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