Passover and Thoughts on Freedom
By Matt Cohen
Tonight, my family gathered to celebrate the Passover Sedar. The sedar commemorates the liberation of the Jews from enslavement by the Pharoh, the parting of the Red Sea and the passage from bondage to freedom, from poverty to the land of milk and honey, from oppression to self-determination. It celebrates the transformation from slavery to freedom, from sorry to joy, from darkness to great light, from bondage to redemption. By leaving the front door open for the Prophet Elijah to join the celebration, it also conveys a message of inclusion, that any one is welcome. That the family, the community, embrace everyone.
We promote inclusion and equality, but most of our wealth is concentrated in the top few percent of the population. Many worry about the national debt and complain about taxes and government programs to assist the poor, those with disabilities, or immigrants from foreign countries. These same critics ignore the underlying values embodied in our Constitution of liberty, justice and equality for all, unless it is their own liberty, freedom or economic position that is threatened.
At a personal level, It happens that this is a time of many transitions for me, for my family, for our society, for the world. We celebrate freedom, but we must not take it for granted. We have many things that are difficult, many changes that are challenging, painful, or worse. Pain and opportunity, instability and possiblity, suffering and adaptation, and the potential to preserve much that is good, learn from mistakes and cope with the pain, while growing and building....many things that hold the potential for more freedom, at the same time that many things constrain our desires and abilities to do what we wish or to have some of what we have cherished in the past.
Whether at a societal level or a personal level, freedom defines the nature of our existence. But many take freedom for granted. Freedom is not permission to be selfish, or a pass to focus on one’s own needs to the detriment of the community. Freedom is not having permission to just do what is best for oneself without regard to the needs of others or the impact of our actions. Freedom carries with it responsibility – to oneself, to one’s family and loved ones, to one’s immediate community, and to the society and world at large. Freedom gives us the right to make choices, but the obligation to make choices responsibly, with awareness of the consequences for others as well as our selves.
Freedom is not free…..it is the most expensive thing there is. We must defend it fiercely, not only for ourselves but for those less powerful, those without a voice, without a house, without a vote, without a choice. Freedom does not mean ignoring others’ needs, rights, desires, but rather acting in a way that balances our own rights and needs with those of those around us.
We have the freedom to disagree, but we must do so in a way that is respectful of the right of the other person to their own opinion. We must respect majority rule, but we must be mindful of the tyranny of the majority, the corruption of power that is too concentrated, the danger that demonizing those who disagree risks stifling an open society, community, or even open communication in a family.
We are free to have children, but we have the responsibility to care for them. We are free to have relationships and marry, but we must be conscious of the needs, rights and autonomy of our partners. Freedom is not a blank check that entitles us to what we want, without regard to others. Freedom is a fine balance between oppression and anarchy, between selfishness and selflessness, between isolation and sacrificing oneself to the community. Freedom is an individual right that is protected by collective commitment. Collective freedom is protected by individual commitment.
The path to the promised land carries with it hard work, compromise, sacrifice and commitment not only to one’s own needs but to the needs of others, not only to one’s own family, but to the family of humanity. The land of milk and honey is not a utopia filled with luxury, but a place where seeds must be planted, flowers watered, weeds pulled, and the fruits of our labor harvested together. The possibility of freedom, real freedom that is not transitory or at the expense of others, necessitates an awareness that freedom is also a form of obligation. We open the door for Elijah as a message that we prepare the meal not only for ourselves but for all that are hungry. We may have to work harder and give up some of own desires at the moment to have enough food to keep the door open for those with less. This seeming sacrifice of our freedom actually helps to preserve opportunity, equality and freedom for all of us. At this moment, freedom may be a burden, even a sacrifice,, but it is also a form of insurance, an investment in the family, community, society and good of humanity, that gives us many things that would not be possible if we only acted for ourselves.
Let us walk together from oppression to freedom, arm and arm, tasting the fruits of our labor and sharing the sweat of our effort. Let us embrace the noble responsibility of freedom, not just the transient pleasure of actions we take in the name of our own freedom and self-fulfillment without regard for others or for the consequences of our actions. Let us walk to the promised land, the land that was promised for all of us, not just some of us. Happy Pesach, Happy Easter. Let these holidays be a celebration of our collective freedom and our commitment to protecting this freedom for all.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
School uses text message to suspend students for alleged drug use
A recent Chicago Tribune article focussed on a massive school district drug crackdown based on confiscating the cell phone of a student suspected of dealing drugs and then tracing all his text messages to other students. See my position on this in the article. I think this this is a gross invasion of student privacy and has the potential for many students to be implicated that may not be guilty of anything worse than trash talk, but it is also a lesson in why kids (and adults) need to be much more careful about what they put in text messages and emails.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-stevenson-drug-probe-20120202,0,1472927.story
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-stevenson-drug-probe-20120202,0,1472927.story
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Beware the IQ Score: New Research Challenges Our Ed Policy and Practice
Beware the IQ Score: New Research on Intellectual Development Challenges Traditional Educational Policy Based on Reliance on IQ Scores and the Assumption that a Person’s Intelligence is a Constant
By Matt Cohen
For over a hundred years, researchers, educators and others have debated about the factors that contribute to human intelligence. It has been generally believed that a person’s intelligence was primarily innate, that is that it was based on their genetic makeup and under most circumstances would remain constant. Intelligence might decline due to severe illness or neurological trauma affecting the brain. It might be subject to some positive influence through early interventions such as Headstart. However, for most people, one’s intellectual ability would remain relatively the same throughout their healthy life. This belief has had an enormous impact on educational policy. Formal and informal tracking systems in regular education and programming and placement strategies for many children with disabilities have been heavily influenced by the belief that one intellectual potential was essentially constant and not significantly related to one’ s education, upbringing, enrichment experiences and other external factors. The possibility that one’s intellectual ability or potential could be positively or negatively influenced by the quality and intensity of education and other positive or negative environmental experiences should dramatically change our commitment to providing more intensive and sustained educational experiences for all children, rather than assuming that the intellectual cake is baked by adolescence, if not earlier In addition, the belief that intellectual ability was constant gave measuring a person’s intelligence n special importance, as it appeared that it was not only possible to assess a person’s intellectual functioning at a particular point in time, but that, barring neurological damage, that assessment was likely to be predictive of the person’s intellectual performance from childhood onward. In other words, your intellectual ability, whether high or low, was essentially thought to be pre-determined. .
Remember that one’s native intelligence or intellectual ability does not equal one’s performance. As well, IQ tests purportedly measure intellectual ability or potential, where academic achievement tests are intended to measure what a person has learned. A person can have high intellectual ability and perform poorly academically. This can occur due to the presence of a learning disability, poor teaching, lack of motivation or many other factors. The converse was generally believed to not occur- one could not generally function academically higher than one’s intellectual potential. The growing recognition that a person’s intellectual ability can be influenced by their academic experience, positively or negatively, undermines some of the key assumptions about how we educate people and how we structure curriculum and resources for education. If a person’s intellectual ability can be substantially improved with higher quality teaching and can be negatively impacted by poor teaching (and other environmental factors), it raises the stakes enormously in relation to the need to provide “the best” or at least “much better” education, as opposed to the minimally adequate education that we often currently provide.
Complicating matters, even assuming that the beliefs about intellectual development are accurate, modern societies and particularly the United States, have attached tremendous importance to the assessment of intelligence and have used IQ scores for everything from kindergarten classroom placement to qualifications for employment. There are even organizations for the intellectually gifted. IQ scores follow us from an early age—either a gold badge of ostensible superiority and promise or a scarlet brand on the forehead—a numerical message that the individual has limited ability for intellectual growth or performance.
Adding insult to injury, there are many problems with the accuracy of IQ testing. The tests are often based on norms (comparison groups) that may not adequately represent all of the people being tested (you can’t predict the IQ of an apple when you are comparing it to the IQ of an orange). They often are dependent on means of testing that do not adequately control for the limitations of the tests. For example, few evaluators would give an IQ test requiring vision to someone that is blind, but many IQ tests requiring language are given to people with language problems and most if not all IQ tests require attention and concentration, though some people that are very bright have problems in these areas.
Our educational, vocational and even social policies are in many ways based on the belief that one’s intelligence is static. Consider the degree to which schools shift from a regular curriculum to a “functional” curriculum for children labeled as mentally retarded. Or that the law allows schools and parents to waive the requirement for three-year reevaluation based on the assumption that the child’s functioning may not have changed much. Or that a high or low IQ scores can entitle one or exclude one from special benefits, from disability benefits for those with developmental disorders to extra accelerated educational programming for students considered to be “gifted.”
Although still a source of controversy, there is a variety of research that also suggests that teacher expectations for students, based to some degree on the perception of the student’s intellectual potential, create a self-fulfilling prophecy that impacts the student’s academic and overall performance. (See for example http://www.education.com/reference/article/teacher-expectations/
and http://american-education.org/1999-self-fulfilling-prophecy.html )
Indeed, it is my suspicion that this phenomenon is present not only among educators, but with parents, families, employers and the society at large. If someone is told that a person is cognitively delayed or intellectually gifted, most people adjust their expectations accordingly. In turn, this often has a significant impact on the person’s self-perception, self-confidence, motivation, and performance. But at the most fundamental level, the assessment of intellectual potential for many people significantly influences the level of information and experience that they are exposed to. The assumptions about the person’s intellectual ability drive the type of academic instruction they receive, the content, rate and intensity of material, the expectations for progress, and even the types of cultural experiences they may have. Does the IQ brand impact performance? It is hard to imagine otherwise. There are many reasons that this is problematic, but especially if the brand is not accurate or reliable.
But new research about intellectual development raises even stronger concerns about the assumption that IQ is static—the assumption that we can take snapshots that allow us to accurately assess it and respond to the individual or groups of individuals based on these assumptions in ways that presume to link the level of instruction, cultural experience and vocational potential to performance predictions based on the IQ scores. This past week, Nature magazine (a UK-based science magazine) published a study indicating that the intellectual ability of students continues to change through their teen years. Cathy Price, at the University College of London, conducted this study on teens between the ages of 12 and 16. Her team found that a teenager’s IQ can rise or fall as much as 20 points over the short span of four years. In the statistical analysis of IQ scores, that 20 point difference in IQ score could represent the difference between a label of average and gifted or average and cognitively impaired. In her study, 20% of participants moved either way on the intelligence scale—showing the ability of experience to alter intelligence. Such changes were found to actually correlate with changes in brain structure. While the study is still new, and its findings require more research for any broad conclusions, it provides hope that intellectual potential may not have the plateau we once thought. Early assessment may not be a telling indicator in all circumstances, which should alter the way we think about education, academic performance, and our children’s potential. This is especially true in relation to children with disabilities, as there are a number of very important educational, programmatic and even procedural decisions that have historically been heavily influenced by our assumptions about the static nature of intelligence.
In light of this research, consider these principles in relation to testing, intelligence and expectations:
1. SHATTER THE INTELLECTUAL GLASS CEILING!
First, if as the research suggests, a child’s cognitive ability (not performance, but actual intellectual ability) can be dramatically influenced by non-physiological factors, we need to rethink our entire approach to educational theory, programming and tracking systems. Rather than assuming that a student with a low IQ scores in elementary school is developmentally consigned to function at a low cognitive level for life, justifying an educational plan that lowers expectations, content, and intensity, there may be renewed basis for raising standards, expectations, and intensity to promote the potential intellectual growth of the student, as well as their academic achievement. If we teach low, this research suggests that we may miss the opportunity to shatter our self-imposed cognitive glass ceiling.
2. DON’T BASE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING DECISIONS ON OUT OF DATE OR INACCURATE SNAPSHOT IQ SCORES OR JUDGEMENTS BASED ON ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE PERSON’S INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL!
Second, the research highlights the tremendous danger in utilizing IQ snapshots, particularly from testing performed when children are in elementary and junior high schools, to track students. The misuse of IQ scores may occur in relation to the determination of whether someone has a cognitive disability or simply based on gradations of ability within the regular education population. By making tracking decisions based on the early IQ scores, or even based on perception of intellectual ability driven by teacher or parent judgment, even without IQ testing, we assure that the students perceived to be less intellectually capable will be provided a lower level of instruction, potentially guaranteeing a lower level of performance by an individual capable of developing further. The new research showing that a child can experience gains or losses in intellectual ability through adolescence, based on environmental and educational (that is, non-medical) factors, calls into question whether the use of IQ tests as a significant, if not controlling, factor in relation to placement and programming decisions violates the IDEA’s protections against misuse of testing. The IDEA provides:
(b) Evaluation Procedures.--….
(2) Conduct of evaluation.--In conducting the evaluation, the local educational agency shall--
(A) use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information, including information provided by the parent, that may assist in determining--
(i) whether the child is a child with a disability; and
(ii) the content of the child's individualized education program, including information related to enabling the child to be involved in and progress in the general education curriculum, or, for preschool children, to participate in appropriate activities;
(B) not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for determining whether a child is a child with a disability or determining an appropriate educational program for the child; and
(C) use technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors.
(3) Additional requirements.--Each local educational agency shall ensure that--
(A) assessments and other evaluation materials used to assess a child under this section--
(i) are selected and administered so as not to be discriminatory on a racial or cultural basis;
(B) the child is assessed in all areas of suspected disability;
(C) assessment tools and strategies that provide relevant information that directly assists persons in determining the educational needs of the child are provided;
20 U.S.C. Sec. 1414 (b)
If a student is capable of experiencing considerable cognitive growth based on their educational experience, it is inconsistent with these provisions to base their programming on a single IQ test or even a set of scores that assume a static level of intellectual functioning. Instead, those scores may offer a baseline for the student’s potential functioning, rather than a ceiling. Educational decisions based on lowering expectations or programming based on these scores become questionable, both educationally and legally.
3. DON’T TRUST IQ TESTS OR SCORES OR LET THEM DEFINE PERCEPTIONS OF A PERSON’S POTENTIAL
In a 1997in an effort to streamline the evaluation/reevaluation process for students receiving special education services, Congress modified the IDEA to eliminate the previously absolute requirement that all students receiving special education services be given a full reevaluation, including new psychological (including intelligence) testing, at least every three years. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1414 (c)(4). Perceiving the testing to be costly, time consuming and sometimes unnecessary for students whose intellectual or other development appeared static, Congress gave schools the option to recommend either reduced or no retesting if they felt that the student’s functioning was generally constant.
34 CFR Sec. 300.303 Reevaluations.
(a) General. A public agency must ensure that a reevaluation of each child with a disability….
(2) Must occur at least once every 3 years, unless the parent and the public agency agree that a reevaluation is unnecessary.
Parents retain the right to insist on full testing, but frequently acquiesce to limited or no testing based on school recommendations, particularly for students with labels of cognitive impairment, due to the belief that their cognitive ability could not vary significantly. But it is important for parents to remember they have the option of insisting on full and up-to-date reevaluations at least every three years. Given the inherent limitations in IQ testing, these reevaluations would often be advisable even in the absence of the new research on brain development. However, in light of the new research, it seems even more important for schools and parents to recognize and implement more frequent, comprehensive periodic reevaluation in order to ensure that the student’s programming is adequately challenging them and giving them the greatest degree of opportunity for intellectual growth and enrichment.
4. WHEN TESTING, PICK TESTS THAT FIT THE STUDENT AND RECOGNIZE THEIR LIMITATIONS
No IQ test can take into account the many variations in individual functioning that affect the accuracy of the testing. For example, many IQ tests rely heavily on language skills. A person may have considerable intellectual ability, but language impairments. A language based IQ test would likely yield a score suggesting low intelligence. However, there are non-verbal IQ tests that would help to control for this. Similarly, there are IQ tests that require less motor skills. It is very important to be sure that IQ tests are actually testing the person’s IQ, and not something else that limits their ability to test.
In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey writes that “Principles are like lighthouses. They are natural laws that cannot be broken….The ‘objective reality,’…is composed of ‘lighthouse’ principles that govern human growth and happiness-natural laws that are woven into the fabric of every civilized society throughout history and comprise the roots of every family and institution that has endured and prospered….[there is] the principle of fairness….of integrity and honesty….of human dignity….of service….of quality or excellence. There is the principle of potential, the idea that we are embryonic and can grow and develop and release more and more potential, develop more and more talents. Highly related to potential is the principle of growth-the process of releasing potential and developing talents, with the accompanying need for principles such as patience, nurturance and encouragement.” (emphasis added)
Covey did not write this in reference to the development of the brain, nor in reference to IQ testing, scores, and the ways that our society sets artificial limits based on lowered expectations. He did not write in reference to our educational system and whether it should be structured based on achieving minimal outcomes or to promoting and nurturing and enhancing each individual’s chance to grow as much as possible. But as I read the passage above, by pure coincidence, as I was in the midst of writing this essay, the connection was unavoidable. OUR BASIC PRINCIPLES, OUR BASIC HUMANITY, DEMAND THAT WE PROMOTE THE FULL POTENTIAL OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL. AN ENHANCED RECOGNITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF EVEN MORE POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH IN EACH OF US ONLY STRENGTHENS THE PRACTICAL AND COMMON SENSE BASIS FOR WHAT IS A MORAL IMPERATIVE – EVERY INDIVIDUAL HAS A RIGHT TO GROW TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL. OUR SCHOOLS, OUR SOCIETY, OUR OWN EXPECTATIONS SHOULD ENCOURAGE THAT, SHOULD INSIST ON THAT AND SHOULD SUPPORT EACH PERSON IN THEIR UNIQUE EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE IT!
By Matt Cohen
For over a hundred years, researchers, educators and others have debated about the factors that contribute to human intelligence. It has been generally believed that a person’s intelligence was primarily innate, that is that it was based on their genetic makeup and under most circumstances would remain constant. Intelligence might decline due to severe illness or neurological trauma affecting the brain. It might be subject to some positive influence through early interventions such as Headstart. However, for most people, one’s intellectual ability would remain relatively the same throughout their healthy life. This belief has had an enormous impact on educational policy. Formal and informal tracking systems in regular education and programming and placement strategies for many children with disabilities have been heavily influenced by the belief that one intellectual potential was essentially constant and not significantly related to one’ s education, upbringing, enrichment experiences and other external factors. The possibility that one’s intellectual ability or potential could be positively or negatively influenced by the quality and intensity of education and other positive or negative environmental experiences should dramatically change our commitment to providing more intensive and sustained educational experiences for all children, rather than assuming that the intellectual cake is baked by adolescence, if not earlier In addition, the belief that intellectual ability was constant gave measuring a person’s intelligence n special importance, as it appeared that it was not only possible to assess a person’s intellectual functioning at a particular point in time, but that, barring neurological damage, that assessment was likely to be predictive of the person’s intellectual performance from childhood onward. In other words, your intellectual ability, whether high or low, was essentially thought to be pre-determined. .
Remember that one’s native intelligence or intellectual ability does not equal one’s performance. As well, IQ tests purportedly measure intellectual ability or potential, where academic achievement tests are intended to measure what a person has learned. A person can have high intellectual ability and perform poorly academically. This can occur due to the presence of a learning disability, poor teaching, lack of motivation or many other factors. The converse was generally believed to not occur- one could not generally function academically higher than one’s intellectual potential. The growing recognition that a person’s intellectual ability can be influenced by their academic experience, positively or negatively, undermines some of the key assumptions about how we educate people and how we structure curriculum and resources for education. If a person’s intellectual ability can be substantially improved with higher quality teaching and can be negatively impacted by poor teaching (and other environmental factors), it raises the stakes enormously in relation to the need to provide “the best” or at least “much better” education, as opposed to the minimally adequate education that we often currently provide.
