The Promotion of Healthy Mental Functioning Stuart G. Shanker Distinguished Research Professor Director, Milton & Ethel Harris Research Initiative

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The Promotion of Healthy Mental
FunctioningStuart G. ShankerDistinguished
Research Professor Director, Milton Ethel
Harris Research Initiative

• ISSA Roundtable, October 14, 2009

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At the Point of School-Entry, approximately

• 1.1 of children with have an Autistic Spectrum
  Disorder
• 4 of children will have an externalizing
  disorder (e.g., conduct disorder, aggresion)
• 55 of children will have an internalizing
  disorder (e.g., depression, anxiety disorder)
• Between 7-12 of children will have ADHD

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A True Population Problem

• Research by Doug Willms (2002) suggests that
  approximately 26 of all children are vulnerable
• Further research by Rimm-Kaufmann, Pianta Cox
  (2001) suggests that a further 25 of all
  children, while not mentally ill, can neither be
  said to be mentally healthy

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Why Cant We Change Trajectories?

• After decades of trying, it has turned out that
  it is extremely difficult to alter any of the
  above problems or to change educational
  trajectories
• This led to the famous hypothesis by Herrnstein
  Murray (1994) that the answer must be in the
  genes

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Two Key Revolutions

• Probabilistic epigenetics genes dont operate in
  anything like the manner postulated by the
  genetic determinists (see Gottlieb 1997)
• The real source of the childs problems lies in
  effortful control (Rothbart 1989 Posner
  Rothbart 2006)

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Self-Regulation

• If the 20th Century was The Century of the Gene
  (Fox-Keller 2000), the 21st Century will be the
  Century of Self-Regulation (Shonkoff Phillips,
  From Neurons to Neighborhoods, 2000)

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Research at MEHRI

• Our research shows that autistic children are, in
  fact, capable of genuine implicit learning, where
  the only rewards for engaging in social
  interaction are the social interaction itself
• We see a significant shift, as a result of early
  intervention, from automatic or reactive to
  voluntary or learned forms of self-regulation

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Scaling Up

• How do we apply these results to the whole
  population
• How do we mitigate, if not prevent, the sorts of
  problems outlined at the start of this talk?
• How do we enhance the self-regulation of every
  child?

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The Pascal Report With our Best Future in Mind
(2009)

• The province of Ontario has just initiated a
  massive integrated approach to Early Child
  Development 0-8
• Among its highlights are
• Universal preschool for 4 and 5 year-olds
• Turning schools into community hubs

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The Key to Scaling Up

• A new approach to teacher-training
• The Ontario teacher-training curriculum Every
  Child Every Opportunity is built around
  maximizing self-regulation
• Specialists trained in human development in
  understanding the experiences that promote
  self-regulation and those that may actually
  exacerbate problems

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Secondary Altriciality

• Early plasticity enables the childs brain to be
  highly attuned to the environment in which she is
  born
• Synaptic growth in the first 2 years is massive
• There is huge over-production of synapses that,
  at 8 months, will start to be pruned back
• Synaptic pruning is regulated by babys emotional
  interactions with her caregivers

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04-212
Sound Vision Smell
Touch Proprioception Taste
Neal Halfon
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The Role of the Primary Caregiver in Early Brain
Growth

• The primary caregiver serves as an external
  brain, regulating and stimulating the babys
  brain
• Dyadic experiences are vital for
• Sensory integration
• Sensory/motor integration
• Emotion-regulation
• Effortful Control

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Development of Self-Regulation

• Baby is born with limited capacity to regulate
  her own arousal, pay attention, control impulses,
  etc.
• This function is performed in early months by
  caregivers (Fox Calkins 2003)
• Infant develops the capacity to self-regulate by
  being regulated
• This goes on for a considerable length of time,
  e.g., as the caregiver helps the child learn how
  to express emotions, how to regulate stress

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Five Levels of Self-Regulation

• Biological (temperament, reactivity)
• Emotional (regulation of emotions, stress)
• Cognitive (sustained attention inhibit impulses
  ignore distractions cope with frustration,
  delay)
• Social co-regulating
• Self-reflection (awareness of ones strengths and
  weaknesses)

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The Brain-to-Brain Interactive System

• Nature provided us with an exquisitely sensitive
  interactive system, in which specific types of
  experiences result in the delivery of specific
  types of stimuli to systems that come online
  hierarchically
• There are three key stages in this process
• Proximal
• Distal
• Verbal
• In each of these stages, early brain development
  is fundamentally dyadic

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Reading

• Fogel, A, King, B Shanker, S (2007) Human
  Development in the 21st Century (Cambridge UP)
• Greenspan, S Shanker, S (2004) The First Idea
  (Perseus)
• McCain, M, JF Mustard SG Shanker (2007) Early
  Years Study II Putting Science into Action.
• Shanker, SG (2008) In Search of the Pathways
  that lead to mentally healthy children, Journal
  of Developmental Processes