Lecture (LE)
Objectives
The course aims to expand and articulate students’ knowledge and skills regarding the determinants of developmental psychopathology and the research strategies that enable its study through an empirical and descriptive approach. The second part of the course focuses on developing the clinical skills necessary to work with patients in developmental age. In particular, students will acquire the theoretical and practical knowledge required to conduct a diagnostic process and to conceptualize clinical cases in childhood and adolescence.
Syllabus
- Introduction to the basic concepts of the field and research methodologies.
- Risk and protective factors. The role of genetic and environmental factors in influencing the development of psychopathological manifestations: gene-environment interaction, gene-environment correlation in development, genetic control of sensitivity to the environment, variations in heritability estimates over the lifespan.
- The role of stressful life events in susceptibility to psychopathological manifestations.
- Age of onset: cumulative risk curves, susceptibility spectrums, familial risk indicators. Factors influencing age of onset, anticipation of age of onset.
- Resilience.
- Categorical vs. dimensional diagnosis.
- The importance of different raters in the diagnostic process.
Exam
Students will be graded through an oral exam.
Bibliography
- Cicchetti D & Cohen D (2006). Developmental Psychopathology, (2nd ed.): Theory and Method John Wiley.
- Rutter M et al. (2008). Rutter’s child and adolescent psychiatry (5th ed.). Blackwell Publishing Limited.
- Plomin (2019). L’impronta genetica. Come il DNA ci rende quelli che siamo, Raffaello Cortina Editore.