Complicating matters, even assuming that the beliefs about intellectual development are accurate, modern societies and particularly the United States, have attached tremendous importance to the assessment of intelligence and have used IQ scores for everything from kindergarten classroom placement to qualifications for employment. There are even organizations for the intellectually gifted. IQ scores follow us from an early age—either a gold badge of ostensible superiority and promise or a scarlet brand on the forehead—a numerical message that the individual has limited ability for intellectual growth or performance.
Adding insult to injury, there are many problems with the accuracy of IQ testing. The tests are often based on norms (comparison groups) that may not adequately represent all of the people being tested (you can’t predict the IQ of an apple when you are comparing it to the IQ of an orange). They often are dependent on means of testing that do not adequately control for the limitations of the tests. For example, few evaluators would give an IQ test requiring vision to someone that is blind, but many IQ tests requiring language are given to people with language problems and most if not all IQ tests require attention and concentration, though some people that are very bright have problems in these areas.
Our educational, vocational and even social policies are in many ways based on the belief that one’s intelligence is static. Consider the degree to which schools shift from a regular curriculum to a “functional” curriculum for children labeled as mentally retarded. Or that the law allows schools and parents to waive the requirement for three-year reevaluation based on the assumption that the child’s functioning may not have changed much. Or that a high or low IQ scores can entitle one or exclude one from special benefits, from disability benefits for those with developmental disorders to extra accelerated educational programming for students considered to be “gifted.”
Although still a source of controversy, there is a variety of research that also suggests that teacher expectations for students, based to some degree on the perception of the student’s intellectual potential, create a self-fulfilling prophecy that impacts the student’s academic and overall performance. (See for example http://www.education.com/reference/article/teacher-expectations/
and http://american-education.org/1999-self-fulfilling-prophecy.html )
Indeed, it is my suspicion that this phenomenon is present not only among educators, but with parents, families, employers and the society at large. If someone is told that a person is cognitively delayed or intellectually gifted, most people adjust their expectations accordingly. In turn, this often has a significant impact on the person’s self-perception, self-confidence, motivation, and performance. But at the most fundamental level, the assessment of intellectual potential for many people significantly influences the level of information and experience that they are exposed to. The assumptions about the person’s intellectual ability drive the type of academic instruction they receive, the content, rate and intensity of material, the expectations for progress, and even the types of cultural experiences they may have. Does the IQ brand impact performance? It is hard to imagine otherwise. There are many reasons that this is problematic, but especially if the brand is not accurate or reliable.
But new research about intellectual development raises even stronger concerns about the assumption that IQ is static—the assumption that we can take snapshots that allow us to accurately assess it and respond to the individual or groups of individuals based on these assumptions in ways that presume to link the level of instruction, cultural experience and vocational potential to performance predictions based on the IQ scores. This past week, Nature magazine (a UK-based science magazine) published a study indicating that the intellectual ability of students continues to change through their teen years. Cathy Price, at the University College of London, conducted this study on teens between the ages of 12 and 16. Her team found that a teenager’s IQ can rise or fall as much as 20 points over the short span of four years. In the statistical analysis of IQ scores, that 20 point difference in IQ score could represent the difference between a label of average and gifted or average and cognitively impaired. In her study, 20% of participants moved either way on the intelligence scale—showing the ability of experience to alter intelligence. Such changes were found to actually correlate with changes in brain structure. While the study is still new, and its findings require more research for any broad conclusions, it provides hope that intellectual potential may not have the plateau we once thought. Early assessment may not be a telling indicator in all circumstances, which should alter the way we think about education, academic performance, and our children’s potential. This is especially true in relation to children with disabilities, as there are a number of very important educational, programmatic and even procedural decisions that have historically been heavily influenced by our assumptions about the static nature of intelligence.
In light of this research, consider these principles in relation to testing, intelligence and expectations:
1. SHATTER THE INTELLECTUAL GLASS CEILING!
First, if as the research suggests, a child’s cognitive ability (not performance, but actual intellectual ability) can be dramatically influenced by non-physiological factors, we need to rethink our entire approach to educational theory, programming and tracking systems. Rather than assuming that a student with a low IQ scores in elementary school is developmentally consigned to function at a low cognitive level for life, justifying an educational plan that lowers expectations, content, and intensity, there may be renewed basis for raising standards, expectations, and intensity to promote the potential intellectual growth of the student, as well as their academic achievement. If we teach low, this research suggests that we may miss the opportunity to shatter our self-imposed cognitive glass ceiling.
2. DON’T BASE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING DECISIONS ON OUT OF DATE OR INACCURATE SNAPSHOT IQ SCORES OR JUDGEMENTS BASED ON ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE PERSON’S INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL!
Second, the research highlights the tremendous danger in utilizing IQ snapshots, particularly from testing performed when children are in elementary and junior high schools, to track students. The misuse of IQ scores may occur in relation to the determination of whether someone has a cognitive disability or simply based on gradations of ability within the regular education population. By making tracking decisions based on the early IQ scores, or even based on perception of intellectual ability driven by teacher or parent judgment, even without IQ testing, we assure that the students perceived to be less intellectually capable will be provided a lower level of instruction, potentially guaranteeing a lower level of performance by an individual capable of developing further. The new research showing that a child can experience gains or losses in intellectual ability through adolescence, based on environmental and educational (that is, non-medical) factors, calls into question whether the use of IQ tests as a significant, if not controlling, factor in relation to placement and programming decisions violates the IDEA’s protections against misuse of testing. The IDEA provides:
(b) Evaluation Procedures.--….
(2) Conduct of evaluation.--In conducting the evaluation, the local educational agency shall--
(A) use a variety of assessment tools and strategies to gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information, including information provided by the parent, that may assist in determining--
(i) whether the child is a child with a disability; and
(ii) the content of the child's individualized education program, including information related to enabling the child to be involved in and progress in the general education curriculum, or, for preschool children, to participate in appropriate activities;
(B) not use any single measure or assessment as the sole criterion for determining whether a child is a child with a disability or determining an appropriate educational program for the child; and
(C) use technically sound instruments that may assess the relative contribution of cognitive and behavioral factors, in addition to physical or developmental factors.
(3) Additional requirements.--Each local educational agency shall ensure that--
(A) assessments and other evaluation materials used to assess a child under this section--
(i) are selected and administered so as not to be discriminatory on a racial or cultural basis;
(B) the child is assessed in all areas of suspected disability;
(C) assessment tools and strategies that provide relevant information that directly assists persons in determining the educational needs of the child are provided;
20 U.S.C. Sec. 1414 (b)
If a student is capable of experiencing considerable cognitive growth based on their educational experience, it is inconsistent with these provisions to base their programming on a single IQ test or even a set of scores that assume a static level of intellectual functioning. Instead, those scores may offer a baseline for the student’s potential functioning, rather than a ceiling. Educational decisions based on lowering expectations or programming based on these scores become questionable, both educationally and legally.
3. DON’T TRUST IQ TESTS OR SCORES OR LET THEM DEFINE PERCEPTIONS OF A PERSON’S POTENTIAL
In a 1997in an effort to streamline the evaluation/reevaluation process for students receiving special education services, Congress modified the IDEA to eliminate the previously absolute requirement that all students receiving special education services be given a full reevaluation, including new psychological (including intelligence) testing, at least every three years. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1414 (c)(4). Perceiving the testing to be costly, time consuming and sometimes unnecessary for students whose intellectual or other development appeared static, Congress gave schools the option to recommend either reduced or no retesting if they felt that the student’s functioning was generally constant.
34 CFR Sec. 300.303 Reevaluations.
(a) General. A public agency must ensure that a reevaluation of each child with a disability….
(2) Must occur at least once every 3 years, unless the parent and the public agency agree that a reevaluation is unnecessary.
Parents retain the right to insist on full testing, but frequently acquiesce to limited or no testing based on school recommendations, particularly for students with labels of cognitive impairment, due to the belief that their cognitive ability could not vary significantly. But it is important for parents to remember they have the option of insisting on full and up-to-date reevaluations at least every three years. Given the inherent limitations in IQ testing, these reevaluations would often be advisable even in the absence of the new research on brain development. However, in light of the new research, it seems even more important for schools and parents to recognize and implement more frequent, comprehensive periodic reevaluation in order to ensure that the student’s programming is adequately challenging them and giving them the greatest degree of opportunity for intellectual growth and enrichment.
4. WHEN TESTING, PICK TESTS THAT FIT THE STUDENT AND RECOGNIZE THEIR LIMITATIONS
No IQ test can take into account the many variations in individual functioning that affect the accuracy of the testing. For example, many IQ tests rely heavily on language skills. A person may have considerable intellectual ability, but language impairments. A language based IQ test would likely yield a score suggesting low intelligence. However, there are non-verbal IQ tests that would help to control for this. Similarly, there are IQ tests that require less motor skills. It is very important to be sure that IQ tests are actually testing the person’s IQ, and not something else that limits their ability to test.
In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey writes that “Principles are like lighthouses. They are natural laws that cannot be broken….The ‘objective reality,’…is composed of ‘lighthouse’ principles that govern human growth and happiness-natural laws that are woven into the fabric of every civilized society throughout history and comprise the roots of every family and institution that has endured and prospered….[there is] the principle of fairness….of integrity and honesty….of human dignity….of service….of quality or excellence. There is the principle of potential, the idea that we are embryonic and can grow and develop and release more and more potential, develop more and more talents. Highly related to potential is the principle of growth-the process of releasing potential and developing talents, with the accompanying need for principles such as patience, nurturance and encouragement.” (emphasis added)
Covey did not write this in reference to the development of the brain, nor in reference to IQ testing, scores, and the ways that our society sets artificial limits based on lowered expectations. He did not write in reference to our educational system and whether it should be structured based on achieving minimal outcomes or to promoting and nurturing and enhancing each individual’s chance to grow as much as possible. But as I read the passage above, by pure coincidence, as I was in the midst of writing this essay, the connection was unavoidable. OUR BASIC PRINCIPLES, OUR BASIC HUMANITY, DEMAND THAT WE PROMOTE THE FULL POTENTIAL OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL. AN ENHANCED RECOGNITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF EVEN MORE POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH IN EACH OF US ONLY STRENGTHENS THE PRACTICAL AND COMMON SENSE BASIS FOR WHAT IS A MORAL IMPERATIVE – EVERY INDIVIDUAL HAS A RIGHT TO GROW TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL. OUR SCHOOLS, OUR SOCIETY, OUR OWN EXPECTATIONS SHOULD ENCOURAGE THAT, SHOULD INSIST ON THAT AND SHOULD SUPPORT EACH PERSON IN THEIR UNIQUE EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE IT!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
What, No Recess???!!! - Blowing Off Steam and the “Right” to Exercise for Kids with AD/HD – Countering a Knee Jerk School Punishment”
“
(Appearing in Fall, 2011 issue of ADDitude Magazine,
www.ADDitudemag.com).
by Matt Cohen, J.D.
