title: Genetic and environmental vulnerabilities in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.
abstract: One might expect that children with varying genetic mutations or children raised in low socioeconomic status environments would display different deficits. Although this expectation may hold for phenotypic outcomes in older children and adults, cross-syndrome comparisons in infancy reveal many common neural and sociocognitive deficits. The challenge is to track dynamic trajectories over developmental time rather than focus on end states like in adult neuropsychological studies. We contrast the developmental and adult approaches with examples from the cognitive and social domains, and we conclude that static models of adult brain lesions cannot be used to account for the dynamics of change in genetic and environmentally induced disorders in children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, London WC1N 7HX, United Kingdom. a.karmiloff-smith@bbk.ac.uk
authors.forename: Annette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karmiloff-Smith
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: D'Souza
authors.forename: Tessa M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Dekker
authors.forename: Jo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van Herwegen
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Maja
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rodic
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ansari
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D004314:Down Syndrome / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D012931:Social Environment; D018980:Williams Syndrome / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology