The textbook describes several approaches to understanding how childhood disorders develop: biological, psychological, developmental, & social and cultural and family factors. The biological approach puts emphasis on the brain’s development, genetics, maturation, and how the physical body influences psychopathology. The psychological approach considers emotional, behavioral, and cognitive processing and how it influences psychopathology. The psychological approach includes thoughts, techniques, and treatments from applied behavioral analysis, classical conditioning, cognitive theories, and social learning. The developmental perspective gives the most consideration to normal developmental processes (stages). The normal stages form the basis for what is to be expected, and when a child differs from those stages, it is thought a problem may be present. The social/cultural approach puts a lot of emphasis on the role of a child’s family and environment as making the child either more resilient or susceptible to develop psychological disorders. The most current research suggests an integrative approach, which is a combination of all the approaches.

Consider all the approaches described and describe how you think childhood disorders surface. Describe at least 2 approaches from the textbook and how you believe they are helpful in describing how childhood mental disorders develop. Write your answers in paragraph form, not just one sentence. Then, describe any limitations to describing childhood disorders using the approaches you picked. Finally, describe an integrative approach and how it may be advantageous to view childhood mental disorders from this perspective, rather than by using any approach individually.