Constructivist Perspectives on Developmental Psychopathology and Atypical Development

Daniel P. Keating, Hugh Rosen, Daniel P. Keating, Hugh Rosen

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134748655
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This volume is the result of a symposium titled "Constructivist Approaches to Atypical Development and Developmental Psychopathology."

What emerges from the work included here is a record of innovative extensions, refinements, and applications of the concept of constructivism.

The chapters not only demonstrate the compatibility of constructivism with investigations of atypicality, but also the generation of a constructivist perspective for a wide array of problems in developmental psychology.

Chapter 1

Constructivism and Diversity

Daniel P. Keating
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

In the planning discussions that led to this volume and the symposium on which it is based, two decisions received considerable attention. The first dealt with the range of topics to be included. The notion of “atypical” development has been historically divided into two kinds of exceptionality: One focuses on the differences between the development of normal children versus those with some evident constitutional condition (such as sensory impairment or Down's syndrome), the second explores deviant developmental pathways in seemingly normal children. We note that this is more than an abstract or academic distinction: The ways in which treatment is pursued, the orientation of helping professions, and the theoretical models employed by a variety of professional disciplines are impacted by perceptions related to this distinction. Moreover, there is more than enough high quality developmental research within either of these traditionally disparate approaches to produce a valuable and integrated volume. In addition, it was not apparent in advance whether there was sufficient commonality of theoretical perspectives between these approaches to yield a coherent picture of atypical development, if they were brought together. On the other hand, there is an increasing recognition of the value of a developmental perspective within each approach. In a spirit of exploration, the symposium was convened under the inclusive title, “Constructivist Approaches to Atypical Development and Developmental Psychopathology.”

As the chapters in this volume attest, the decision to seek integration across this traditional divide proved fruitful. Many themes emerging from the various treatments share critical features, and the outlines of a productive integration begin to appear, although they remain a little shadowy. Later in this introduction, I highlight several issues that strike me as paramount in moving toward a conceptual integration. However, as several authors point out, we are still groping for a useable language in which to express this emerging perspective. We need to view this as a starting point in a long and complex project, not as a culmination.

A second decision centered on defining the proper role for the notion of constructivism in this symposium. As might be expected of a board of the Jean Piaget Society, the planners and editors tended to be quite seriously committed to a constructivist perspective. However, it would have been presumptuous to assume such commitment from a group of scientists exploring various manifestations of atypical development. At one point, it was thought that we should provoke this discussion directly by use of an interrogative, for example, “Atypical development: Is constructivism relevant?” Although the more neutral statement was deemed more appropriate so as not to constrain the authors to adopt an argumentative rather than an expository or exploratory stance, the value of a constructivist perspective in addressing issues of atypical development remained a core issue.

Again, as the reader will discover, had we asked the central question directly, the response would have been strongly affirmative. In addition to affirmation, however, what emerges from the work reported in this volume is a record of innovative extensions, refinements, and applications of the notion of constructivism. There is ample evidence in these chapters not only of the compatibility of constructivism with investigations of atypicality but also of the generativity of a constructivist perspective when brought to bear in creative ways on a wide range of problems in development.

Also evident in this work, however, is that the productive interplay of a constructivist approach and the investigation of diversity yields some new and complex problems for research. A lesson of some importance for developmental scientists generally can be learned from careful attention to the methodological ingenuity and open-mindedness that is required to pursue many of these questions and that is demonstrated in these chapters.

I am reminded here of a distinction drawn recently by Dyson (1988) between two modes of scientific inquiry, which he symbolically represents as the Athenian search for universal laws and the Mancunian penchant for a practical science that focuses on how something works in a particular situation (named after Manchester, England, a hotbed of such engineering activity at the onset of the Industrial Revolution). Gould (1988) critically elaborated on this theme, contending that concern for particulars and elevation of diversity as a central issue reflect more than a mere preference for the practical and workable. In Gould's view, Mancunian scientists (such as evolutionary biologists and geologists) focus on diversity “because our empirical world is a temporal sequence of complex events. . . . Everything interesting happens only once in its meaningful details” (Gould, 1988, p.32). Mancunian scientific methods are no less rigorous than those employed in the search for universal laws, although they are different. Furthermore, Gould (1988) wrote:

Mancunians do not attempt to predict, because the contingencies of history permit such a plethora of sensible outcomes, but we can explain after the fact with as much potential confidence as any science can muster. This asymmetry is not a weakness of Mancunian science, but a statement about the nature of history. (p. 32)

In this context, the implication is that those who study diversity must necessarily employ a range of methods in order to converge on a confident interpretation. Specifically, the inclusion of laboratory-based experimental findings, of clinical and hermeneutic interpretation, of longitudinal observations and more, is critical to the enterprise. As more than one author here notes, surface appearances can deceive. Surface differences may conceal underlying similarity at the level of ontogenetically constructed structures, and surface similarities may arise from quite different historical pathways.