“What, no recess!!!!” Johnny screams after being told that he will not be able to participate in recess because he talked in class without raising his hand.
“What, no recess!!!” Rachel stammered, after being told that she couldn’t have recess because she hadn’t earned enough points on her behavior chart for completing her classwork on time because she was too distracted.
“What, no recess,” Matt cried, because he kept getting up to go to the bathroom and the class behavior plan said that all students lost recess if they got out of their seat more than once during class.
There is lots of research showing that exercise and physical activity help students improve academic performance and behavior.
A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control supports this:
“School boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers can feel confident that providing recess to students on a regular basis may benefit academic behaviors, while also facilitating social development and contributing to overall physical activity and its associated health benefits. There was no evidence that time spent in recess had a negative association with cognitive skills, attitudes, or academic behavior.” http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/health_and_academics/
pdf/pa-pe_paper.pdf (July, 2010)
Recess is good for kids. Does it make sense to use it as punishment or require that it be earned?
NO!!!!!! Research confirms the importance of recess and extra physical activity for kids WITH AD/HD! A study in a school psychology journal concluded:
“Results showed that levels of inappropriate behavior were consistently higher on days when participants (with AD/HD) did not have recess, compared with days when they did have recess. Results also showed that the level of inappropriate behavior for all participants progressively increased over time on days when they did not have recess. However, this progressive increase did not occur on days when the participants had recess.”
Effects of Recess on the Classroom Behavior of Children With and Without AD/HD.
Ridgway, School Psychology Quarterly, Vol 18(3), Fall, 2003, 253-268.
KIDS WITH AD/HD ARE LIKELY TO BEHAVE BETTER AND BE MORE ENGAGED ACADEMICALLY WITH RECESS AND OTHER PHYSICAL EXERCISE. LINKING RECESS TO REWARDS OR PUNISHMENTS DOESN’T MAKE EDUCATIONAL SENSE!
Unfortunately, the federal special education or disability laws do not explicitly address a right to recess. However, apart from the research and common sense arguments for kids with AD/HD need recess, the federal laws support the right to recess for kids with AD/HD and related disabilities.
First, every child with an IEP or Section 504 plan is entitled to an individual program, designed to meet their needs, including accommodations and special supports. For many kids with AD/HD, there is a need for at least equal, if not even more opportunities for exercise, then for typical students. If the activity is needed for the child to benefit from education, it should be provided, not withheld.
Second, the IEP should include “positive behavior interventions and supports.” If a student needs recess in order to help them stay on task or discharge excess energy, it should be written in to the IEP as a part of the student’s accommodations and/or behavior plan.
Third, when schools are developing behavior plans or administering discipline, they should do a functional analysis of the relationship of the student’s disability to the behavior, including whether they may need recess or if removing it makes things worse. Research shows that depriving a student of recess is unlikely to promote positive behavior and may result in increased inappropriate behavior.
Finally, Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of the nature or severity of a student’s disability and requires that students with disabilities be given equal access to school programs and activities. Excluding a student from recess for behavior relating to their AD/HD may be discriminatory because they are being punished based on their disability.
Parents and educators should promote recess and additional breaks as a positive support for children with AD/HD, rather than something that must be earned or can be removed as a punishment. That not only conforms to the provisions of federal law, it makes good sense!
Matt Cohen provides legal representation to children, adults and families with AD/HD and other disabilities in Chicago. He writes and speaks frequently on AD/HD, special education and disability issues throughout the US.
mdcspedlaw@gmail.com disablethelabels.blogspot.com
Phone: 312-961-4179
This article is not intended as legal advice. If you have a problem with your child’s school, you should seek informed leg
(Appearing in Fall, 2011 issue of ADDitude Magazine,
www.ADDitudemag.com).
by Matt Cohen, J.D.
“What, no recess!!!!” Johnny screams after being told that he will not be able to participate in recess because he talked in class without raising his hand.
“What, no recess!!!” Rachel stammered, after being told that she couldn’t have recess because she hadn’t earned enough points on her behavior chart for completing her classwork on time because she was too distracted.
“What, no recess,” Matt cried, because he kept getting up to go to the bathroom and the class behavior plan said that all students lost recess if they got out of their seat more than once during class.
There is lots of research showing that exercise and physical activity help students improve academic performance and behavior.
A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control supports this:
“School boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers can feel confident that providing recess to students on a regular basis may benefit academic behaviors, while also facilitating social development and contributing to overall physical activity and its associated health benefits. There was no evidence that time spent in recess had a negative association with cognitive skills, attitudes, or academic behavior.” http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/health_and_academics/
pdf/pa-pe_paper.pdf (July, 2010)
Recess is good for kids. Does it make sense to use it as punishment or require that it be earned?
NO!!!!!! Research confirms the importance of recess and extra physical activity for kids WITH AD/HD! A study in a school psychology journal concluded:
“Results showed that levels of inappropriate behavior were consistently higher on days when participants (with AD/HD) did not have recess, compared with days when they did have recess. Results also showed that the level of inappropriate behavior for all participants progressively increased over time on days when they did not have recess. However, this progressive increase did not occur on days when the participants had recess.”
Effects of Recess on the Classroom Behavior of Children With and Without AD/HD.
Ridgway, School Psychology Quarterly, Vol 18(3), Fall, 2003, 253-268.
KIDS WITH AD/HD ARE LIKELY TO BEHAVE BETTER AND BE MORE ENGAGED ACADEMICALLY WITH RECESS AND OTHER PHYSICAL EXERCISE. LINKING RECESS TO REWARDS OR PUNISHMENTS DOESN’T MAKE EDUCATIONAL SENSE!
Unfortunately, the federal special education or disability laws do not explicitly address a right to recess. However, apart from the research and common sense arguments for kids with AD/HD need recess, the federal laws support the right to recess for kids with AD/HD and related disabilities.
First, every child with an IEP or Section 504 plan is entitled to an individual program, designed to meet their needs, including accommodations and special supports. For many kids with AD/HD, there is a need for at least equal, if not even more opportunities for exercise, then for typical students. If the activity is needed for the child to benefit from education, it should be provided, not withheld.
Second, the IEP should include “positive behavior interventions and supports.” If a student needs recess in order to help them stay on task or discharge excess energy, it should be written in to the IEP as a part of the student’s accommodations and/or behavior plan.
Third, when schools are developing behavior plans or administering discipline, they should do a functional analysis of the relationship of the student’s disability to the behavior, including whether they may need recess or if removing it makes things worse. Research shows that depriving a student of recess is unlikely to promote positive behavior and may result in increased inappropriate behavior.
Finally, Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of the nature or severity of a student’s disability and requires that students with disabilities be given equal access to school programs and activities. Excluding a student from recess for behavior relating to their AD/HD may be discriminatory because they are being punished based on their disability.
Parents and educators should promote recess and additional breaks as a positive support for children with AD/HD, rather than something that must be earned or can be removed as a punishment. That not only conforms to the provisions of federal law, it makes good sense!
Matt Cohen provides legal representation to children, adults and families with AD/HD and other disabilities in Chicago. He writes and speaks frequently on AD/HD, special education and disability issues throughout the US.
mdcspedlaw@gmail.com disablethelabels.blogspot.com
Phone: 312-961-4179
This article is not intended as legal advice. If you have a problem with your child’s school, you should seek informed leg
Sunday, September 11, 2011
“I Don’t Want to Be Pushy, but…..” – Ten Ideas for Parents AND Educators to Help Deal with the Start of School
“I Don’t Want to Be Pushy, but…..” – Ten Ideas for Parents AND Educators to Help Deal with the Start of School
By Matt Cohen
September 11, 2011
We leave in an age when schools are underfunded, saddled with expectations that are difficult for them to fulfill, loads of scrutiny using arbitrary test measures, and inadequate training for teachers to cope with the demands that are placed on them. And then there are “those pushy parents.” Parents that actually want to contribute to the development of their child’s IEP. Parents that want to know how their child is doing. Parents that want to get meaningful feedback from the staff and perhaps even observe the classroom from time to time. Parents that want to know why their child isn’t making progress on their goals and objectives or why promised services aren’t being delivered. Parents that ask questions at IEP meetings or even in between IEP meetings. Parents that may even have special knowledge about their child that might be helpful in teaching the student or in working with them more effectively. Parents that are actually interested in volunteering in the classroom. Oh, my God!!!!!!!
Those pushy parents!!!! A scarlet letter quickly gets branded on their foreheads – watch out for them, they are “pushy parents.”
It is no surprise that this happens, as teachers feel unsupported by parents and administrators, overloaded by paperwork, unprepared to cope with some of the demands of their students, let alone of parents, embattled and unappreciated. The quality (or inadequacy) of American education is now an ongoing political issue. It can’t feel good to go home and turn on the tv to have politicians and talking heads blasting away night after night.
