Another P.P.

3. This one is the need of people for a silver bullet or magic pill approach to learning differences. No matter what anyone tells you there is no one "right" answer to these issues. Usually neuro-development, like all health takes a well-thought out approach. No one diet, activity, habit, therapy or medication helps in all ways. Usually all these components need to be considered and balanced with the life, environment and needs of the family as a whole. HANDLE(R)'s "H" stands for Holistic. Systems thinking demands seeing the big picture and the trade offs.

P Ps about P's Ps

#2 The next pet peeve is the very idea that we can actually come close to defining intelligence, measure it in a growing child, and sum it up in a number.

IQ scores, I guess, have a place in the world of measurement. But, let's stop saying that they measure intelligence and stop believing that they are at all meaningful in the education of children.

Standardization also has a place in this world and wise people keep it in its place. But, let's stop thinking that there is much true standardization in the measurement of intelligence tests given to children. Their sleep, food, fear, percpetion, earlier interactions, expectations, developmental maturity and much more interacts and makes nonstandard outcomes.

If machines were being tested, they would be oiled properly, adjusted properly, housed properly to make the test valid. But with kids, only the test is the same and it is considered valid.

Dr Dr. Robert J. Sternberg of Yale University's Educational Psychology had his IQ tested early in school and it was deemed that he was of a low sort. Little was expected of him until in 4th grade his teacher told he that she didn't believe that he was stupid and was going to start expecting as much from him as anyone else. He never looked back. He learned the lesson of standardization: standardization doesn't say much about individual performance, but is best at showing data trends.

Now when I am told that a child's IQ is 40, 60, 80 or even 160, I look at the subtests and attempt to see how neuro-processing might have affected it. If you have poor audio processing, both part of the tests are difficult. If you have visual issues, the performance side can be very low. If your laterality or inner hemispheric integration is weak, processing quickly enough can make you look "slow".

Pet Peeves about People's Paradigms

I know, I know alliteration is a no-no in blogging. But I have liked the term "pet peeve" ever since my daughter made a little elfin creature out of Sculpty clay and gave me my own pet peeve. I call him Alfred.

Oliver's Pet Peeves about People's Paradigms

Paradigm #1: There is psychology and there is physiology and the two are unrelated and need totally different approaches.

The longer I study neuro-development, the more I believe that much of what we perceived as personality is really just an accommodation to our perceptual world and the attendant stress. This may sound materialistic, but in reality we do have choice and creativity with these accommodations, if we are aware of where it starts. Most people think that personality starts in the mysterious area called, "psychology".

For years, psychology has told us that we are affected emotionally by early trauma. Trauma does affect the type and amount of stress that a system receives and can impact many neuro-systems in subtle and overt ways. However, emotions are the feedback systems that tell us how our systems are dealing with stresses.

I once helped with a study trying to find why some people have resilience in the face of great trauma and others do not. At the time the theory was that a dependable adult in the life of a child makes a difference (and of course it usually does.) However, I would bet that a robust neuro-developmental system is even more consistent with resilience.

More "peeves" in future posts.....

Why a blog on Neuro-development?

For the last six years, when I tell people that I am a neuro-developmental specialist, I usually get a blank stare. When I explain that neuro-development deals with discovering perceptual and processing differences in individuals, interest increases. When I remark on my observations of a particular person's perceptual processing, attention is riveted.

We are taught from the very beginning that people are all unique individuals, but these differences are usually considered to be in culture or perspective. Rarely do people consider the differences in our perceptions of reality and how we react to these perceptions. These differences are very real and more defining than ethnic origins or life situations.

In neuro-development we look at stress stimuli (good and bad) and the ability and efficiency of an individual's body/mind system to deal with this stress.

My goals on this blog is to explain and discuss neuro-development and neuro differences as I am able. I do not want to get into specific cases, so if questions, examples or descriptions get too individual, I'll suggest an individual assessment. I do want to write about general concepts and react to related news items of the day.