John Morton

Understanding Developmental Disorders

A Causal Modelling Approach

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This long-awaited and ground-breaking book from cognitive scientist John Morton helps to clarify the nature of developmental disorders. It challenges the basis of standard behaviourally based diagnostic practice, showing how the role of biology and cognition is crucial to understanding the underlying nature of these disorders. It also sets out a clear method for assessing and comparing the many alternative theories. An understanding of developmental disorders depends on being able to address the issue of cause and on making the link between disorder and normal process. These were the driving forces behind the emergence of the causal modelling methodology at the Cognitive Development Unit in London by the author and his colleague Uta Frith. John Morton elucidates this method and uses it ruthlessly to compare different theories of particular developmental disorders and to pinpoint their weaknesses. The result is a book that will have a profound impact on research and thinking in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and medicine.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. Januar 2005
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 240mm x 161mm x 22mm
• Gewicht: 648g
• ISBN-13: 9780631187578
• ISBN-10: 063118757X
• Artikelnr.: 22088944

Autorenporträt

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.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface and Acknowledgements viii
Chapter 1 Introducing Cause 1
Cause and public issues 1
Cause and individual events: 'Why did Romeo die?' 6
Some more reasons for not looking at individual cases 9
The need for a framework for thinking in 10
Creating a tool: the problem of notation 14
An example of the limits of language 15
An invitation to consider diagrams as a tool 18
A tool for representing causal relationships 18
Chapter 2 Introducing Cognition 20
One thing I do want you to believe 20
Reductionism 22
Can we rely on behaviour? 24
The IQ example: a note of caution 27
Why cause needs cognition 29
Chapter 3 Representing Causal Relationships: Technical and Formal
Considerations 34
Categorizing facts 34
The causal notation 38
Starting a causal model for autism 41
Complications 46
Some easy stuff on cause and correlation 51
Other notations 54
Chapter 4 Autism: How Causal Modelling Started 67
The biological origin of autism 74
The role of cognition in defining autism 81
What is mentalizing? 86
The non-social features of autism: how to diagram ideas on weak central
coherence in autism 89
Summary 92
Chapter 5 The What and the How 98
Ground rules of causal modelling 99
Chapter 6 Competing Causal Accounts of Autism 106
Representing the effects of environmental factors 107
Cognitive theories of autism 112
Chapter 7 The Problem of Diagnosis 133
Diagnosis and cause: relying on behaviour 134
The Spanish Inquisition example: the dangers of labelling 135
Problems of diagnostic practice 140
Variability 148
Changes over time: improvement and deterioration 152
The variability of the phenotype 153
On co-morbidity and the question of residual normality 158
To summarize 160
Chapter 8 A Causal Analysis of Dyslexia 161
The dyslexia debate: Is there such a thing as dyslexia? 161
The discrepancy definition of specific reading disability 164
Towards a cognitive definition 166
An X-type causal model of dyslexia 168
Competing theories of dyslexia 176
Non-biological causes 195
Other biological causes of reading failure 199
How do we sort among the options? 200
The relationship between acquired and developmental dyslexia 204
A theoretical update 204
Chapter 9 The Hyperkinetic Confusions 208
Drugs as diagnostic refinement 212
Types of theory 216
The problem of co-morbidity: conduct disorder and ADHD 218
The cognitive level 219
Sonuga-Barke's dual pathway model 223
Summary 226
Chapter 10 Theories of Conduct Disorder 227
The violence inhibition mechanism (VIM) model 228
The social information processing model for aggressive children 231
The coercive parenting model of Patterson 235
The theory of life-course persistent antisocial behaviour 236
What does the application of the framework tell us about the theories? 244
Chapter 11 Tying in Biology 247
Relations between the cognitive and biological levels 247
Equivalence: brain to cognition 251
Causal influences from cognition to brain 253
Genes and cause: the end of behaviour genetics 255
Endophenotypes 264
Mouse (and other) models for human disorders 266
Chapter 12 To Conclude 270
References 273
Name Index 292
Subject Index 296

Rezensionen

"What causes disorders of development? How can they be meaningfullydefined? These questions have resulted in deeply entangledcontroversies. John Morton has provided a razor-sharp tool thatcuts the Gordian knot. This tool uses a simple pictorial notationthat leaves aside ambiguous and divisive words. It resolvesentrenched but illusory oppositions between cognition and brain andbetween nature and nurture. It makes the confusing facts aboutautism, dyslexia, and other disorders fall into a new coherentpattern and invigorates the comparison of different points of view.This book is indispensable for anyone trying to understandcognitive development and its disorders." Uta Frith, Professorof Cognitive Development, University College LondonInstitute of Cognitive Neuroscience

"In his compelling book, Understanding DevelopmentalDisorders, John Morton applies a causal modeling approach tounderstanding the influences that biological, cognitive,behavioral, and environmental factors exert on the emergence ofdevelopmental disorders. Morton eloquently conveys a way ofconceptualizing various theories of developmental disorders. Thisvolume will provide an invaluable tool for students, practitioners,and those in academia. I highly recommend it as a must for allprofessionals striving to understand the origins and course ofdevelopmental disorders." Dante Cicchetti, Ph.D., Director, Mt.Hope Family Center

"Causal modelling of cognition is a new and original tool notonly for thinking with precision about cognitive development andthe ways in which it can go amiss; I can see this book having arevolutionary impact on developmental psychology. Thecausal-modelling framework is also valuable for exposing the kindof sloppy thinking about the causes of developmental difficultiesthat one sees so often in statements by journalists and politicians(the book contains many such examples). Simply and cogentlywritten, this book is of great importance both for scientists indevelopmental psychology and for public-health professionalsconcerned with disorders such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia."Prof Max Coltheart, Scientific Director, Macquarie Centre forCognitive Science, Australia

"John Morton's deep and wonderful book should be requiredreading for any serious student of cognitive development, as wellas for any researcher concerned with developmental disabilities. Ingiving us a tool for thinking about the causal history ofdevelopmental disabilities, he offers profound insights into thenature of causality, the relations among different levels ofanalysis, and the causes of four developmental syndromes, includingautism and dyslexia." Susan Carey, Professor, HarvardUniversity

"Morton's lucid and highly readable book offers an excellenttool to clarify the field of developmental disorders as it standsand to point the way to the future." Trends in CognitiveSciences, August 2005

"Morton writes from first principles but then, as the bookprogresses, assumes some psychological sophistication. He has acomfortable and conversational...style that has become unusual inscientific writing. It invites reflection, questioning anddiscussion and I found it well suited to putting across concepts."Tom Berney, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, May2006

"Morton's causal modeling approach seems aninnovative and insightful advance in examining and understandingthe causes and diagnosis of pathologic conditions."Psychological Record