But the result is a phenomenon I call “Pushy Parent Hypersensitivity Syndrome.” This syndrome leads some educators to react defensively to any efforts by parents to become more involved, seek more information, make suggestions, or just come to observe. Clearly, some parents over do it, seeking to micromanage every thing about their child’s education, down to correcting the teacher’s grammar or insisting on being called every day. But “Pushy Parent Hypersensitivity Syndrome” causes many educators to react to even highly appropriate efforts by parents, even very limited efforts by parents, to get involved, to participate or, god forbid, to share a concern about something that is happening. PPHS results in reluctance to take phone calls, refusal to respond to emails, rigid time schedules for meetings when more time is needed, involvement of administrators when direct communication would be better, even restrictions on the parents’ ability to communicate with staff or visit the school. This syndrome usually escalates to a point of Mutually Assured Distrust, for as the educators shut down and become more defensive, the parents become more concerned, more frustrated, and feel greater need to be assertive, demanding and ultimately adversarial.
So as this new school year starts, here are some suggestions for both PARENTS AND EDUCATORS for avoiding PUSHY PARENT HYPERSENSITIVITY SYNDROME and MUTUALLY ASSURED DISTRUST!
1) COMMUNICATE OPENLY AND OFTEN ABOUT POSITIVES. Not only does the child need to feel good, but the parents and teachers need to feel good. Open and positive communication is the best vehicle for building cooperation and rapport.
2) SEEK AND WELCOME OPPORTUNITIES FOR HELP. Parents should make clear their desire to assist and support the educational staff, whether volunteering in the classroom, on field trips, or at school events. Teachers should seek out and embrace this involvement. In this era of limited and declining resources, who couldn’t use more help.
3) RECOGNIZE THAT THIS CHILD IS THE PARENTS’ MOST IMPORTANT CONCERN AND THAT THE TEACHER CAN AND SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS CHILD BUT CONCERNED ABOUT ALL OF HIS/HER STUDENTS. This is a message that both parties need to understand in both directions. It is important for the teacher to understand and value the parents’ concern for THEIR child and convey appreciation for that concern. It is also important for parents to recognize that no one can have the level of concern they do for their own child. They should expect appropriate and sincere concern for their child from the staff, but not that the staff will have equal concern or ignore their responsibilities for other students.
4) DON’T MAKE IT PERSONAL/TRY NOT TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY. It is is for people to feel ignored, devalued or attacked. For parents, this may happen if they feel their child is being mistreated or given insufficient attention or support, or is being treated disrespectfully. For teachers, this may result from something as simple as the parent asking the teacher their qualifications or years of experience or experience with a particular teaching method or computer system. It is easy to feel hurt, injured or angry. Try to avoid reacting to the impression or emotion that is perceived or implied. Try to focus on the actual problem. And if there seems to be inappropriate or miscommunication, try to clear the air as quickly as possible.
5) IT IS BETTER TO SOLVE SMALL PROBLEMS NOW, THEN TO HAVE THEM BECOME BIG PROBLEMS LATER.
It is important to work on relationships and communication all the time. Little problems can build into big problems if they are not addressed. For both the parent and the school, this is made more complicated because the parent remains involved throughout, but the teacher inherits whatever problems have occurred in the past. Try to start each year fresh. Don’t ignore prior problems, but try to allow for a new start and to repair whatever problems were present before. It can be helpful to acknowledge these issues and try to address them and move on, rather than pretending they weren’t present.
6) PICK YOUR BATTLES! WORK FOR AGREEMENT, EVEN IF IT REQUIRES COMPROMISE.
The converse of number six is that sometimes, the parent or educator may get hung up on minor issues that are not worth fighting over. Rule 5 is important, but it is also important to be selective about the things you are concerned about and address with the other party. Especially if things are getting tense, it can be easy to overreact, react to things that aren’t high priority or react in a way that aggravates the problem, rather than promoting a solution.
It is almost always preferable to work together, rather than to be in conflict. Even if compromise is needed on both sides, a plan or process that everyone supports is far more likely to succeed than one that is forced on someone or that is done without real commitment.
7) BE SMART AND RESPECTFUL ABOUT SOLVING PROBLEMS.
Some special education disputes may involve legitimate issues where the parties just disagree. Many get tangled up with communication issues, personality, trust, competence, motivation and emotion. Where individual competence, motivation or conduct is at stake, it is often best to try to work out issues individually first. If that doesn’t work, try talking to a supervisor or the parent in an informal setting. Saving face is important for everybody. Public confrontations are generally more likely to polarize, rather than to bring people together. Unfortunately, if informal means are unsuccessful, it is also important to go through formal procedures and make sure that concerns are documented.
8) TRY TO PUT YOURSELF IN THE OTHER PERSON’S SHOES.
Everyone involved in this process may be experiencing stress or pressures about the process and the outcome. Often, there are other things happening that may not be known to the other party that also cause problems, stress, limit options or influence how the person comes across or what they can do. Try to imagine the situation from their perspective. It is especially important for educators to imagine what they would do if they were in the parents’ situation and all the issues the parents must be facing in trying to help their child. But the parents should also go through that process, rather than making assumptions about the educators.
9) AVOID SURPRISES.
Sharing important information at the last minute, or worse, in the midst of an IEP meeting, generally triggers a negative reaction in the person receiving the information. It also consumes valuable time for the other person to even process and understand the information. Often, because the person is upset at being surprised, they may respond with anger and be unable to even address the information in a meaningful way. This is particularly important when the school is sharing major new information about a child’s diagnosis, new difficulties, or need for some other program. Parents hearing this type of information for the first time in an IEP meeting are very likely to feel hurt, victimized and overwhelmed. Imagine being told that your child is failing or has a new or different disability when you thought the meeting was just a routine meeting. Similarly, parents may trigger hostility and resistance when they bring in new clinical information or a dramatic change in desired plans for the child without any advance discussion with any of the school staff. Everyone is more able to focus on the real issues when they are aware of them, rather than surprised by them.
10) DON’T FORGET THE CHILD.
Often, the adults involved in decision-making concerning the child can easily become caught up in their own agendas, in personalities, in emotions, and in issues of power, control, and ego. It is easy for the child and the child’s needs to get lost. All the adults, parents and educators, need to be aware of their own agendas and emotions and keep them in check. The goal is to meet the child’s needs, not to make a point, establish control, or win a moral, financial, political or emotional victory.
Copyright, Matthew D. Cohen, September 11, 2011. May be reprinted with the author’s written consent.
By Matt Cohen
September 11, 2011
We leave in an age when schools are underfunded, saddled with expectations that are difficult for them to fulfill, loads of scrutiny using arbitrary test measures, and inadequate training for teachers to cope with the demands that are placed on them. And then there are “those pushy parents.” Parents that actually want to contribute to the development of their child’s IEP. Parents that want to know how their child is doing. Parents that want to get meaningful feedback from the staff and perhaps even observe the classroom from time to time. Parents that want to know why their child isn’t making progress on their goals and objectives or why promised services aren’t being delivered. Parents that ask questions at IEP meetings or even in between IEP meetings. Parents that may even have special knowledge about their child that might be helpful in teaching the student or in working with them more effectively. Parents that are actually interested in volunteering in the classroom. Oh, my God!!!!!!!
Those pushy parents!!!! A scarlet letter quickly gets branded on their foreheads – watch out for them, they are “pushy parents.”
It is no surprise that this happens, as teachers feel unsupported by parents and administrators, overloaded by paperwork, unprepared to cope with some of the demands of their students, let alone of parents, embattled and unappreciated. The quality (or inadequacy) of American education is now an ongoing political issue. It can’t feel good to go home and turn on the tv to have politicians and talking heads blasting away night after night.
But the result is a phenomenon I call “Pushy Parent Hypersensitivity Syndrome.” This syndrome leads some educators to react defensively to any efforts by parents to become more involved, seek more information, make suggestions, or just come to observe. Clearly, some parents over do it, seeking to micromanage every thing about their child’s education, down to correcting the teacher’s grammar or insisting on being called every day. But “Pushy Parent Hypersensitivity Syndrome” causes many educators to react to even highly appropriate efforts by parents, even very limited efforts by parents, to get involved, to participate or, god forbid, to share a concern about something that is happening. PPHS results in reluctance to take phone calls, refusal to respond to emails, rigid time schedules for meetings when more time is needed, involvement of administrators when direct communication would be better, even restrictions on the parents’ ability to communicate with staff or visit the school. This syndrome usually escalates to a point of Mutually Assured Distrust, for as the educators shut down and become more defensive, the parents become more concerned, more frustrated, and feel greater need to be assertive, demanding and ultimately adversarial.
So as this new school year starts, here are some suggestions for both PARENTS AND EDUCATORS for avoiding PUSHY PARENT HYPERSENSITIVITY SYNDROME and MUTUALLY ASSURED DISTRUST!
1) COMMUNICATE OPENLY AND OFTEN ABOUT POSITIVES. Not only does the child need to feel good, but the parents and teachers need to feel good. Open and positive communication is the best vehicle for building cooperation and rapport.
2) SEEK AND WELCOME OPPORTUNITIES FOR HELP. Parents should make clear their desire to assist and support the educational staff, whether volunteering in the classroom, on field trips, or at school events. Teachers should seek out and embrace this involvement. In this era of limited and declining resources, who couldn’t use more help.
3) RECOGNIZE THAT THIS CHILD IS THE PARENTS’ MOST IMPORTANT CONCERN AND THAT THE TEACHER CAN AND SHOULD BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS CHILD BUT CONCERNED ABOUT ALL OF HIS/HER STUDENTS. This is a message that both parties need to understand in both directions. It is important for the teacher to understand and value the parents’ concern for THEIR child and convey appreciation for that concern. It is also important for parents to recognize that no one can have the level of concern they do for their own child. They should expect appropriate and sincere concern for their child from the staff, but not that the staff will have equal concern or ignore their responsibilities for other students.
