SOCIAL-COGNITIVE AND COGNITIVE CORRELATES OF DEPRESSION IN CHILDREN

SOCIAL COGNITIVE MODEL OF DEPRESSION

BECK
"Negative cognitive triad"
Negative view of:
Themselves
Their world
Future

REHM
"SELF CONTROL MODEL"
Deficits:
Self-monitoring
Self-evalutation
Self-attribution
Self-reinforcement behavior

ABRAMSON
THE DEPRESSED INDIVIDUAL SHOULD MAKE:
-more internal-stable-global attribution for failure
-more external-unstable-specific attribution for succes

DEPRESSED CHILDREN

HIGH NUMBER OF"MASKING" SYMPTOMS:

• Lower self-esteem
• More depressive attributional style
• More self control deficits
• Attend selective to negative events
• Punish themselves more and reward themselves less

SELECTIVE COGNITIVE DEFICITS IN DEPRESSED CHILDREN AND ADULT

DEPRESSED ADULTS:

• Not impaired verbal intelligence
• Deficit in design and coding
• Deficits in hypotesis generation

DEPRESSED CHILDREN (8-13):

• Block design and anagrams
• No-deficit in vocabulary scores
• Impaired performance in coding digit span
• Some addittional developmentally symptoms:
• Scholl phobia, enuresis ecc

The reason for the confusing picture of childhood depression:
-lack of developmental framework from which childhood depression is assessed
-little attention for the developmental difference ( alone developmental change)

Young and older children are different:
-In terms of cognitive-developmental levels
-in terms of ecological-cognitive-social situation they face (increasing importance of peers, entry in adolescence ecc)

THIS STUDY

108 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN:

• 36 grade 1
• 36 grade 4
• 36 grade 8
• KASTAN questionnaire

The reason for the Choice of the group:
-structural cognitive-developmental change are occuring!
-children at these grade levels face different,critical, ecological transition:

FIRST-GRADERS:
Face entry into the system of formal schooling

FOURTH-GRADERS:
Transition in reading:
From an emphasis on decoding to an emphasis on comprehension

EIGHTH-GRADERS:
Affected in the transition into adolescence and more emphasis on peer group comparisons

THE AIMS OF THIS STUDY:
-examine the symptoms associated with depression in a sample of normal children
-asses the relationship between depressive symptomatology and social cognitive functioning
-compare aspects of cognitive functioning of depressed and non-depressed children
-investigate developmental differences in performance on affective, social cognitive and cognitive measure in depressed and non-depressed children
-test the hypothesis that depression selectively impairs performance on more complex cognitive tasks but does not affect performance in simpler task!

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