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Disability and Health Journal Jul 2024Autistic adults and those with other developmental disabilities (DD) have increased depressive symptoms and decreased activity engagement when compared to those with no...
BACKGROUND
Autistic adults and those with other developmental disabilities (DD) have increased depressive symptoms and decreased activity engagement when compared to those with no DD. Few studies explore activities related to depressive symptoms in autistic people and those with other DD during adolescence.
OBJECTIVE
The objectives of this analysis were to describe depressive symptoms and activity engagement among autistic adolescents and those with other DD and no DD and explore types of activities associated with depressive symptoms, stratified by study group.
METHODS
Parents of adolescents completed a multi-site case-control study of autism and other DD when their child was 2-5 years of age and a follow-up survey when their child was 12-16 years of age. Questions asked about the adolescent's current diagnoses, depressive symptoms (i.e., diagnosis, medication use, or symptoms), and engagement in club, social, sport, vocational, volunteer, and other organized activities.
RESULTS
Autistic adolescents (N = 238) and those with other DD (N = 222) were significantly more likely to have depressive symptoms than adolescents with no DD (N = 406), (31.9 %, 30.6 %, and 15.0 % respectively). Lower percentages of autistic adolescents participated in activities than peers with other DD, who had lower percentages than peers with no DD. Participation in sports was associated with lower likelihood of depressive symptoms in all groups.
CONCLUSIONS
Autistic adolescents and those with other DD are at increased risk for depressive symptoms and reduced activity engagement. Participation in sports may be especially important for adolescent mental health regardless of disability status. Implications for public health education and intervention are discussed.
Topics: Humans; Adolescent; Female; Male; Depression; Developmental Disabilities; Case-Control Studies; Autistic Disorder; Child; Disabled Persons; Parents; Child, Preschool; Surveys and Questionnaires; Social Participation; Sports
PubMed: 38664150
DOI: 10.1016/j.dhjo.2024.101633 -
Clinical Ethics Dec 2023This analysis is about practical living bioethics and how law, ethics and sociology understand and respect children's consent to, or refusal of, elective heart surgery....
BACKGROUND
This analysis is about practical living bioethics and how law, ethics and sociology understand and respect children's consent to, or refusal of, elective heart surgery. Analysis of underlying theories and influences will contrast legalistic bioethics with living bioethics. In-depth philosophical analysis compares social science traditions of positivism, interpretivism, critical theory and functionalism and applies them to bioethics and childhood, to examine how living bioethics may be encouraged or discouraged. Illustrative examples are drawn from research interviews and observations in two London paediatric cardiac units. This paper is one of a series on how the multidisciplinary cardiac team members all contribute to the complex mosaic of care when preparing and supporting families' informed consent to surgery.
RESULTS
The living bioethics of justice, care and respect for children and their consent depends on theories and practices, contexts and relationships. These can all be undermined by unseen influences: the history of adult-centric ethics; developmental psychology theories; legal and financial pressures that require consent to be defined as an adult contract; management systems and daily routines in healthcare that can intimidate families and staff; social inequalities. Mainstream theories in the clinical ethics literature markedly differ from the living bioethics in clinical practices.
CONCLUSION
We aim to contribute to raising standards of respectful paediatric bioethics and to showing the relevance of virtue and feminist ethics, childhood studies and children's rights.
PubMed: 38024810
DOI: 10.1177/14777509221091086 -
Missouri Medicine 2023Historically, the field of child psychiatry has lagged behind the field of general psychiatry in terms of research innovations and the availability of empirically...
Historically, the field of child psychiatry has lagged behind the field of general psychiatry in terms of research innovations and the availability of empirically supported treatment modalities. However, over the last two decades there has been increasing interest in and research focused on the developmental origins of mental disorders examining both neurobiological and psychosocial etiologies.1 This has catalyzed the field leading to advances in understanding the developmental psychopathology of mental disorders and the generation of novel early interventions that have shown significant promise.2-4 Further, catalyzing this effort is new data demonstrating the powerful impact of psychosocial forces on neurodevelopment. New methodologies and discoveries in the basic areas of early childhood developmental psychology have led to a greater appreciation for the emotional and cognitive sophistication of children in the first three years of life. Advances in methods to understand preverbal children's emotional and attentional responses (through measures of eye gaze and suck for example) as well as observational methods to glean a variety of mental health relevant behaviors early in life (e.g. behavioral inhibition, pro-social behaviors and social motivation) have further elucidated and validated these capacities. In addition, measures of neural function using electroencephalogram and evoked response potentials (EEG/ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as early as the neonatal period, with many analysis methods developed at WUSTL, have further informed this domain providing new insight into early brain and behavioral relationships as well as how intervention impact brain function.5-7.