4) DON’T MAKE IT PERSONAL/TRY NOT TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY. It is is for people to feel ignored, devalued or attacked. For parents, this may happen if they feel their child is being mistreated or given insufficient attention or support, or is being treated disrespectfully. For teachers, this may result from something as simple as the parent asking the teacher their qualifications or years of experience or experience with a particular teaching method or computer system. It is easy to feel hurt, injured or angry. Try to avoid reacting to the impression or emotion that is perceived or implied. Try to focus on the actual problem. And if there seems to be inappropriate or miscommunication, try to clear the air as quickly as possible.
5) IT IS BETTER TO SOLVE SMALL PROBLEMS NOW, THEN TO HAVE THEM BECOME BIG PROBLEMS LATER.
It is important to work on relationships and communication all the time. Little problems can build into big problems if they are not addressed. For both the parent and the school, this is made more complicated because the parent remains involved throughout, but the teacher inherits whatever problems have occurred in the past. Try to start each year fresh. Don’t ignore prior problems, but try to allow for a new start and to repair whatever problems were present before. It can be helpful to acknowledge these issues and try to address them and move on, rather than pretending they weren’t present.
6) PICK YOUR BATTLES! WORK FOR AGREEMENT, EVEN IF IT REQUIRES COMPROMISE.
The converse of number six is that sometimes, the parent or educator may get hung up on minor issues that are not worth fighting over. Rule 5 is important, but it is also important to be selective about the things you are concerned about and address with the other party. Especially if things are getting tense, it can be easy to overreact, react to things that aren’t high priority or react in a way that aggravates the problem, rather than promoting a solution.
It is almost always preferable to work together, rather than to be in conflict. Even if compromise is needed on both sides, a plan or process that everyone supports is far more likely to succeed than one that is forced on someone or that is done without real commitment.
7) BE SMART AND RESPECTFUL ABOUT SOLVING PROBLEMS.
Some special education disputes may involve legitimate issues where the parties just disagree. Many get tangled up with communication issues, personality, trust, competence, motivation and emotion. Where individual competence, motivation or conduct is at stake, it is often best to try to work out issues individually first. If that doesn’t work, try talking to a supervisor or the parent in an informal setting. Saving face is important for everybody. Public confrontations are generally more likely to polarize, rather than to bring people together. Unfortunately, if informal means are unsuccessful, it is also important to go through formal procedures and make sure that concerns are documented.
8) TRY TO PUT YOURSELF IN THE OTHER PERSON’S SHOES.
Everyone involved in this process may be experiencing stress or pressures about the process and the outcome. Often, there are other things happening that may not be known to the other party that also cause problems, stress, limit options or influence how the person comes across or what they can do. Try to imagine the situation from their perspective. It is especially important for educators to imagine what they would do if they were in the parents’ situation and all the issues the parents must be facing in trying to help their child. But the parents should also go through that process, rather than making assumptions about the educators.
9) AVOID SURPRISES.
Sharing important information at the last minute, or worse, in the midst of an IEP meeting, generally triggers a negative reaction in the person receiving the information. It also consumes valuable time for the other person to even process and understand the information. Often, because the person is upset at being surprised, they may respond with anger and be unable to even address the information in a meaningful way. This is particularly important when the school is sharing major new information about a child’s diagnosis, new difficulties, or need for some other program. Parents hearing this type of information for the first time in an IEP meeting are very likely to feel hurt, victimized and overwhelmed. Imagine being told that your child is failing or has a new or different disability when you thought the meeting was just a routine meeting. Similarly, parents may trigger hostility and resistance when they bring in new clinical information or a dramatic change in desired plans for the child without any advance discussion with any of the school staff. Everyone is more able to focus on the real issues when they are aware of them, rather than surprised by them.
10) DON’T FORGET THE CHILD.
Often, the adults involved in decision-making concerning the child can easily become caught up in their own agendas, in personalities, in emotions, and in issues of power, control, and ego. It is easy for the child and the child’s needs to get lost. All the adults, parents and educators, need to be aware of their own agendas and emotions and keep them in check. The goal is to meet the child’s needs, not to make a point, establish control, or win a moral, financial, political or emotional victory.
Copyright, Matthew D. Cohen, September 11, 2011. May be reprinted with the author’s written consent.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual- Modern Techno Edition by Matt Cohen
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – Modern Techno Edition
Copyright by Matt Cohen, September 3, 2011 on behalf of the
American Psyberatric Association
104.50 Too Many Techno Toys Disorder:
Characterized by a need to acquire the latest and greatest communication device, each of which has unique advantages, and each of which uses a different mode of communication. This individual typically experiences a strong sense of inadequacy, jealousy, anxiety and incompleteness if they do not have the latest and newest device. Normal inhibitory process is defeated by the need to acquire the newest devices, regardless of need or resources. This disorder creates functional problems due to demands, real or perceived, for the user to maintain, charge and carry multiple devices, as their family, friends and clients may each use different systems and the New Techno Conversion Disorder causes the individual to feel that they must be available to all people at all times. People with TMTTD are typically convinced that the devices save time and improve accessibility and communication, but usually suffer persistent difficulty with keeping devices charged, remembering passwords, keeping all devices available, and losing devices frequently.
265.40 Listosynchomania- This disorder manifests itself in a chronic and overwhelming need to insure that various techno devices including calendars, contact lists, files, and data bases are constantly up to date and are using the latest versions of the necessary software. This disorder becomes progressively more disruptive as increasing numbers of devices and changing software create ever growing problems in maintaining consistency. This triggers a secondary disorder – ,
558.60 Duplication Distress Disorder, resulting from lists replicating out of control and causing memory overload and search identity disorientation. The cumulative manifestation of this disorder is an obsessive desire to insure that all lists are up-to-date and have no duplicates, leading to chronic list purging and resynching.
668.14 Post-It Addiction Disorder
This is a pre-techno disorder typical of individuals that have difficulty with organization and/or are often generating or receiving Too Much Information (TMI Syndrome –see 994.68) and can not adequately manage it either in working memory or in a consistent single method. Post-it addiction disorder presents problems with Post-it Creep, a phenomenon in which the individual’s surroundings are gradually and progressively covered by more and more post-its, even in their car, their bedroom and bathroom and their mirrors. As the Post-it Creep intensifies, the individual may experience a worsening of the condition by adding different sizes, colors and shapes of Post-its, leading to even more confusion and anxiety as to what the colors and shapes represent.
Similar to eating disorders, the individual typically maintains over use of post-its, but periodically engages in Post-It Purges, in which they frantically remove post-its, consolidate them, or transfer them to lists that are then misplaced or buried under additional post-its, rendering them unreadable and useless.
668.15 Post-Post It Traumatic Stress Disorder: This disorder is a second stage disorder, related to Post-It Addiction Disorder, but more complex. The individual with PPTSD becomes so overwhelmed by the Post-It disorder that they begin to compulsively seek alternative ways of recording their thoughts, tasks, and reminders. Often shifting to techno-based programs, they develop multiple lists, alarm systems, reminder messages are other electronic means of tracking information previously confined to post-its. Some even use an electronic version of post-its. Whatever the means, the person inevitably becomes overwhelmed by excessive numbers of lists, lost passwords, and has co-morbid problems
with Listosynchomania and Duplication Distress Disorder. One paradoxical effect of Post-Post-It Traumatic Stress Disorder is that the individual continues the effort to shift to electronic substitutes for the post-its, but, due to an underlying feeling of anxiety and insecurity as to whether the lists will be accessible or may be lost in a techno crash, they often revert to using Post-its at the same time, resulting in a dual addiction and requiring more complex intervention.
144.99 Numerous Numbers Anxiety Disorder: This disorder is a reciprocal disorder, experienced both by those possessing numerous communication devices and by those trying to communicate with them. As the number of devices, numbers, email addresses, and communication systems proliferate, e.g., gmail, email, voice mail, facetime, skype, blackberry, Nextel direct connect, VoIP, and smoke signals, people trying to reach the person using these devices are never sure which is the preferred device, which is on, which has the priority alarm or alert system, and/or is charged. Recognizing that the proliferation of means of connection may result in MESSAGE LIMBO (a state in which a message is transmitted to the person, but is not received because the device is turned off, left home, lost, deactivated, or buried in their purse), the person transmitting the message develops Numerous Number Anxiety Disorder, leading them to compulsively transmit messages to all available numbers and addresses, realizing that limiting the means of communication to one method reduces the chances of the message being received in direct proportion to the number of devices or message systems the person has. The American Psyberatric Association has, through exhaustive research, developed an equation to explain this phenomenon:
The probability that any given transmitted message will reach the intended recipient goes down in direct ratio to the increase in number of devices the person possesses. Conversely, the probability that a single message will be received goes up in direct proportion to the fewer devices the person has. The only fail-safe option, which then generates NNAD, is to generate messages in equal number to the number of devices. NNAD triggers a number of secondary reactions in the person receiving the messages including a variation of Duplication Distress Disorder (see above, but here generated by excessive messages due to excessive devices, rather than excessive lists) and Reactive Message Invasion Syndrome.
842.35 Reactive Message Invasion Syndrome. See above. This syndrome results from the person with the communication devices feeling overwhelmed by the number of messages they are receiving, both generally and from specific senders. Though triggered to some degree by TMTTD, the person with RMIS does not perceive that their techno systems may be contributing to message overload or generating difficulty for others in knowing how to best communicate with them. Despite the Message Invasion Syndrome, which can sometimes even result in resentment or hostility at the receipt of excessive messages, the individual is unable to reduce the number or sources of messages out of fear that they will miss something important or that their TMTTD will be further aggravated. A vicious circle of overload and inability to control it results, which leads to aggravation, reactivity, fatigue and sleeplessness, resulting from the need to keep track of all the messages.