At this juncture in our overview, the reader may well wonder whether the introduction of all this complexity is worth the candle—the complexity of multiple methods; the complexity of multiple, interactive influences on developmental outcomes; the complxity of diversity itself, in the many forms of atypicality to be considered. It is legitimate, I think, to describe these burgeoning complexities as chaotic. However, as an increasing number of scientists who study dynamic systems have shown, chaos is a state of nature out of which order arises with sometimes startling regularity—and conversely, apparently well-ordered states can historically be traced back to chaotic origins (Gleick, 1987; Madore & Freedman, 1987; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Schöner & Kelso, 1988).

It is precisely at this point where the focal value of a constructivist approach is most apparent. A key principle central to dynamic systems models in general and to constructivism in particular is that organisms are self-organizing systems. Thus, organization and chaos are compatible concepts. The core questions, of course, are how and in what form organization develops (Keating, in press a, in press b).

This recognition, and a number of corollaries, are evident in the work described in this volume. Rather than review how each author incorporates constructivist approaches, which the reader will discover in detail, I highlight here three principled assumptions that underlie these approaches and three creative tensions that animate the developmental issues arising from their pursuit. The former include the unity of developmental theory in accounting for both normal and atypical development, the preference for historical rather than categorical explanation, and the primacy of organic or synthesis models of ontogenesis over strictly analytic ones. The creative tensions, which can be viewed as recurring doubles in the study of human development, are continuity and change, the particular and the universal, and the interplay of internal and external constraints on development.

CONSTRUCTIVIST PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO THE STUDY OF ATYPICALITY

The Relationship Between Normal and Atypical Development

It is by now commonplace to assert that the study of normal development informs our understanding of atypicality and pathology and that the study of differences in development informs our understanding of normal development. Reflecting on this theme as it emerges from the study of various kinds of atypical development represented in this volume, this commonplace is given empirical substance.

However, as several authors note, simple and direct translations are usually suspect. Rogers and Kegan, for example, point out that linear applications of notions of developmental growth, stasis, or regression to notions of mental health are as likely to mislead as to inform. Indeed, the ways in which such direct applications fail are themselves often informative. What they tell us is that although normal development, in the aggregate, often seems quite regular and well-ordered, the reality is that each individual is in the final analysis a unique self-construction, a point emphasized as well in Santostefano's analysis.

One way of integrating these ideas is through an analogy to evolutionary anomalies. Gould (e.g., 1980) emphasized the special value of anomalies in tracing evolutionary history. Good fits of organisms to ecological niches are often uninformative, because they permit such a wide range of plausible interpretations. Anomalies, on the other hand, dramatically reduce the degrees of freedom of plausible explanations: Such explanations require converging evidence from a variety of sources, each of which is constrained to account for the misfit.

In these chapters, there are numerous anomalies to account for, and the theorizing such constraints generate is frequently impressive and sometimes counter-intuitive. Consider two types. Using a variety of converging measures, Landau explores the knowledge constructions of blind children. Here, the anomaly is self-evident: Lacking visual information, how does the blind child construct her physical world? What is surprising here, given the magnitude of the sensory discrepancy, are the findings of substantial similarities in such knowledge constructions, and several principles of constructivism apply here. Clearly, the child with a sensory impairment follows, in many ways, a similar developmental pathway to the nonimpaired child, namely, to make sense of the world in an organized way (Keating, in press b). What we discover in pursuing this anomaly, among other things, is that the interplay between the way information is structured in the world and the sense-making developmental processes of ontogenesis often yields cognitive structures far more robust than we might have anticipated.