Topics: Child; Infant, Newborn; Humans; Child, Preschool; Child Psychiatry; Mental Disorders; Brain
PubMed: 37609473
DOI: No ID Found -
Development and Psychopathology Feb 2024The field of developmental psychopathology has made significant contributions to our understanding of both typical and atypical development. However, while there are...
The field of developmental psychopathology has made significant contributions to our understanding of both typical and atypical development. However, while there are established theories for developmental psychopathology with detailed criteria for pathological outcomes, there is less agreement regarding development under optimal conditions and the definition of positive outcomes. In this conceptual paper, I make the case that a better understanding of positive child development is crucial because it will not only advance our general knowledge on human development but also complement current work on developmental psychopathology. After defining positive development as the development of positive functioning in children, such as skills, strengths, competencies, and wellbeing, rather than the absence of problems, current concepts with relevance for positive development are reviewed, before highlighting gaps in our knowledge on positive development and suggestions for future research. Although several of the reviewed frameworks provide important contributions to the conceptualization of positive development, most of them focus on positive functioning in adults with limited consideration of development in the early years. More research is needed that specifically targets the development of positive outcomes from early childhood onward in order to develop a more comprehensive and holistic theory of positive child development.
PubMed: 38384187
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579424000294 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Nov 2023Inner speech refers to the experience of talking to oneself in one's head. While notoriously challenging to investigate, it has also been central to a range of questions... (Review)
Review
Inner speech refers to the experience of talking to oneself in one's head. While notoriously challenging to investigate, it has also been central to a range of questions concerning mind, brain, and behaviour. Posited as a key component in executive function and self-regulation, inner speech has been claimed to be crucial in higher cognitive operations, self-knowledge and self-awareness. Such arguments have traditionally been supported with examples of atypical development. But variations in inner speech - and in some cases, significant diversity - in fact pose several key challenges to such claims, and raises many more questions for, language, thought and mental health more generally. In this review, we will summarise evidence on the experience and operation of inner speech in child and adult neurotypical populations, autistic people and other neurodivergent groups, and people with diverse experiences of linguistic and sensory development, including deafness. We will demonstrate that the relationship between inner speech and cognitive operations may be more complex than first assumed when explored through the lens of cognitive and neurological diversity, and the implications of that for understanding the developing brain in all populations. We discuss why and how the experience of inner speech in neurodivergent groups has often been assumed rather than investigated, making it an important opportunity for researchers to develop innovative future work that integrates participatory insights with cognitive methodology. Finally, we will outline why variations in inner speech - in neurotypical and neurodivergent populations alike - nevertheless have a range of important implications for mental health vulnerability and unmet need. In this sense, the example of inner speech offers us both a way of looking back at the logic of developmental psychology and neuropsychology, and a clue to its future in a neurodiverse world.
PubMed: 37769592
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.08.008 -
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Sep 2023This study provides an important extension to the growing literature on prospection in children by providing the first test of whether one's ability to engage in the...
This study provides an important extension to the growing literature on prospection in children by providing the first test of whether one's ability to engage in the functional (as opposed to the purely phenomenological) aspect of episodic foresight improves across middle childhood. Of the various forms of prospection, episodic foresight has been proposed to be one of the most flexible and functionally powerful, defined as the ability to not only imagine future events (simulative aspect) but also use those imaginings to guide behavior in the present (functional aspect). The current study tested 80 typically developing children aged 8 to 12 years using an extensive cognitive battery comprising Virtual Week Foresight, the Autobiographical Interview, and a series of crystallized and fluid intelligence measures. Whereas data indicated age-related improvements in detecting future-oriented problems and taking steps in the present in service of solving these, all children in this age bracket demonstrated a similar capacity for problem resolution (i.e., the ability to subsequently solve successfully identified problems). Results also revealed the importance of broader crystallized and fluid intelligence, but not episodic memory or episodic future thinking, in engaging in this capacity. Research is now required to understand the real-life consequences of episodic foresight during this developmental period as well as the ways in which parents and teachers can help to foster this capacity and consequently help to support children's growing desire for independence during this time.