125.68 Spamalot Attraction Regulatory Dysfunction: This condition is manifested by the individual’s intense and impulsive need to join lists, visit new websites and add their name to email lists and listservs, resulting in an overflow of messages. This is also manifested by excessive attraction to social network pages and uncontrolled desire to add friends to one’s lists, regardless of whether there is any actual social or other connection. This Dysfunction also leads the individual to post news about their life of absolutely no consequence, but allowing for the sensation of connection to those on their lists (e.g., I saw a Beautiful Bird today…..isn’t that great!) As the inbox and friends lists exponentially expand, the person becomes convinced that they are gaining social importance and connection, though the number of messages and individuals being connected results in another American Psyberatric Association : The Friend/List Paradox: The more messages, lists or friends an individual establishes on line, the less ability the person has to follow the information received or maintain meaningful connection with the individuals or groups sending the messages.
999.99 Cybercommunication Attention Deficit Disorder/Hermetic Relationship Disorder: These two serious and co-existing conditions involve interrelated phenomena. First, the more messages and lists the individual is receiving and the more devices being used, the more time they need to spend managing, reading and responding to the information and the more dependent they become on the devices and communications systems, as they have no time for other activities or in person interaction. This in turn leads to Hermetic Relationship Disorder, in which the person becomes totally attached to their devices, spending more time with their devices then with people. Often, the condition is characterized by the person anthropomorphizing the devices, giving them names, special colors, prominent places in their room or on their body, spending their day with ear buds or Blue Tooth devices in their ears even when there is no one on the line, and interrupting their daily activities to constantly check for new messages, even in the midst of live conversations with people talking to them. As the condition worsens, they become increasingly engaged in the cyber world, sometimes opting to communicate to people electronically even though they may be in the next room or down the hall. Increasing relying on the light of the device and its keyboard, they may not even turn on the regular lights in their room, glued to their screens, and ritualistically checking the various devices to insure that no new message, list post, or announcement is missed. The only cure for this disorder is MADD: Methodical Assistive Device Destruction.
Copyright by Matt Cohen, September 3, 2011 on behalf of the
American Psyberatric Association
104.50 Too Many Techno Toys Disorder:
Characterized by a need to acquire the latest and greatest communication device, each of which has unique advantages, and each of which uses a different mode of communication. This individual typically experiences a strong sense of inadequacy, jealousy, anxiety and incompleteness if they do not have the latest and newest device. Normal inhibitory process is defeated by the need to acquire the newest devices, regardless of need or resources. This disorder creates functional problems due to demands, real or perceived, for the user to maintain, charge and carry multiple devices, as their family, friends and clients may each use different systems and the New Techno Conversion Disorder causes the individual to feel that they must be available to all people at all times. People with TMTTD are typically convinced that the devices save time and improve accessibility and communication, but usually suffer persistent difficulty with keeping devices charged, remembering passwords, keeping all devices available, and losing devices frequently.
265.40 Listosynchomania- This disorder manifests itself in a chronic and overwhelming need to insure that various techno devices including calendars, contact lists, files, and data bases are constantly up to date and are using the latest versions of the necessary software. This disorder becomes progressively more disruptive as increasing numbers of devices and changing software create ever growing problems in maintaining consistency. This triggers a secondary disorder – ,
558.60 Duplication Distress Disorder, resulting from lists replicating out of control and causing memory overload and search identity disorientation. The cumulative manifestation of this disorder is an obsessive desire to insure that all lists are up-to-date and have no duplicates, leading to chronic list purging and resynching.
668.14 Post-It Addiction Disorder
This is a pre-techno disorder typical of individuals that have difficulty with organization and/or are often generating or receiving Too Much Information (TMI Syndrome –see 994.68) and can not adequately manage it either in working memory or in a consistent single method. Post-it addiction disorder presents problems with Post-it Creep, a phenomenon in which the individual’s surroundings are gradually and progressively covered by more and more post-its, even in their car, their bedroom and bathroom and their mirrors. As the Post-it Creep intensifies, the individual may experience a worsening of the condition by adding different sizes, colors and shapes of Post-its, leading to even more confusion and anxiety as to what the colors and shapes represent.
Similar to eating disorders, the individual typically maintains over use of post-its, but periodically engages in Post-It Purges, in which they frantically remove post-its, consolidate them, or transfer them to lists that are then misplaced or buried under additional post-its, rendering them unreadable and useless.
668.15 Post-Post It Traumatic Stress Disorder: This disorder is a second stage disorder, related to Post-It Addiction Disorder, but more complex. The individual with PPTSD becomes so overwhelmed by the Post-It disorder that they begin to compulsively seek alternative ways of recording their thoughts, tasks, and reminders. Often shifting to techno-based programs, they develop multiple lists, alarm systems, reminder messages are other electronic means of tracking information previously confined to post-its. Some even use an electronic version of post-its. Whatever the means, the person inevitably becomes overwhelmed by excessive numbers of lists, lost passwords, and has co-morbid problems
with Listosynchomania and Duplication Distress Disorder. One paradoxical effect of Post-Post-It Traumatic Stress Disorder is that the individual continues the effort to shift to electronic substitutes for the post-its, but, due to an underlying feeling of anxiety and insecurity as to whether the lists will be accessible or may be lost in a techno crash, they often revert to using Post-its at the same time, resulting in a dual addiction and requiring more complex intervention.
144.99 Numerous Numbers Anxiety Disorder: This disorder is a reciprocal disorder, experienced both by those possessing numerous communication devices and by those trying to communicate with them. As the number of devices, numbers, email addresses, and communication systems proliferate, e.g., gmail, email, voice mail, facetime, skype, blackberry, Nextel direct connect, VoIP, and smoke signals, people trying to reach the person using these devices are never sure which is the preferred device, which is on, which has the priority alarm or alert system, and/or is charged. Recognizing that the proliferation of means of connection may result in MESSAGE LIMBO (a state in which a message is transmitted to the person, but is not received because the device is turned off, left home, lost, deactivated, or buried in their purse), the person transmitting the message develops Numerous Number Anxiety Disorder, leading them to compulsively transmit messages to all available numbers and addresses, realizing that limiting the means of communication to one method reduces the chances of the message being received in direct proportion to the number of devices or message systems the person has. The American Psyberatric Association has, through exhaustive research, developed an equation to explain this phenomenon:
The probability that any given transmitted message will reach the intended recipient goes down in direct ratio to the increase in number of devices the person possesses. Conversely, the probability that a single message will be received goes up in direct proportion to the fewer devices the person has. The only fail-safe option, which then generates NNAD, is to generate messages in equal number to the number of devices. NNAD triggers a number of secondary reactions in the person receiving the messages including a variation of Duplication Distress Disorder (see above, but here generated by excessive messages due to excessive devices, rather than excessive lists) and Reactive Message Invasion Syndrome.
842.35 Reactive Message Invasion Syndrome. See above. This syndrome results from the person with the communication devices feeling overwhelmed by the number of messages they are receiving, both generally and from specific senders. Though triggered to some degree by TMTTD, the person with RMIS does not perceive that their techno systems may be contributing to message overload or generating difficulty for others in knowing how to best communicate with them. Despite the Message Invasion Syndrome, which can sometimes even result in resentment or hostility at the receipt of excessive messages, the individual is unable to reduce the number or sources of messages out of fear that they will miss something important or that their TMTTD will be further aggravated. A vicious circle of overload and inability to control it results, which leads to aggravation, reactivity, fatigue and sleeplessness, resulting from the need to keep track of all the messages.
125.68 Spamalot Attraction Regulatory Dysfunction: This condition is manifested by the individual’s intense and impulsive need to join lists, visit new websites and add their name to email lists and listservs, resulting in an overflow of messages. This is also manifested by excessive attraction to social network pages and uncontrolled desire to add friends to one’s lists, regardless of whether there is any actual social or other connection. This Dysfunction also leads the individual to post news about their life of absolutely no consequence, but allowing for the sensation of connection to those on their lists (e.g., I saw a Beautiful Bird today…..isn’t that great!) As the inbox and friends lists exponentially expand, the person becomes convinced that they are gaining social importance and connection, though the number of messages and individuals being connected results in another American Psyberatric Association : The Friend/List Paradox: The more messages, lists or friends an individual establishes on line, the less ability the person has to follow the information received or maintain meaningful connection with the individuals or groups sending the messages.
999.99 Cybercommunication Attention Deficit Disorder/Hermetic Relationship Disorder: These two serious and co-existing conditions involve interrelated phenomena. First, the more messages and lists the individual is receiving and the more devices being used, the more time they need to spend managing, reading and responding to the information and the more dependent they become on the devices and communications systems, as they have no time for other activities or in person interaction. This in turn leads to Hermetic Relationship Disorder, in which the person becomes totally attached to their devices, spending more time with their devices then with people. Often, the condition is characterized by the person anthropomorphizing the devices, giving them names, special colors, prominent places in their room or on their body, spending their day with ear buds or Blue Tooth devices in their ears even when there is no one on the line, and interrupting their daily activities to constantly check for new messages, even in the midst of live conversations with people talking to them. As the condition worsens, they become increasingly engaged in the cyber world, sometimes opting to communicate to people electronically even though they may be in the next room or down the hall. Increasing relying on the light of the device and its keyboard, they may not even turn on the regular lights in their room, glued to their screens, and ritualistically checking the various devices to insure that no new message, list post, or announcement is missed. The only cure for this disorder is MADD: Methodical Assistive Device Destruction.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Missing the Boat- Aging, AD/HD, Societal Overload? Life is too short to cheat ourselves of the good things we do!
“I missed the boat so many times….there were so many crossroads where I made the wrong turn.” Regrets of aging, of AD/HD, of denying the value of what we have done – Thoughts on my father and on life….
I spent some time with my 86 year old father today. I see him often, but most often there are other people around, my mother, my children, siblings, friends. I talk to him almost every day and he regularly says “Let’s make a date. I would love to have some time just with you.”
Today we did. He is 86. He has Parkinsons, some form, perhaps Parkinson’s dementia, perhaps some Alzheimers’s thrown in, perhaps just a mind that gets confused and has trouble remembering things both present and past….
My son was diagnosed with AD/HD when he was 3…..an AD/HD emergency, the neurologist called it. I was diagnosed with AD/HD about eight years ago, but was aware I had it long before that. And my dad was diagnosed about 5 or 6 years ago, before his Parkinson’s was in full swing. It is hard to know now what is Parkinson’s, what is AD/HD, what is being old for him.
