What is a neurodevelopmental disorder?
Disorders that influence brain functions and alters neurological development
- Causes difficulties in social, cognitive and emotional functioning.
- Diagnosed in early childhood.
Causes functional impairment
Symptoms of ADHD
Behaviour present before 12 and across 2+ settings.
- Careless mistakes
- Not listening
Hyperactivity:
-Frequent fidgeting
- Excessive talking
- Difficulty waiting
What are the possible reasons for ADHD?
Genetic Factors
Environmental factors e.g. Lead poisoning.
What is cognitive disengagement syndrome?
- Associated with inattentive symptoms
- Distinct disorder
- 40% of people with ADHD have symptoms of CDS.
What are the symptoms of CDS?
- Excessive daydreaming
- Slow behaviours
What are the treatments for ADHD?
- Medication (stimulants 80% effective)
- Behavioural mangement
- Planning and organization
- CBT
- Cognitive rehabilitation
What are ADHD compensatory mechanisms?
- Organisation strategies
- Perfectionism
- Sensory strategies
- Listening to music
What are the two main disruptive behaviour disorders?
- Oppositional defiant disorder
- Conduct disorder
Symptoms of Oppositional defiant disorder:
- Angry/irritable mood
- Argumentative
- Vindictiveness
Causes of Oppositional defiant disorder:
- Parents may have substance problems, poor nutrition, smoking during pregnancy
- Neglectful relationships
- Poor parenting, poverty
Treatments for Oppositional defiant disorder:
- Behavioural management
- Mentalisation-based family therapy (identify attachment disruptions that lead to behavioural problems.
- Parent-child interaction therapy.
Symptoms of conduct disorder:
- Aggressive behaviour towards others and animals
- Frequent physical altercations with others
- Deliberately physically cruel to others and animals
- Involvement in confrontational economic order crime.
- Has perpetrated a forcible sex act on another.
- Property destruction by arson.
- Property destruction by other means.
- Has engaged in non-confrontational economic order crime- e.g., breaking and entering.
- Has engaged in non-confrontational retail theft, e.g., shoplifting.
- Disregarded parent’s curfew prior to age 13.
- Has run away from home at least two times.
- Has been truant before age 13.
Treatment for conduct disorder:
- PCIT
- Trauma treatment
- Behavioural management
- Social and empathy training
- Mentalisation-based family therapy
Symptoms of Autism spectrum disorder?
- Deficits in social communication#
- Repetitive patterns of behaviour (motor movements)
- Inflexible adherence to routines
- Distress with small changes
- Eat the same food every day
- Hyper/hypo activity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of environment
What do those with ASD have difficulties with?
Sensory and emotion processing
Empathy
Executive functioning
Treatment for ASD
Behavioural management
What are neurogenetic disorders?
- Examination of disorders that defined genetically provides rich information about how genes link to psychiatric disorders/symptoms
- Allows for examination of hormones
Prader Will syndrome symptoms:
- Floppiness at birth and difficulties feeding
Older age: disturbed growth, excessive appetite, skin picking, disruptive behavior, high pain tolerance
Turner syndrome symptoms:
-missing part of or entire x chromosome.
- Stunted growth, no natural menses, heart problems, poor math skills, anxiety, increased likelihood of ADHD and ASD.
Symptoms of Klinefelter syndrome:
boys have extra dosage of x chromosome xxy+
- Infertility, small testes
- Weaker muscles
- Less body hair
- Breast growth
- Less interest in sex
- Troubles with reading and speech
- Social difficulties
Symptoms of Fragile X:
Caused by changes in Fragile X Messenger Ribonucleoprotein 1
This leads to the inability producing FM = brain development problems
- Learning disabilities
- Social and behavioural problems;
No eye contact, lack of attention, hand flapping, speaking without thinking
Symptoms of Williams syndrome:
Microdeletion of one copy of chromosome-
- Mild to moderate intellectual disability
- Poor visual-spatial skills
- Friendly outgoing personality
- Phenotypic facial features
- Growth problems and short stature
- Other musculoskeletal, neurological and endocrine anomalies.
What are the pros of neurodiversity?
- Helps schools/jobs become more empathetic towards those with neurodevelopmental and learning disorders.
What are the cons of Neurodiversity?
- under emphasises how well treatments can be effective
- May not fully emphasize how severe some symptoms are (non-verbal autism), urging need for support rather than normalizing od the disorder.
- May cause people to self diagnose which is not accurate and could be harmful for person.
