Outline Chapter 14
Patterns in Development
and Disability
A disability is a decrement in the ability to
•Perform some action
•Engage in some activity
•Participate in some real-life situation or setting
Disability can include
•Person-specific factors (inability to walk as a result of neuromuscular disorder)
•Environment-contingent factors (barriers or obstacles that lead to functional limitations)
Etiological diagnoses
•Define the exact cause of illness or disorder
•Are based on specialized medical testing
•Differ from but occur in parallel with process of disability diagnoses
•Some disabilities can have multiple etiologies (e.g., intellectual disability)
Other ways of defining disability:
•point of interaction between individual functional elements and environmental functional elements
•broad matrix of individual and environmental elements
•presence or absence of functional impairments as they relate to legal mandates to address these deficits
Predictable ways that behavior changes during the human life cycle for example:
Learning to walk
Learning to speak native language
Stranger anxiety
Limit-testing behavior
Assessment should be based primarily on observations and interpretation of behavior
The predictable behavioral changes that characterize children’s development occur in parallel with the maturation of the central nervous system.
•Myelination
Elaboration of supportive structures that improve transmission of electrical impulses
Primarily during early childhood
External influences can affect development:
Physical environment
Light and heat
Cause and effect
Friction and gravity
Social context
People
Activities
Social settings
Developmental Theories
Gesell—maturational aspects of development
Piaget—development of cognitive and problem-solving abilities in physical environment
Vygotsky—importance of sociocultural system as basis for higher cognitive processes
Bronfenbrenner—individual’s developmental settings as the engine for developmental change
Dynamic Systems Theory
Development is a result of cooperating dynamic processes of adaptation to changing environmental circumstances
Behavior is task-specific and focuses on process rather than product
Explains expected patterns of development as well as normal variations from patterns
Patterns in Development
Developmental strands, streams, and domains—observable component parts of development
Developmental milestones—specific markers of skills and abilities at different ages
Developmental delay—measure of the rate of development as compared to typical development
Developmental disabilities—conditions first recognized as departures from expected patterns of development during early childhood
Delay—slower than expected rate in acquisition of skills
Deviation/divergence—demonstration of functional or behavioral characteristics that are not typical for any child at any age
Dissociation—uneven pattern of skills showing both typical and atypical progress
Diagnoses of Developmental Disabilities are based on
Patterns of disturbance in developmental domains
Predictable functional consequences from disturbances
Etiologic, social, cultural, therapeutic, and legal considerations