An Level Of Cognitive Functioning

It is obvious that the movie My Girl illustrates several aspects of the cognitive and emotional development of children’s understanding of death. Although Vada seems to have a fairly clear understanding of the inevitability and unpredictability of death, she has some difficulty with its all-inclusiveness in that, although she is quite preoccupied with her own death, with her constant visits to the doctor reporting various fatal diseases, she does not seem to be concerned about the possible death of those close to her. This is consistent with the finding that “most children understand their own personal mortality before they understand that all people die” (p. 17, Corr & Corr, 1996). This is so despite her extensive experience with death while living in a funeral parlour.

According to The Last Dance, a child gains all components of a mature concept of death between the ages of seven and ten. However, it is later noted that it is more reliable to take developmental sequence into consideration instead of age due to the fact that children develop at different rates. In order for a child to have a mature understanding of death, it is important for him or her to have experiences regarding

The term Cognitive Disability is rather a broad term. Before 2010 the term mental retardation was used instead of cognitive disability. The stigma that comes with the term mental retardation caused it to be changed. When Rosa’s Law was passed in 2010 the term changed. IDEA changed the terminology but the definition remained the same. (Partners Resource Networks,2011) In article 7 it states that Cognitive disability manifest during the developmental period and is characterized by significant limitations in cognitive functions. This disability shows up before the age of eighteen. Clinical diagnosis of Cognitive Disability can include Down Syndrome, Brain Injury’s, Autism, and even includes dementia. There are also less severe Cognitive Disabilities

In addition, CBT is effective because it has the capacity to treat a wide variety of psychological disorders. Among adults, it has been proven effective in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse/dependence, common marital problems and diet disorders. To conduct CBT within older individuals, it is important to assess cognitive capacity, evaluate whether a patient has sufficient memory function and cognitive processing skills. A brief cognitive screen such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is effective to assess early problems with executive functioning. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) is another recommended screen for severity of depressive symptoms.

The main purpose of the ensuing evaluation is to determine if Ms. Tyler is competent to stand trial for accused crimes, and needs to be evaluated for criminal responsibility. She exhibits signs of mental illness; further investigation via a mental status assessment is required.

Death at any stage in life is personal and holds different meanings to different people. Society places a great deal of meaning on death based upon age, situation, and their personal experiences and beliefs. The viewpoints of death and dying in early childhood are limited; however, children have a basic understanding of death by the age of two through their own observations of family members (Berger, 2008). Children who are dying often fear death as they do not have a fully developed concept of dying and associate death with abandonment (Berger, 2008). At this life stage, it is important to have guidance from his or her parents to gain a better understanding of death and dying.

Marked difficulty accepting the death. In children, this is dependent on the child’s capacity to comprehend the meaning

To a child, avoidance can be a message.” They will eventually pick up the signals because death happens everywhere. I have seen dead animals: birds, worms, cockroach, etc. Kids see these things and they’re aware of it. It helps if they’re informed about it because they should be able to express their feelings. Doughty claimed “my childhood would have been different if I had been introduced directly to death (33).” Once they’re exposed to death, it won’t hurt them as much comparing to finding out death later on. If you don’t think about death, you wouldn’t be able to be prepared when it does

In America’s current culture death is a taboo subject that many individuals feel awkward talking about. Most individuals feel uncomfortable simply after hearing the word. After facing a death, the large majority of people decide to isolate themselves dealing with their grief alone. Bereavement is a complex feeling of emotions that many people do not know how to face on their own. Each individual goes through the bereavement process differently. Society usually focuses on adult grief, but lack to give attention towards children in these situations. Most people think that children are too young and naïve to feel and understand these emotions about grief. However, this is not the case children actually have complex emotions just like adults. Also children are very curious about death and need attention from adult to gain a full

The symptoms of normal and complicated grief lie on a continuum and mostly differ in intensity (Horowitz et al., 1993, as cited by Lichtenthal et al., 2004). However, other criteria can be used to differentiate between the symptoms, such as duration, intensity, differential symptoms and disruption of function (Stroebe et al., 2000, as cited by Lichtenthal et al., 2004). It is then stated that CG is referred to as ‘complicated’ as the disorder is uncertain and impact negatively on daily life (Prigerson et al., 1995, as cited by Lichtenthal et al., 2004). The review then describes the criteria of which potential symptoms of CG were to be assessed, in the initial stages. This included: grief symptoms must persist for over 2 months, be triggered by the death of a significant other, related to extended functional impairment and experienced by the top 20% of the

The facial expressions of adult grief is seen as a result of an adults inhibition of the tendency to

It is believed that children do not experience grief until one has been through adolescents and can distinguish thoughts and feeling from emotions. According to Glass (1991), a child can grasp the notion of death during early childhood; and can begin to grief as early as six months (Willis, 2002). Willis (2002) believes from a moderate perspective that children begin to understand death and grieve approximately at three to four years old. Many times, small children are affected by loss and their grief is often underestimated. Children between the ages of three to five years old fall into stage one. During stage one; children view death as a going away from one place to another. It is believed that the deceased person has just relocated and is living in a new location. Stage two consists of children between the ages of five to nine years of old. In this phase, death can be fixed. It is thought that if one

Loss of a significant other, especially a spouse, is considered one of life’s most stressful events. While it may be difficult, bereavement is an event that all people experience at some point in their lives. The time frame in which the loss occurs and how the individual reacts to it has been the subject of many research studies. Researchers have investigated if people grieve differently because of biological reasons or do their personality traits dictate how the loss is mourned. I will explore the biological impact of grief and the personality aspects in grieving.

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and

Worden (1991) identified four main categories under which a broad range of grief reactions can be classified - feelings, physical sensations, cognitions and behaviors. Feelings include reactions of shock and numbness, sadness, anger and anxiety. Physical sensations can include shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, and, in some cases, even feelings of depersonalization. Common cognitions are disbelief, preoccupation with thoughts of the deceased and hallucinations (these last two are usually transient). Behaviors include sleep disturbance, eating difficulties and absentmindedness.