

   • Therapies
     • ABA
       • Improves social skills
       • Token economy based on Operant Conditioning
     • CBT
       • Challenges cognition and deals with current issues
       • Personalised to the client
   • Theories of Autism
     • Genes
       • Appears from birth and runs in families
       • Bailey et al - 60% MZ and 0% DZ, social difficulties = 92% MZ and 10% DZ
       • Suggests a combination of environmental and genetic factors - a trigger?
     • Theory of Mind
       • Autistic children do not understand that others feel and think differently
       • Sally-Anne test
       • Lack of attention to faces at 1st birthday is a predictor (Osterling and Dawson)

2. Attachment

   • Privation
     • Genie
       • Found at 13 with the physicality of a 7 year old
       • Showed improvement in hospital but this was limited
     • Czech Twins
       • Locked in a small dark room until 7
       • Speech was normal at 11 and IQ at 14
   • Deprivation
     • Long Term
       • Bowlby's 44 theives - correlational
       • Mainly based on research on institutionalised children in the 1940s.
     • Short Term
       • Robertson and Bowlby: 1. Protest, 2. Despair, 3. Detachment
       • Still showed distress in a Kibbutz even though it was familiar
   • The Strange Situation
     • Bowlby
       • Innate tendency to primary caregiver
       • 1. Indescriminate, 2. Social Releasers, 3. Intense
     • Procedure
       • 20% A, 70% B, 10% C
       • Tests proximity, safe base, stranger anxiety, distress, reuiniting
     • Kroonenberg
       • Investigates similarities and differences in the ratio of attachment types in different countries
       • 32 studies in 8 countries
       • Type B most common, GER had high rate of type C while JPN had high type C
   • Daycare
     • Andersson and EPPE - benefitted
       • Much better for children than staying with family.
     • Belsky & Rovine - insecure attachments with fathers
       • Would be better off with family in the sensitive period

3. Key Question

   • Gagnon
     • Results
       • Parental stress, behavioural problems and pre-adoption adversity are correlated
     • Maternal stress has a mediating effect on the correlation between 3 risk factors
       • Small head circumference
       • Weight/height ratio
       • Neurological signs
     • Aim
       • Pre-adoption aversity and environmental stress on children's behavioural issues