The development of children's understanding of death: cognitive and psychodynamic considerations.

Full Abstract

The cognitive and emotional development of children and adolescents follows a biologically driven, environmentally mediated, and predictable but not entirely invariate sequence. Piagetian, psychoanalytic, and other schools of thought inform an understanding of child development; some of the theories are empirically validated, some not. This framework enables clinicians and parents to approach their children, ill or well, from a developmentally informed perspective. At the same time, as Spinetta's [17] case-controlled study of 6 to 10-year-old children hospitalized either with cancer or non-life limiting illness demonstrated, serious illness itself accelerates cognitive development in often unpredicted ways:
"To equate awareness of death with the ability to conceptualize it and express the concept in an adult man-ner denies the possibility of an awareness of death at a less cognitive level. If it is true that the perception of death can be engraved at some level that precedes a child's ability to talk about it, then a child might well understand that he is going to die long before he can say so." In the following articles,the editors invite a critical reading of the empiric and descriptive literature of pediatric palliative medicine that allows an informed and individualized approach to these extraordinary children and their families.

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Author information

Author/s: Poltorak, Dunya Yaldoo (DY); Glazer, John P (JP);

Affiliation: Section of Behavioral Medicine, Children's Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue A120, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA. yaldood(-atsign-)ccf.org

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Review

Journal: Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America (Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jul; vol 15 (issue 3) : pp 567-73

Dates: Created 2006/06/26; Completed 2006/08/31;

PMID: 16797438, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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