Yet another kind of anomaly is captured in Santostefano's case study. Here, an otherwise quite normal adolescent exhibits the peculiar and highly specific symptom of hairpulling. How are we to understand this behavior? What Santostefano's intriguing analysis reveals is that understanding the developmental history is fundamental. In pursuing this history, important features of developmental organization in general are illustrated. Numerous examples from work reported here and elsewhere could be added. The key point, however, is that the study of developmental regularities and developmental anomalies represent complementary approaches, although their integration presents substantive challenges.

Development, Not Typology

As is perhaps already evident from the preceding argument, there is a strong preference shared by these scientists for a developmental rather than a categorical or typological approach to atypicality. Although this may seem to developmentalists tantamount to stating the obvious, it is important to recognize that this perspective is far from universal in either theory or practice. Indeed, for scientist– practitioners, especially in medical settings, this is an ongoing struggle of major proportions, as articulated, for example, by Sostek.

The analyses and evidence in the chapters of this volume are convincing demonstrations of the inadequacies of strict categorical approaches. This coincides with, and is in large part responsible for, the Zeitgeist in psychotherapy, social work, special education, and other human-service professions that attributes lack of progress in treatment to overly narrow and static conceptions of human development (Keating, in press a).

What will be more challenging in the future is the demonstration that a constructivist approach to development can be the basis of a positive, practical agenda as well as a basis for criticizing categorical or typological models. There are several related issues in this interface of theory and practice. One is the relative simplicity, in theory and in practice, of typologies. For a variety of cognitive reasons beyond our concern here, categorical thinking seems endemic. Providing a labelled category for a phenomenon neither explains it nor tells us what to do about it—but it does seem a natural first step. Developmental scientists can show us that, although perhaps natural, it can often lead us down the garden path.

However, practitioners may regard this as the introduction of unnecessary complexity. They may accept the theoretical accuracy of emphasizing the complexity of development and its dynamic nature but nevertheless view the simplicity of an approach that links a diagnostic label to a specific treatment modality as more efficient and effective.

It does little good and some harm merely to bemoan such a viewpoint as benighted. It strikes me as productive to maintain these highly practical criteria as a crucible for testing the value of constructivist approaches to atypicality. This is not merely to recognize that our investigations should place the needs of those we study foremost, although that is an important value, but also to stress that addressing such practical constraints is highly productive for theoretical development. We might complement Lewin's injunction that there's nothing so practical as a good theory with the observation that good theories are those that work in practice.

From Analysis to Synthesis

More than is the case for studies of normal development, investigations of atypical development inevitably require one to look more closely at individuals as individuals. In doing so, a perspective that is sometimes easy to forget is forcibly brought home, namely, that organisms are self-organizing systems, not merely a collection of cognitive, physical, emotional, and other subsystems. Taking the coherence of an individual's psychic reality seriously, especially in the presence of anomalies, is one of the strongest contributions of a constructivist perspective. Meaningfulness is a fundamental property of self-structures, although the particular form this takes in individual instances may not always be readily apparent, either subjectively or objectively. Reconstructing this meaningfulness requires an organismic focus that seeks synthesis as a goal of analysis (Keating & MacLean, 1988). This is not to deny the importance of careful analysis but rather to recognize and resist the tendency to see the part as a whole. With its central concern for part–whole relationships as opposed to reductionism, constructivism, particularly when applied to the study of diversity, is a strong antidote to this tendency.

Creative Doubles

In a thoughtful analysis of contemporary epistemological issues, Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982) described a series of “doubles” that capture many core issues. The nature of these doubles is that they remain constantly in tension with each other, and that very tension, although fundamentally unresolvable, is generative for grasping the complexities of the nature of knowledge and its origins. I am reminded of this analysis in seeing how these authors deal with long-standing issues in development, and in particular with how these issues are informed by the study of diversity. By recognizing the value to be derived from a concern with each side of the doubles, these authors generate more comprehensive and occasionally surprising insights.

Continuity and Change

With its origin in pre-Socratic philosophy, this controversy probably belongs in the Guinness book of world records. In the modern era, it has remained a source of vibrant theoretical struggles, some famous, some infamous. Reflecting the substantial and general progress in the application of constructivist perspectives to theoretical and practical issues, the chapters in this volume offer striking support for seeing both sides of this double as essential to understanding development. What emerges is an empirically based awareness that both continuity and change characterize important aspects of development. The required ingenuity, of course, is to discern in what way specific developmental features observed in specific contexts are to be accurately characterized.

Put another way, the discernment of the structural ...