Читать книгу Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology - Robert Weis - Страница 10

The first goal of this book is to introduce you to the principles of developmental psychopathology and to show you how this perspective can aid our understanding of childhood disorders. Children’s problems are multiply determined and constantly changing. The best understanding of these problems requires us to integrate research from many disciplines and to apply this information to children and families in specific developmental and social–cultural contexts. Beginning students can find this task overwhelming. However, the developmental psychopathology perspective allows us to appreciate the complexity of children’s development over time and across contexts, without oversimplifying the research literature or making the field too daunting for newcomers.

This book will introduce you to the multitude of factors that contribute to children’s development and the emergence of psychological problems. To help organize the research literature, I present each disorder across three broad levels of analysis.

 The biological level includes genetic and epigenetic influences on development, brain structure and functioning, neurotransmitters and hormones, and children’s physical maturation over time.

 The psychological level encompasses the interplay between children’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

 The social–cultural level includes children’s relationships with family and friends, their ethnic and cultural backgrounds and identities, their socioeconomic status, and the characteristics of their schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

Childhood disorders can be analyzed at each of these levels. However, the most complete accounts of child psychopathology usually involve interactions across multiple levels of analysis and across time. I hope this book will help you to see how the field of abnormal child psychology is interdisciplinary and complex.