additional childhood

Cards (61)

  • Dyslexia
    A heritable condition involving problems in language processing, particularly phonological awareness, which can impact reading abilities
  • Etiology of dyslexia
    • Family and twin studies confirm a heritable component
    • The genes associated with dyslexia are the same as those associated with typical reading abilities
    • Heritability of reading problems varies depending on parental education - more heritable for children of highly educated parents
  • Cognitive processes involved in dyslexia
    • Problems in language processing, particularly phonological awareness - the ability to perceive sounds of spoken language and their relation to printed words, detect syllables, and recognize rhyme
  • Brain regions involved in dyslexia
    • Left temporal, parietal, and occipital regions are important for phonological awareness and are centrally involved in dyslexia
    • The problem may be in the connections between these regions and areas that support speech production, rather than the regions themselves
  • Differences between English and Chinese writing systems lead to different brain regions being involved in dyslexia - English relies more on sound processing, Chinese more on visual processing
  • Strategies used to treat dyslexia
    1. Teach readiness skills like letter discrimination, phonetic analysis, and letter-sound correspondences before explicit reading instruction
    2. Phonological awareness training to help convert sounds to words
    3. Instructional supports like recorded lectures, tutors, and untimed tests for college students
  • Evidence from psychological, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging studies suggests that dyslexia involves problems in language processing
  • Phonological awareness
    Perceiving the sounds of spoken language and their relation to printed words, detecting syllables, and recognizing rhyme
  • Phonological awareness is believed to be critical to the development of reading skills
  • Children with dyslexia have poor phonological awareness

    Shown by fMRI studies
  • Brain regions important for phonological awareness
    • Left temporal, parietal, and occipital regions
  • The problem in dyslexia might not be in areas of the brain that support phonological awareness per se, but in their connections to other areas of the brain that support the ability to produce speech
  • This suggests the interesting possibility that children with dyslexia may have problems integrating phonological awareness with generating the ability to read
  • DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for intellectual disability
    • Deficits in intellectual functioning
    • Deficits in adaptive functioning
    • Onset during development (as a child)
  • The first two DSM-5 criteria are consistent with the approach of the AAIDD
  • The DSM-5 no longer distinguishes among mild, moderate, and severe intellectual disability based on IQ scores alone, as was done in DSM-IV-TR
  • Severity of intellectual disability is assessed in three areas
    • Conceptual (which includes intellectual and other cognitive functioning)
    • Social
    • Practical
  • AAIDD approach
    • Identification of an individual's strengths and weaknesses in psychological, physical, and environmental dimensions
    • Determining the kinds and degrees of support needed to enhance the person's functioning in various contexts
  • In the schools, an individualized educational program (IEP) is based on the person's strengths and weaknesses and on the amount of instruction needed
  • This approach can lessen the stigmatizing effects of having intellectual disability and may also encourage a focus on what can be done to improve the student's learning
  • The first two of the DSM-5 criteria are consistent with the approach of the AAIDD. First, there is explicit recognition that an IQ score must be considered within the context of a more thor- ough assessment. Second, adaptive functioning must be assessed in a broad range of contexts.
  • One chromosomal abnormality that has been linked with intellectual disability is trisomy 21, which refers to having an extra copy (i.e., three instead of two) of chromosome 21. This is also known as Down syndrome (trisomy 21). It has been estimated that it occurs in about 1 out of every 850 live births in the United States (Shin, Besser, et al., 2009).
  • fragile X syndrome
    involves a mutation in the fMR1 gene on the X chromosome; underdeveloped ears and a long, thin face.
  • Fragile X syndrome may not always have intellectual disability but may have a specific learning disorder, difficulties on neuropsychological tests, mood swings, and sometimes autism.
  • phenylketonuria (PKU)
    Recessive-GeneDiseases; the infant, born without obvious signs of difficulty, soon begins to suffer from a deficiency of a liver enzyme, phenylalanine hydroxylase
  • Infectious diseases
    Diseases that can be transmitted from one person to another
  • Fetus in utero
    Increased risk of intellectual disabilities resulting from maternal infectious diseases
  • Maternal infectious diseases
    • Rubella
    • Cytomegalovirus
    • Toxoplasmosis
    • Herpes simplex
    • HIV
  • The consequences of these diseases are most serious during the first trimester of pregnancy, when the fetus has no detectable immunological response
  • Encephalitis
    Inflammation of the brain
  • Meningococcal meningitis
    Inflammation of the protective membranes of the brain
  • Encephalitis and meningococcal meningitis may cause brain damage and even death if contracted in infancy or early childhood
  • Childhood meningitis
    A disease in which the protective membranes of the brain are acutely inflamed and fever is very high
  • Environmental pollutants
    Substances in the environment that can cause harm
  • Environmental pollutants implicated in intellectual disability
    • Mercury
    • Lead
  • Mercury may be ingested by eating affected fish
  • Dyslexia
    A specifier of the category specific learning disorder in DSM-5
  • Other specifiers of specific learning disorder in DSM-5
    • Dyscalculia (impairment in math)
    • Impairments in written expression
  • Dyslexia affects 5–15 percent of children, and it is often identified and treated in schools
  • Dyslexia
    Runs in families