Cover image for Understanding developmental disorders : a causal modelling approach
Title:
Understanding developmental disorders : a causal modelling approach
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Malden, MA : Blackwell, 2004
Physical Description:
xiii, 300 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
ISBN:
9780631187585

Available:*

Library
Item Barcode
Call Number
Material Type
Item Category 1
Status
Searching...
30000010193479 RJ506.D47 M67 2004 Open Access Book Book
Searching...

On Order

Summary

Summary

A long-awaited book from developmental disorders expert John Morton, Understanding Developmental Disorders: A Causal Modelling Approach makes sense of the many competing theories about what can go wrong with early brain development, causing a child to develop outside the normal range.

Based on the idea that understanding developmental disorders requires us to talk about biological, cognitive, behavioral and environmental factors, and to talk about causal relationships among these elements.
Explains what causal modelling is and how to do it.
Compares different theories about particular developmental disorders using causal modelling.
Will have a profound impact on research in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and medicine.


Author Notes

John Morton is the former Director of the Medical Research Council's Cognitive Development Unit. He is now Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London.


Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1 Introducing Cause
Cause and Public Issues - 'Working Mums Blamed for Children's Failures'
Cause and Individual Events - 'Why Did Romeo Die?'
Why Look at Cause?
Some More Reasons for Not Looking at Individual Cases
The Need for a Framework for Thinking In
Creating a Tool - The Problem of Notation
An Example of The Limits of Language
An Invitation to Consider Diagrams as a Tool
A Tool for Representing Causal Relationships
Chapter 2 Introducing Cognition
One Thing I Do Want You to Believe
Reductionism
Can We Rely on Behaviour?
The IQ Example - A Note of Caution
Why Cause Needs Cognition
Chapter 3 Representing Causal Relationships
Categorizing Facts
The Causal Notation
Starting a Causal Model for Autism
Complications
Some Easy Stuff On Cause and Correlation
Other Notations
Chapter 4 Causal Accounts of Autism
How Causal Modelling Started
The Merry-Go-Round of Circular Reasoning
The Biological Origin of Autism
The Role Of Cognition in Defining Autism
What is Mentalizing?
Changes over Time
The Non-Social Features of Autism: How to Diagram Ideas on Weak Central Coherence in Autism
Chapter 5 The What and the How
Ground Rules Of Causal Modelling
Chapter 6 Competing Causal Accounts of Autism
Representing the Effects of Environmental Factors
Cognitive Theories of Autism
Chapter 7 The Problem of Diagnosis
Diagnosis and Cause - Relying on Behaviour
The Spanish Inquisition Example - The Dangers of Labelling
Problems Of Diagnostic Practice
Variability
Changes over Time: Improvement and Deterioration
Diagrams for Individual Cases and Diagrams for Disorders in General
The Variability of the Phenotype
Chapter 8 A Causal Analysis Of Dyslexia
The Dyslexia Debate: Is There Such a Thing as Dyslexia?
The Discrepancy Definition of Specific Reading Disability
Towards a Cognitive Definition
An X-Type Causal Model of Dyslexia
Biological Factors
Cognitive Factors
Difficulties of the Beginning Reader
Associated and Secondary Problems
General and Specific Deficits
Competing Theories of Dyslexia
Non-Biological Causes
Other Biological Causes of Reading Failure
Chapter 9 The Hyperkinetic Confusions
Drugs As Diagnostic Refinement
Types of Theory
The Problem of Comorbidity - Conduct Disorder and ADHD
The Cognitive Level
Sonuga-Barke's Dual Pathway Model
Chapter 10 Theories of Conduct Disorder
Violence Inhibition Mechanism (VIM) Model
The Social Information Processing Model for Aggressive Children
Coercive Parenting Model of Patterson
The Theory of Life-Course Persistent Antisocial Behaviour
Chapter 11 Tying in Biology
Relations between the Cognitive and Biological Levels
Equivalence: Brain to Cognition
Causal Influences from Cognition to Brain
Genes and Cause - the End of Behaviour Genetics
Endophenotypes
Mouse (and Other) Models for Human Disorders
Chapter 12 To Conclude
References
Name Index
Subject Index