Heeeey! Eszter is in the New York Times talking about facebook and politics. Good show, Eszter!
While I was administering a final this morning, I read that facebook article and an article on political ignorance and the Bush tax cuts. Henry linked to that article this morning. Discussion there.
Dad’s talking about his book on HNN.
An interesting new blog devoted to putting a face behind the label, "adjunct."
A new campaign aimed at raising awareness about neurological disorders. There’s a growing debate in this community about whether conditions, such as ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s, are really illnesses or disorders. Whether they should be considered something that destroys the mind or whether they are just a different form of consciousness. Instead of viewing these individuals as damaged, the world has to support neurological diversity. The article links to a blogger that I’ve read a few times, Kristina Chew.
Our Bodies, Ourselves asked Hillary Clinton about her health care plan and women’s health issues.
Ron Paul is raking in the internet cash.
Apt. 11d 
My #2 has trouble paying enough sustained attention to schoolwork, and has been diagnosed with ADHD. His ability to pay attention is a lot better when he takes Ritalin. In modern life, you do better when you can pay that kind of sustained attention. On the other hand, think about a hunter after a rabbit, paying such attention to the rabbit that he doesnt notice the saber-tooth coming up behind.. I think my kid’s ‘setting’ on the attention spectrum is not optimal for the modern world of SATs and double entry bookkeeping, but I think it may have been just fine five thousand years ago.
But, well, the modern world is the world he has to succeed in. Ritalin, I’m for it.
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It does seem like ADD and Asperger’s may be on a continuum, rather than something you have or don’t have, and “normal” people may have some of these features to a lesser or greater extent. Every so often I read a description of one of these conditions, and certain phrases pop out at me and stick with me when I see some “off” behavior, like when we’re at a school performance, and I see my daughter is pretzeling herself and can’t stand still, and I see that she’s the only one doing it. Or I notice that my daughter is unempathetic, and seems to have a lot more trouble than other kids in registering and dealing with social cues (like how to deal with kids who don’t want to play with her). I don’t know whether I should seek out professional help or not (one of our relatives wound up addicted to ADD medication so I really don’t want to board that train), since she functions well about 90% of the time, and seems to be doing fine at school. Based on my limited reading and my memories of myself as a kid, I suspect that she’s going to have to learn compassion and moral and social rules intellectually and explicitly, rather than just picking them up intuitively. And I’m going to keep occasionally writing to her teacher, asking if my daughter is playing with other kids, and asking the teacher help smooth the way socially. Fortunately, her academic progress is on track, so we can deal with one thing at a time.
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dave s.,
While ADHD is a handicap for students, I’d argue that the world outside of school is not that different from your bunny-and-saber-tooth situation–people are always saying that we are living in a fast-paced, ever changing world. What could be better for a person with a short attention span?
(By the way, I keep expecting Timothy Burke to come in any minute and smack me around a bit. The suspense is just killing me.)
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dave – Have you seen the recent studies about ADHD, which found that it is a delay rather than a disorder? The brains of kids with ADHD are just as normal as other kids, but are just three years behind in development and that they catch up later in life.
Once you learn about these disabilities/differences you see them everywhere. Half of the academics that I know have undiagnosed Asperger’s. Some of the moms on my special ed listserv are convinced that Dooce’s kid is on the spectrum. I don’t know. I have real problems with outing other people’s kids, but that’s another topic.
amy. If your daughter is functioning and happy, let it go.
And no spoiling for a fight, even entertaining fights.
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Laura,
Seriously, I feel like a gazelle cautiously approaching the water hole, anxiously expecting Timothy Burke to burst out of the bushes.
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All psychological disorders share some features with regular disorders. I’ve been in plenty of seminar halls where a clinician has started to describe the symptoms of ADD or Asberger’s and seen people immediately stop something they were doing (my particular weakness, is rapid leg shaking). I remember an amusing moment listening to a ADD researcher when the whole room got more still after the clinician described the symptoms of ADD. It was kind of like turning down the volume on the motor activity of the adults in the room.
But, the difference between characteristics and disability, though not a black line, is also not the same as saying that everyone just deals with things differently The audience in my example was able to tone their motions down.
(It’s pretty difficult to diagnose Aspergers at all, but I’m pretty I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to diagnose it over internet descriptions, even those as eloquent as Dooce’s.)
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I hate that ad campaign, BTW. I do worry about the attempt to impose sameness on personality, especially in children who don’t have a choice (i.e. the “neurodiversity” movement).
*Some* of the movement is a backlash on our expectations that our children will be superb at everything we want them to do. It’s no longer good enough to be the sporty one, or the science nerd. You have to be the straight-A student, who also letters in a varsity sport, plays a musical instrument at a competitive (not just for fun) level, has lots of friends, and is beautiful. Therapy, lessons, drugs, and plastic surgery all available to create this superkid.
But,I also think some kids need the help, and denying them help (letting them be whatever they default to without assistance is equivalent to letting the sit in a corner and ignoring them).
Ignoring all that, the aid campaign is dreadful, and no one who works with children with autism/add/mental depression should have signed off on it.
