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Biomedical subjects

M Rutter

Publications and source records attributed to M Rutter.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Parents with children in care--I. Current circumstances and parenting.

Interview data on a consecutive sample of families with children multiply admitted to residential care by one inner London borough were contrasted with those from a comparison sample from the same geographical area. The in-care group were twice as likely to be experiencing current parenting problems with 5- to 8-year-old children, but were distinguished from the already disadvantaged comparison group as much by other kinds of family difficulties as by parenting problems per se. It was therefore argued that parenting cannot be seen as an attribute of individuals irrespective of their current circumstances.

Child↗
PubMed1984

Parents with children in care--II. Intergenerational continuities.

Intergenerational continuities in parenting problems were studied through a retrospective comparison between families multiply admitted to residential care in one London borough and a comparison group from the same geographical area. The childhoods of the parents differed mostly in the frequency of severe family discord and harsh parenting. When both parents were considered intergenerational continuities looking backward were virtually complete. Possible linking mechanisms involving either effects on personality development or the transmission of social/material disadvantage are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Observation of parent-child interaction with two- to three-year-olds.

A method of home observations of mother-child interaction is described. Its development is outlined in terms of the relevant conceptual and methodological issues, and the concomitant tactical decisions involved in development are discussed. The scheme focuses on parental responsivity, affect, social communication and social control, and a novel combination of time-interval and event-sequential recording is used to discriminate parental functioning in these areas. The measures have been shown to have a satisfactorily high level of reliability, and preliminary analysis indicates construct validity.

Affect↗
PubMed1984

Psychopathology and development: II. Childhood experiences and personality development.

Concepts and empirical findings are reviewed with regard to personality development and to the role of childhood experiences in that process. It is concluded that personality development cannot be reduced to the stabilisation of behavioural traits, to the production of a fixed personality structure or to the acquisition of social-cognitive skills, although there is some form of personality organisation in terms of habits, attitudes, concepts and styles of behaviour. Personality development takes place in a social context, with both continuities and discontinuities stemming from maturational and experiential factors and interactions between them. Chains of indirect linkages result from complex patterns of circular processes involving reciprocal interactions between children and their environments. No single mechanism is responsible and no one theory provides an explanation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Psychopathology and development: I. Childhood antecedents of adult psychiatric disorder.

The childhood antecedents of psychiatric disorder in adult life are reviewed with regard to four groups of conditions that show sharply contrasting patterns of linkage between childhood and adult life. For emotional disorders the links are weak and the mechanisms largely unknown. About half of schizophrenic psychoses are preceded by non-psychotic abnormalities of behaviour in childhood; the processes involved are probably largely constitutional. Affective disorders only infrequently begin in childhood and the behavioural precursors of adult depression do not constitute a clearly recognisable pattern. However, adverse experiences in childhood may create a vulnerability to later depression. The child-adult linkages are strongest with conduct disturbance in childhood and adult personality disorder; the mechanisms in this continuity are probably both constitutional and environmental.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

The domain of developmental psychopathology.

It is the "developmental" component of developmental psychopathology that distinguishes this discipline from abnormal psychology, psychiatry, and even clinical child psychology. At the same time, the focus on individual patterns of adaptation and maladaptation distinguishes this field from the larger discipline of developmental psychology. In this essay a developmental perspective is presented, and the implications of this perspective for research in developmental psychopathology are discussed. A primary consideration is the complexity of the adaptational process, with developmental transformation being the rule. Thus, links between earlier adaptation and later pathology generally will not be simple or direct. It will be necessary to understand both individual patterns of adaptation with respect to salient issues of a given developmental period and the transaction between prior adaptation, maturational change, and subsequent environmental challenges. Some examples are discussed, with special attention to the case of depression.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1983

Children in lesbian and single-parent households: psychosexual and psychiatric appraisal.

Thirty-seven school-age children reared in 27 lesbian households were compared with 38 school-age children reared in 27 heterosexual single-parent households, with respect to their psychosexual development and their emotions, behaviour and relationships. Systematic standardized interviews with the mothers and with the children, together with parent and teacher questionnaires, were used to make the psychosexual and psychiatric appraisal. The two groups did not differ in terms of their gender identity, sex role behaviour or sexual orientation. Also, they did not differ on most measures of emotions, behaviour and relationships--although there was some indication of more frequent psychiatric problems in the single-parent group. It was concluded that rearing in a lesbian household per se did not lead to atypical psychosexual development or constitute a psychiatric risk factor.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Temperament: concepts, issues and problems.

There are marked individual differences in children's temperamental styles-- differences thought to be constitutionally determined in part. The importance of temperamental features is evident in their links with various forms of psychopathology and in their effects on the manner in which other people respond to the child. For these and other reasons it has rightly come to be accepted that greater attention needs to be paid to temperamental issues in consideration of the processes of development, children's responses to stress situations, and the genesis of emotional, behavioural and learning disorders. However, major conceptual, methodological and theoretical problems remain. Problems of measurement are considered in terms of the relativity of measures, whether or not to take social context into account, the functional equivalence of measures at different ages, the circumstances to use in assessing temperament, the choice of measuring instrument and the categorization of temperamental features. The issues involved in the meaning of temperamental differences are discussed with respect to consistency, developmental change, genetic influences, brain damage and mental retardation, sex differences and the mechanisms by which temperamental variables exert their effects.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Developmental neuropsychiatry: concepts, issues and prospects.

