Child Development: Summaries of NSSI and ASD Research - Psychology

This report summarizes two journal articles related to child development. The first article investigates the relationship between nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and emotional regulation in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The study found that negative emotions often increase after NSSI, suggesting complex underlying factors such as poor parental mental health and frequent punishments contribute to NSSI. The author expressed concern over the increase in negative emotions post-NSSI and disliked the lack of compensation for participants. The second article explores the use of cognitive interviews for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The study found that context reinstatement during interviews can help individuals with ASD recall more accurate details. The author appreciated the potential of cognitive interviewing to aid police investigations involving eyewitnesses with ASD. Both summaries include the researchers' expectations, study procedures, key variables, major findings, conclusions, and personal reflections on the articles.

Running Head: CHILD DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY 1
Child Development Summary
Name
Institution

CHILD DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY 2
Child Development Summary
Journal of personality
Nonsuicidal self-injury is always preceded by negative emotions according to the recent
studies. It is then followed by a drop in negative emotions, therefore, indicating a regulation
emotion of NSSI. The aim of the article was to investigate the regulation of emotion by NSSI in
a valid way. NSSI is the injury to ones’ own body tissues deliberately without suicidal content
(Ferrara et al., 2012). Another main goal was to find the relationship between emotional states
and NSSI during the day so as to evaluate NSSI emotion regulation.
To examine the function of NSSI to regulate emotions, sampling methods of patients were
made on 30 patients staying in the psychiatric hospital and were receiving BPD treatment the in
different units. The sampling mean age was 29 years but most of them were female with a
percentage of 87%. At first, self-report questionnaires were completed by the patients and then
they were taught several ways of completing the other questions of Tungsten E palmtop. The
palmtop was then carried by the patients for the next 8 days (Tanner et al., 2015).
At the end of the study, all the 30 patients scored high in BPD symptomatology. They,
therefore, fulfilled the criteria for the diagnosis of BPD. This is according to personality
Disorders-Borderline Personality Disorder Scale (Tanner et al., 2015). Also, the participants
scored in depressive disorder symptoms with an average of 13.57 out of 21 symptoms. Patients
also reported frequent NSSI disorder. Participants with high Negative emotions showed a greater
possibility of engaging in NSSI (Selby et al., 2012).
In conclusion, patients with a lot of negative emotions have a great possibility of engaging
in NSSI actions. The negative emotions of the patients often increase after the NSSI act instead

CHILD DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY 3
of decreasing. NSSI is contributed by a lot of factors other including poor parental mental health
and the presence of frequent punishments. NSSI is different from one group to another because
of different developmental task, capacity and processes. In adolescence and adulthood, NSSI is a
way of expressing emotions. From the article, I think the fact that NSSI increases the negative
emotions rather than decreasing it is a bother to the children. I also disliked the fact the
participants were not paid for after filling the questionnaires.
Memory and Cognition
Cognitive interview is not advisable for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder though it is
very advisable in the police during interviews to confirm whether the context reinstatement gives
a problem to individuals with ASD (Dando et al., 2008). Secondly, it was also to know if the
problem with context reinstatement comes from the failure of a memory to store context that
should be in to-be-remembered details.
Twenty-eight individuals with ASD took part in the study. They were then tested
individually. A different laboratory room was chosen in which the slides of all the participants
were different. It was different in times of shape, size and the décor. The slides were presented
randomly and in a varied manner for each participant. The participants also completed the
unrelated filter tasks after the presentation. The participants held conversations with the
researchers about different events which were totally unrelated to the slide presentation. This was
done before and after the filter tasks. After one hour the participants were then interviewed in the
same room on what they had watched in the slide. All the individuals were interviewed about
their memory of what they had watched. Context reinstatement procedure was used. It took
about 10 minutes. All the participants were encouraged to focus on all the aspects, external and
internal, during and before the presentation. All the interviews were recorded.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY 4
There were differences between the participants. There were more details given by the ASD
group than the comparison group in a different room condition. When interviewed in a different
room the comparison group was less accurate than the ASD group. The accuracy between the
two groups did not deviate when they were in the same room. The number of correct details did
not differ between the two groups (Dawson et al., 2010).
From the finding, there are great implications of police interviewing techniques. Individuals
suffering from ASD are affected by context but when they are returned to the same point in
which the stimuli were encrypted, cognitive interviewing may help bring up the memory details
(Maras & Bowler, 2010). I liked the fact that cognitive interview procedure can help the police in
getting more information during a crime. Eyewitnesses are able to give many correct details
about an event.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY 5
References
Dando, C., Wilcock, R., & Milne, R. (2008). The cognitive interview: Inexperienced police
officers' perceptions of their witness/victim interviewing practices. Legal and
Criminological Psychology, 13(1), 59-70.
Dawson, G., Rogers, S., Munson, J., Smith, M., Winter, J., Greenson, J., ... & Varley, J. (2010).
Randomized, controlled trial of an intervention for toddlers with autism: the Early Start
Denver Model. Pediatrics, 125(1), e17-e23.
Ferrara, M., Terrinoni, A., & Williams, R. (2012). Non-suicidal self-injury (Nssi) in adolescent
inpatients: assessing personality features and attitude toward death. Child and adolescent
psychiatry and mental health, 6(1), 12.
Maras, K. L., & Bowler, D. M. (2010). The cognitive interview for eyewitnesses with autism
spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40(11), 1350-1360.
Selby, E. A., Bender, T. W., Gordon, K. H., Nock, M. K., & Joiner Jr, T. E. (2012). Non-suicidal
self-injury (NSSI) disorder: A preliminary study. Personality Disorders: Theory,
Research, and Treatment, 3(2), 167.
Tanner, A. K., Hasking, P., & Martin, G. (2015). Suicidality among adolescents engaging in
nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and firesetting: the role of psychosocial characteristics and
reasons for living. Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health, 9(1), 33.