Child Development and Parental Disorders - Research Paper Example

There were three such respondents two of whom admitted to demonstration of pathological symptoms similar to that of their mentally estranged parents. There is a major implication derived from this for the study. Both the respondents who admitted to symptoms of mental disorders had high scores for psychosocial items included in the second part of the questionnaire. This proved that high degree of psychosocial trauma from childhood can trigger off psychiatric pathologies in later life while lesser degrees of it may be more benign.

Conversely too, the study has proved ground for more development and research in this important field. It has revealed that a wider range of variables distributed across a broader spectrum of population can disclose more relevant correlations than is presently available. These correlations, once revealed, can lead to better understanding of how to cope with mental disorders in parents and how their children can be better shielded from their psychiatric pathology so that their development is not hampered and they do not fall victim to a vicious circle of psychologically inhibited adulthood.

Genetic implication have been touched upon but not elucidated on since data available presently is not extensive enough. The4 statistical analysis conducted by the study was aband. IntroductionThe 'American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry' (AACAP) advocates that parental psychiatric illnesses can affect children (AACAP, 2004). Studies have proved that children with affected parents are at higher risk than those of mentally sound parents. The risk increases with both parents being mentally unsound.

Studies have also proved that parents with the following disorders - bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, alcoholism, drug abuse or depression are more likely to adversely affect their children's behavioral and emotional positions (AACAP, 2004). The 'Center for Mental Health Services and Research' (CMHSR) Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, find in a 2001 study that, statistically, one-third of American women and one-fifth of American men are likely to be mentally affected.

Of these, there is likelihood of 65% of the women and 52% of the men of becoming parents. Nevertheless, there have been very little corresponding studies on how incidence of parental mental illnesses and cultural and economic factors correlate to produce children's mental conditions. Thus, most of the studies conducted to this study's date - 2001 - are incidental purely on stressors such as poverty and ethnic minority status. Incidence in the Caucasoid and middle class sections of the American population has not been mapped so thoroughly.

The net result is a gap in the understanding of how mental illnesses are distributed across the entire