The empirical findings on the cognitive and behavioral sequelae of head injury in childhood are integrated with others in the literature in order to consider some of the outstanding issues and dilemmas that remain in the field of developmental neuropsychiatry. Particular attention is paid to the apparent nonspecificity of the cognitive sequelae of localized brain lesions in childhood, possible specificities in brain-behavior relationships, the probable importance of age effects in altering the impact of brain lesions, and the threshold above which brain injury may have persistent psychological sequelae.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Syndromes attributed to "minimal brain dysfunction" in childhood.

The author considers two main concepts of minimal brain dysfunction: 1) a continuum notion, in which minimal brain dysfunction is viewed as a lesser variant of gross traumatic brain damage, and 2) a syndrome notion, in which minimal brain dysfunction constitutes a genetically determined disorder rather than a response to any form of injury. The evidence on the former indicates that subclinical damage to the brain may occur and may involve psychological sequelae-but the damage probably has to be rather severe, and the result is not a homogeneous syndrome. The second alternative remains a possibility, but the claims far outrun the empirical findings that could justify them.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Prevention of children's psychosocial disorders: myth and substance.

A critical appraisal of primary prevention of children's psychosocial disorderrs indicates that our knowledge on this topic is limited and that there are few interventions of proven value. Nevertheless, there are possibilities for effective prevention. Myths associated with unwarranted claims for the value of prevention are reviewed in terms of unproven assumptions that: (1) prevention cuts costs; (2) prevention in childhood will improve adult health; (3) improved living standards will reduce mental illness; (4) sensible interventions can only be beneficial; (5) providing people with information leads to preventive action; (6) the main issue in prevention is implementing what we know; (7) the best approach is to tackle the basic cause; and (8) the crucial issue is to identify that one basic cause. Principles of causation are discussed and a model of causative influences is used to consider potentially effective primary prevention policies with respect to those directed at (a) individual predisposition; (b) ecologic factors; (c) influences on opportunity and situation; and (d) current stresses and strengths. It is concluded that a good deal is known about risk factors and the areas in which primary prevention might be effective, but that less is known concerning precisely how to intervene in orde to bring about the desired results. There is a potential for effective primary prevention but, so far, it remains largely unrealized.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Autistic children's responses to structure and to interpersonal demands.

Ten autistic children were exposed to four different styles of approach by an adult, in which the common context was the child's involvement in the completion of a model-building task. These styles varied in the extent to which they made interpersonal demands of the child and in the amount of task-directed structure that was imposed. Measures based upon observation of the adult's and the children's behavior indicated that the styles applied were reliably discriminable, and that the children's responses, both social and task-directed, were positively related to the interpersonal and task-oriented demands that were made of them. Within the group of children tested, some individual differences in the responses to the styles were suggested that may be relevant to the diagnosis of autism.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

A prospective study of children with head injuries: II. Cognitive sequelae.

A 2 1/4-year prospective study of children suffering head injury is described. Three groups of children were studied: (a) 31 children with 'severe' head injuries resulting in a post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) of at least 7 days; (b) an individually matched control group of 28 children with hospital treated orthopaedic injuries; and (c) 29 children with 'mild' head injuries resulting in a PTA exceeding 1 hour but less than 1 week. Individual psychological testing was carried out as soon as the child recovered from PTA, and then again 4 months, 1 year, and 2 1/4 years after the injury. A shortened version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability and a battery of tests of specific cognitive functions were employed. The mild head injury group had a mean level of cognitive functioning below the control group, but the lack of any recovery; during the follow-up period indicated that the intellectual impairment was not a consequence of the injury. In the severe head injury group, the presence of cognitive recovery and a 'dose-response' relationship with the degree of brain injury showed that the intellectual deficits were caused by brain damage. Some degree of cognitive impairment was common following head injuries giving rise to a PTA of at least 2 weeks. Conversely no cognitive sequelae, transient or persistent, could be detected when the PTA was less than 24 hours. The results were less consistent in the 1-day to 2-week PTA range, but the evidence suggested that a broadly defined threshold for impairment operated at about that level of severity of injury. Timed measures of visuo-spatial and visuo-motor skills tended to show more impairment than verbal skills but otherwise there was no suggestion of a specific pattern of cognitive deficit. Recovery was most rapid in the early months after injury, but substantial recovery continued for 1 year with some improvement continuing n the second year in some children, especially those with the most severe injuries. Age, sex and social class showed no significant effects on the course of recovery.

Achievement↗
PubMed1981

A prospective study of children with head injuries: III. Psychiatric sequelae.

A 2 1/4-year prospective study of children suffering head injury is described. Three groups of children were studied: (a) 31 children with 'severe' head injuries resulting in a post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) of at least 7 days; (b) an individually matched control group of 28 children with hospital-treated orthopaedic injuries; and (c) 29 children with 'mild' head injuries resulting in a PTA exceeding 1 hour but less than 1 week. A retrospective assessment of the children's pre-accident behaviour was obtained by parental interview and teacher questionnaire immediately after the accident and before the behavioural sequelae of the injury could be known. Further psychiatric assessments were undertaken 4 months, 1 year and 2 1/4 years after the initial injury. The mild head injury group showed a raised level of behavioural disturbance before the accident but no increase thereafter. It was concluded that head injuries resulting in a PTA of less than 1 week did not appreciably increase the psychiatric risk. By contrast, there was a marked increase in psychiatric disorders following severe head injury. The high rate of new disorders in children with severe head injuries who were without disorder before the accident, together with the finding of a dose-response relationship with the severity of brain injury, indicated a causal relationship. However, the development of psychiatric disorders in children with severe head injuries was also influenced by the children's pre-accident behaviour, their intellectual level, and their psychosocial circumstances. With the exception of social disinhibition and a slight tendency for the disorders to show greater persistence over time, the disorders attributable to head injury showed no specific features.

Amnesia↗