Topics: Humans; Child; Memory, Episodic; Forecasting; Intelligence; Parents
PubMed: 37167847
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105696 -
Journal of the American Academy of... Mar 2024Families of children with intellectual and developmental disorder (IDD) face unique challenges while navigating the transition into adulthood, such as finding suitable...
Families of children with intellectual and developmental disorder (IDD) face unique challenges while navigating the transition into adulthood, such as finding suitable housing, optimizing independence, fostering meaningful relationships, and identifying a vocation. Often, the daily struggles of managing the individual's needs overshadow essential long-term preparation. Individuals with IDD and their families need guidance to transition from an entitlement-driven system (special education) to multiple eligibility-driven systems (adult care, postsecondary education services, housing supports, etc). The majority of those currently involved in transition planning are school personnel, followed closely by family members. Few of these planning meetings include the individuals themselves or personnel from outside agencies, such as social services and mental health. The complexity of these systems marginalizes this population by creating barriers to accessing necessary support. This is where psychiatrists, especially child and adolescent psychiatrists, can create a bridge.
Topics: Adult; Child; Humans; Adolescent; Developmental Disabilities; Family; Mental Health; Schools; Intellectual Disability
PubMed: 37778725
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaac.2023.09.541 -
American Journal on Intellectual and... May 2024Measurement invariance (MI) is a psychometric property of an instrument indicating the degree to which scores from an instrument are comparable across groups. In recent... (Review)
Review
Measurement invariance (MI) is a psychometric property of an instrument indicating the degree to which scores from an instrument are comparable across groups. In recent years, there has been a marked uptick in publications using MI in intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) samples. Our goal here is to provide an overview of why MI is important to IDD researchers and to describe some challenges to evaluating it, with an eye towards nudging our subfield into a more thoughtful and measured interpretation of studies using MI.
Topics: Humans; Intellectual Disability; Developmental Disabilities; Psychometrics; Biomedical Research
PubMed: 38657963
DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-129.3.191 -
Journal of Autism and Developmental... Sep 2023According to current accounts of social cognition, the emergence of verbal and non-verbal components of social perception might rely on the acquisition of different...
According to current accounts of social cognition, the emergence of verbal and non-verbal components of social perception might rely on the acquisition of different cognitive abilities. These components might be differently sensitive to the pattern of neuropsychological impairments in congenital neurodevelopmental disorders. Here, we explored the association between social and non-social cognitive domains by administering subtests of the NEPSY-II battery to 92 patients with Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD). Regardless the level of intellectual functioning and presence of congenital brain malformations, results revealed that visuospatial skills predicted emotion recognition and verbal component of Theory of Mind, whereas imitation predicted the non-verbal one. Future interventions might focus on spatial and sensorimotor abilities to boost the development of social cognition in IDD.
Topics: Humans; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Cognition; Social Perception; Recognition, Psychology; Emotions; Neuropsychological Tests; Theory of Mind
PubMed: 35729297
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-022-05630-y -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Feb 2024Organizing the continuous flow of experiences into meaningful events is a crucial prerequisite for episodic memory. Prediction error and event segmentation both play... (Review)
Review
Organizing the continuous flow of experiences into meaningful events is a crucial prerequisite for episodic memory. Prediction error and event segmentation both play important roles in supporting the genesis of meaningful mnemonic representations of events. We review theoretical contributions discussing the relationship between prediction error and event segmentation, as well as literature on episodic memory related to prediction error and event segmentation. We discuss the extent of overlap of mechanisms underlying memory emergence through prediction error and event segmentation, with a specific focus on attention and working memory. Finally, we identify areas in research that are currently developing and suggest future directions. We provide an overview of mechanisms underlying memory formation through predictions, violations of predictions, and event segmentation.
Topics: Humans; Memory, Episodic; Memory, Short-Term; Attention
PubMed: 38184184
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105533