Chapter 2 - Developmental Considerations in Treatment

Abstract

This chapter explores the developmental considerations in treatment. A developmental perspective provides a framework for understanding the nature and course of specific childhood disorders, an essential basis for case conceptualization and long-term treatment. Knowledge of the developmental course of childhood disorders provides information about how symptoms of specific disorders vary across the life span, and how children's individual differences affect not only their developmental pathways but also their psychopathological pathways. A developmental perspective is also important because it highlights the fact that the manifestation of childhood disorders varies with age. Developmental factors may correlate strongly with treatment effects. Linear models of treatment focus almost exclusively on the individual and problems. This model requires the comprehensive assessment of the child; the service or care providers; and the system or layers of systems. Developmental theories underpinning clinical models of childhood psychopathology provide the basis for formulating testable hypotheses about the origins, maintaining variables, and treatment of specific childhood disorders. Developmental psychopathology deals with multiple domains of a child's behavior, including the “ontogenetic, biochemical, genetic, biological, physiologic, cognitive, social-cognitive, representational, socioemotional, environmental, cultural, and societal influences on behavior.” Developmental psychopathology provides an overarching framework for understanding the diverse array of outcomes seen in children with the same disorders. It helps clinicians to understand how developmental domains and functions that modulate and integrate behavior affect emotional and behavioral disorders, and vice versa.