Recently, Nor and I read a book together by Ned Hallowell that drew a parallel between the experience of people with AD/HD and the experience of everyone. The point was that our society is overwhelming now, filled with distractions, excessive demands and pressures, information overload. This creates a societal Attention Deficit disorder that mimics many of the symptoms of AD/HD for those that actually have it. True enough. Imagine what is like for those of us that have AD/HD and have societal overload as well. Imagine what it like for my dad, as he struggles to establish where he is, what point in time, what part of his life. As he comes and goes from considerable lucidity and awareness to being in the ball park, but not quite, to being totally frustrated by his difficulty recalling a thought or a needed word, to being totally disoriented and disconnected.
Whatever the other factors, I am convinced he did have AD/HD. Through out his adult life, despite amazing accomplishments, he struggled with many things, time, completion of projects, keeping track of details….and we certainly saw incredible signs of it when we helped my parents move from their house – letters piled in old bags, uncashed checks, files replicating other files, things hidden away all over and countless systems of organization – each well designed, but none consistently implemented.
As I was growing up, my dad constantly communicated a message that I was very talented, but could do even better, should try harder, could do more. Saving the world was pretty good, but all in a day’s work. But he was an even harder critic of his own work. He developed and constantly revised elaborate formulas for calculating what he had accomplished. How many patients had he seen? How many students had he taught? How many patients had the students he taught helped? And on and on. Never enough. The numbers an attempt at comfort and satisfaction, but actually an impossible trap – what ever the numbers were, they were never enough.
So we talked today….or mostly I listened and occasionally asked questions and tried to cut through the haze of his confusion. He kept saying he “had missed the boat, made too many wrong turns….” He wasn’t sure if he would have been here or there, but wasn’t sure where here and there were, but was sure that the choice was whatever the path he hadn’t taken.
I talked about how hard it is to be confused and overwhelmed by choices, information, expectations, and that we can only do what we are able – and he couldn’t allow himself to hear that. He wasn’t confused, he just……and then he would lose what he was saying. Then he started telling me a story about a cat and a small man, a story that he said his father told him repeatedly. Both the cat and the small man had many virtues, but their virtues conflicted with each other and they couldn’t seem to acknowledge each others virtues or find a way for each to work with the other. It was one or the other, but never both. It took a while to tell the story, and it was unclear if he was reporting the story his father told or sharing his own story or talking to me in the present. I asked him if this was a metaphor for his life and his marriage and he laughed but didn’t respond, perhaps couldn’t respond. He wasn’t sure who was telling the story or to whom it applied. He said there was so much he hadn’t done, had not accomplished. I described the Cohen condition – always expecting too much, accomplishing much, but focusing on what we haven’t done, not on what we have done. I talked about the number games he had played trying to prove to himself that he had accomplished a lot but always seemed dissatisfied. I shared that we were all our own worst critics and needed to be able to give ourselves credit for what we had done (and he had done an incredible amount), but he kept coming back to bad choices, wrong turns, things undone. A societal condition? A personality characteristic? A genetic predisposition (it seems to run in our family!) A part of his AD/HD? I am sure it is all of the above. But I think the story of AD/HD makes this particularly hard, and the experience of aging can make it very hard. But AD/HD does create confusion, persistent doubt. We constantly generate new ideas, new projects, new possibilities. Many get done. Many don’t. But there are so many in our head, so many things always spinning in our minds, that it is impossible to feel that we are ever finished. It is hard to feel we have ever done enough. It is hard to feel that we have accomplished what we could or what we should, because more is always there, both because of the many things in our head that never make it in to the world and because the many things in the world that demand our attention and make it harder to focus on the things that we are doing or need to do. As I sat with my dad, I was crying inside, in part because of the pain of watching him struggle just to say what he wanted to say, but also because whatever confusion he felt, there was no question that he saw his life in many ways as a failure and was unable to see or value the great things that he was able to do.
Growing old is hard. Each person experiences it differently. And having AD/HD is also hard and we each experience it differently. But a common element, for all of us, is to value what we do, to treasure what we have experienced, and to enjoy the people in our life and what we can give to them and they give to us. It isn’t healthy to ignore our problems or to minimize mistakes we make. We need to deal with them and learn from them. But we need to be able to value the things we have and that we accomplish. And we should be able to recognize that it is a very difficult and confusing world, one that we can’t totally control and that often overwhelms. Sometimes, just keeping going is a big accomplishment by itself. I love my dad, love what he has done, and love our moments, even as he struggles to hold on to them. We all need to hold on to them. Old, AD/HD or just facing an out of control world, we should value that we keep doing what we can to make things better.
I spent some time with my 86 year old father today. I see him often, but most often there are other people around, my mother, my children, siblings, friends. I talk to him almost every day and he regularly says “Let’s make a date. I would love to have some time just with you.”
Today we did. He is 86. He has Parkinsons, some form, perhaps Parkinson’s dementia, perhaps some Alzheimers’s thrown in, perhaps just a mind that gets confused and has trouble remembering things both present and past….
My son was diagnosed with AD/HD when he was 3…..an AD/HD emergency, the neurologist called it. I was diagnosed with AD/HD about eight years ago, but was aware I had it long before that. And my dad was diagnosed about 5 or 6 years ago, before his Parkinson’s was in full swing. It is hard to know now what is Parkinson’s, what is AD/HD, what is being old for him.
Recently, Nor and I read a book together by Ned Hallowell that drew a parallel between the experience of people with AD/HD and the experience of everyone. The point was that our society is overwhelming now, filled with distractions, excessive demands and pressures, information overload. This creates a societal Attention Deficit disorder that mimics many of the symptoms of AD/HD for those that actually have it. True enough. Imagine what is like for those of us that have AD/HD and have societal overload as well. Imagine what it like for my dad, as he struggles to establish where he is, what point in time, what part of his life. As he comes and goes from considerable lucidity and awareness to being in the ball park, but not quite, to being totally frustrated by his difficulty recalling a thought or a needed word, to being totally disoriented and disconnected.
Whatever the other factors, I am convinced he did have AD/HD. Through out his adult life, despite amazing accomplishments, he struggled with many things, time, completion of projects, keeping track of details….and we certainly saw incredible signs of it when we helped my parents move from their house – letters piled in old bags, uncashed checks, files replicating other files, things hidden away all over and countless systems of organization – each well designed, but none consistently implemented.
As I was growing up, my dad constantly communicated a message that I was very talented, but could do even better, should try harder, could do more. Saving the world was pretty good, but all in a day’s work. But he was an even harder critic of his own work. He developed and constantly revised elaborate formulas for calculating what he had accomplished. How many patients had he seen? How many students had he taught? How many patients had the students he taught helped? And on and on. Never enough. The numbers an attempt at comfort and satisfaction, but actually an impossible trap – what ever the numbers were, they were never enough.
So we talked today….or mostly I listened and occasionally asked questions and tried to cut through the haze of his confusion. He kept saying he “had missed the boat, made too many wrong turns….” He wasn’t sure if he would have been here or there, but wasn’t sure where here and there were, but was sure that the choice was whatever the path he hadn’t taken.
I talked about how hard it is to be confused and overwhelmed by choices, information, expectations, and that we can only do what we are able – and he couldn’t allow himself to hear that. He wasn’t confused, he just……and then he would lose what he was saying. Then he started telling me a story about a cat and a small man, a story that he said his father told him repeatedly. Both the cat and the small man had many virtues, but their virtues conflicted with each other and they couldn’t seem to acknowledge each others virtues or find a way for each to work with the other. It was one or the other, but never both. It took a while to tell the story, and it was unclear if he was reporting the story his father told or sharing his own story or talking to me in the present. I asked him if this was a metaphor for his life and his marriage and he laughed but didn’t respond, perhaps couldn’t respond. He wasn’t sure who was telling the story or to whom it applied. He said there was so much he hadn’t done, had not accomplished. I described the Cohen condition – always expecting too much, accomplishing much, but focusing on what we haven’t done, not on what we have done. I talked about the number games he had played trying to prove to himself that he had accomplished a lot but always seemed dissatisfied. I shared that we were all our own worst critics and needed to be able to give ourselves credit for what we had done (and he had done an incredible amount), but he kept coming back to bad choices, wrong turns, things undone. A societal condition? A personality characteristic? A genetic predisposition (it seems to run in our family!) A part of his AD/HD? I am sure it is all of the above. But I think the story of AD/HD makes this particularly hard, and the experience of aging can make it very hard. But AD/HD does create confusion, persistent doubt. We constantly generate new ideas, new projects, new possibilities. Many get done. Many don’t. But there are so many in our head, so many things always spinning in our minds, that it is impossible to feel that we are ever finished. It is hard to feel we have ever done enough. It is hard to feel that we have accomplished what we could or what we should, because more is always there, both because of the many things in our head that never make it in to the world and because the many things in the world that demand our attention and make it harder to focus on the things that we are doing or need to do. As I sat with my dad, I was crying inside, in part because of the pain of watching him struggle just to say what he wanted to say, but also because whatever confusion he felt, there was no question that he saw his life in many ways as a failure and was unable to see or value the great things that he was able to do.
Growing old is hard. Each person experiences it differently. And having AD/HD is also hard and we each experience it differently. But a common element, for all of us, is to value what we do, to treasure what we have experienced, and to enjoy the people in our life and what we can give to them and they give to us. It isn’t healthy to ignore our problems or to minimize mistakes we make. We need to deal with them and learn from them. But we need to be able to value the things we have and that we accomplish. And we should be able to recognize that it is a very difficult and confusing world, one that we can’t totally control and that often overwhelms. Sometimes, just keeping going is a big accomplishment by itself. I love my dad, love what he has done, and love our moments, even as he struggles to hold on to them. We all need to hold on to them. Old, AD/HD or just facing an out of control world, we should value that we keep doing what we can to make things better.
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