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Standing up and clapping, bj.
I don’t get how turning AS/ADD/ADHD into illnesses and diseases will make people run out and give money to an autism center. If you think of a kid as completely wrecked, irrevocable damaged, broken then you might be likely to fund long term institutions, but you’ll see therapy as useless. They might pity the parents, but not do anything for the kid.
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Hear, hear. Labels are powerful and should be used with caution.
I was at a recent neighborhood event where all the parents had had a couple of drinks. One of the dads cracked a joke about a certain (probably Aspergian) kid being “broken”. Laughter all around. Wow.
But you know what? It was really not about the kid. People have more patience for the kid. It’s the mom. I don’t know if she’s undiagnosed Aspergian, or if that’s just a term people use nowadays for someone they find distastefully clueless. Whatever the case it’s true that I never accepted playdate invites from that family. I just did not want to deal with her.
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Laura,
“Functioning” and “happy” are a matter of degree, so it’s hard to say if she’s functioning and happy enough. As I mentioned earlier, she didn’t potty train until just before 4, and only with the help of a very expensive reinforcement program (My Little Ponies, etc.). When I visited her pre-K class last year during their morning meeting, she was the only child that I saw who was usually spaced out and looking away from the reading chart. (Hence my interest in teaching her to read myself.) I haven’t been watching her lately so much, but last year I noticed that she consistently avoided making eye contact. Also, a lot of the time, she doesn’t notice when other kids greet her (I’m working on that), but (coincidentally?) she complains that other kids don’t play with her. I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to observe her with other kids this year, but I have the impression she does better with either younger or older children, but I suppose that’s true of a lot of kids. We have to be careful in correcting her, because she feeds on negative reinforcement in a big way. I started reading a book called “Transforming the Difficult Child” and we had some success following their advice on offering positive reinforcement about 10 times a day. They say that praise for a difficult child is different than for an average child. You wouldn’t say “You didn’t hit your brother much this morning. Fantastic!” to an average child, but it might have to do for a difficult one. “Discussions” with a difficult child over bad behavior can be inadvisable. As Glasser and Easley say in the third chapter, “Some “enlightened” approaches recommend explicitly telling your children how you feel when they act-out. “It Hurts my feelings when you annoy your sister.” these approaches, although potentially effective for the average child, backfire with the intense child. Not only are you explicitly displaying where the buttons are for future use by the difficult child, but you wind up giving payoff: your energy and attention to the problem behavior. Other approaches call for other kinds of lengthy discussions or discourses in relation to the problem behaviors. Any way you slice it, it adds up to more energetic payoffs for exactly the behaviors that you least want to reinforce.”
I’ve got to finish that book and get back with the program. I’ve also got several books on fostering children’s friendships that I need to look at again.
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Unfortunately, I think part of the rush to labeling comes from the hope that it will come with help. If one can provide help drawn from the knowledge of the spectrum of atypicality in neural function, without the label, or even when the label is inappropriate, it’s perfectly OK to do so. Good teachers have always done this — the student they know they have to look at when they give them an instruction, the student who needs a hand on the shoulder in order to incorporate the instruction, . . . . I mean, there’s nothing wrong from teaching children, explicitly the tools used for children on the autism spectrum if it helps them deal with social interactions. Many functional, but neurally atypical (and I think we all are, it’s just a question of where our atypicalities intersect with the functions required of us, as Dave said about ADD) people figure out their mechanisms for themselves.
I think the key is to provide the help for the benefit of the child (both their needs and wants), and that it’s hard to figure that out a lot of the time, with all children. I struggle to help my daughter reach her goals, mostly through trying to separate her goals from mine. For example, she enjoys being the center of attention (being on stage, having everyone listen to her speeches, . . .). Do I enable that, by enrolling her in piano, acting, etc. classes? I do, ’cause I think she wants it. But, it’s easy to see how the line can be crossed (in my case, into my demanding that she perform well for me, and not for her).
The struggle to separate what you want from what your kid wants and what your kid needs is a struggle for parents with kids on all levels of the neurotypicality spectrum.
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AmyP, if you think you’re a gazelle, is Timothy Burke a lion or a hyena? How about Wendy? You got any candidates for 900-lb gorilla? Laura’s Salon got zoological!
bj, yes, I like ‘..where our atypicalities intersect with the functions required of us..’ and I can certainly think of ‘occupations where my #2 might do well as he is – cop, salesman, investment banker, maybe elementary teacher. He will not write the Great American Novel, but the streets of New York are thronging with folks desperate to do that. Doesn’t have the capacity for prolonged patient attention which might make a Sam Maloof furniture maker.
Again, bj, ‘..difference between characteristics and disability, though not a black line, is also not the same as saying that everyone just deals with things differently..’ I think my little guy is sort of at the edge between characteristics and disability. He is functioning in a regular classroom, and got a number of Ds and Fs and a number of As on his last report card. Has many friends, is valued on his soccer team. Tells us lies about whether he has done his homework.
We are trying hard to keep him on the ‘characteristics’ side of the line. Ritalin is very helpful, to him and to those around him.
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