Thinking to think

Ya gotta love functional fixedness. Actually, it is probably the single biggest obstacle to making new discoveries and solving problems. People joke about women who use a butter knife as a screw driver, but this is actually a fine example of moving away from having to use an object for its intended purpose.

One of the best ways to exercise your brain is to think of new ways to use things that have a stated purpose, or to move away from the same old stale practices. One of my earliest memories of cognitive flexibility had to do with paper. My father was an artist. He received a black piece of paper from a commercial printer as a type of advertisement. The title of the black paper was, "Only God can see black ants, on a black rock on a moonless, cloudy night." Just that one stimulus elicited my father's response, which was to send them a white piece of paper with the title, "Only God can see albino elephants eating marshmallows in a blinding snow storm." Years later, I saw an article in the "Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis" that consisted of a totally blank page that was entitled, "A case of unsuccessful treatment of writer's block." This was followed by a rather clever reviewer's comment, "I can see nothing wrong with this article."

Sometimes having a disorder causes people to move away from functional fixedness. This is particularly true for alcoholics. Most people think of flavor extracts as a way to bake or cook. Not many of these tiny bottles have more than four ounces in them. Alcoholics who have limited access to "real liquor" find flavor extracts quite handy. Better yet, were the alcoholics who were discussed in an old issue of the "Journal of the American Psychological Association." These folks were in a facility with extremely tight controls over alcohol and the means to distill their own alcoholic beverages (as happens in prisons). They succeeded in becoming intoxicated by the unlikely means of super hydration. They took up residence in the facility bathrooms at night so that they could consume enough water to lower their blood ph levels enough for acid intoxication (a dangerous activity).

Let's get back to those flavor extracts. They actually smell quite good. Does anyone think that vanilla extract would make a fine perfume or cologne? How about cherry flavor extract? Why not mix cherry extract and vanilla extract to create Cherry Vanilla? That type of excursion away from functional fixedness might cause a significant other to exclaim, "You smell absolutely delicious!"

How functional fixed is it to think that the only way to assess a child's progress in the schools is with tests?

Anticipation

Anticipation is something that is important to all people. It means thinking about something before it happens. Some of us are a lot better at it than others. The youngest children often can't wait for things, so anticipation is difficult for them. Anticipation can be a good thing. This happens when we think of some positive events that can happen in the future. It also happens when we have had an experience with some event or person and become excited in a happy way, or nervous in a bad sort of way. It also happens when we do something that might be wrong in the eyes of another person or other persons, and we anticipate a response or consequence. Telling a lie or a fib is something that involves an incredible amount of anticipation once the fib or lie has been told. The anticipation is the tremendous amount of anxiety that exists from the time the lie has been told until the time it is discovered. Discovery, oddly enough, can be such a relief that it functions as a reward for telling another lie.

Planning for something that has a good chance of happening helps take the edge off the anxiety particularly if the future event has a chance of repeating something unpleasant that has happened in the past. Many people approach a holiday with anxiety because they plan on being with family members that they both love and fear. They recall all of the good times that they have had with those family members, but some things just get in the way of making them comfortable about being together with them. The more intense prior events were, the more conflicted people are about having something social with those family members. What can be done? What would you want to do? What family members are most harmed by doing nothing at all, and chancing a repetition of prior events?

Those people who are planners have the potential of being good behavior engineers. Behavior engineers set up situations to minimize negative things. They are good at anticipating. Suppose, for example, we know that some family members don't like being near others. Planned seating arrangements are a really great way to reduce potential problems with that one. Suppose we know that some guests have the potential for breaking family heirlooms. Moving those to a safer location prior to their arrival is a great idea. Now, here is the difficult one. Suppose we are having company, and one or more of the guests is a person who has gotten into trouble because of alcohol.

There is NOTHING wrong with eliminating all alcoholic beverages from the home prior to the arrival of alcoholic family members. They might even thank the host for doing it. This might mean moving liquor bottles from the home to places like an office, or a storage facility. Serving non-alcoholic facsimiles at dinner might be a reasonable addition to moving all alcoholic beverages, or it might cause a reaction. Actually doing it (serving non-alcoholic beer or wine/fancy grape juice) might send a great non-verbal message. Plan for any verbal response to the non-verbal message that you are sending with a good deflection or positive response such as, "We have planned for a loving and positive family gathering this year." A repeated (though different) negative response should result in the same response, "We have planned for a loving and positive family gathering this year." Keep saying the same thing until the negativism stops, or make a non-alcoholic toast, "A happy, and healthy year for all, until we get together again." Many alcoholics bring a bottle of an alcoholic beverage to family gatherings as a "gift." This should be accepted gracefully and quickly brought to the place outside of the home where the other beverages are hidden. Never hide the alcohol at the home where the event is taking place. Alcoholics are good at finding it. They might even go so far as drinking cooking extracts (vanilla extract, almond extract, etc. all contain alcoholic - true alcoholics know this and will empty them), mouthwash, aftershave (yes, even though the alcohol in that is poison), cough syrup, etc.

Involving all members of the host family in planning can help reduce anxiety. Remember to have one last meeting before the arrival of guests to go through a checklist of the plan. Scripting or anticipating what might be said in various circumstances might be a good idea. One anticipated remark from a guest might be, "I am sorry about what happened. Can we please have fun?" The response might be, "We accept your apology. We love our family. That is why we have planned to have a loving family event this year." Repeat as necessary.

Another form of anticipation has to do with punishment. Anticipation can be used a part of a program of consequences. This is part of the Love and Logic behavior management system (refer to http://www.loveandlogic.com/). Suppose a child has done something, and there is a need for some kind of organized punishment from ALL caregivers (both parents, grandparents, extended family, etc.). It is perfectly reasonable to say, "You know that we love you. What you have done has caused me to have discuss your consequence with (family members). We will let you know what we have decided. Until then, don't worry about it." That last part is what creates the anticipatory anxiety that serves as punishment.

Headaches

There are a fair number of different kinds of headaches. First, many people recognize that it is not the brain that aches. It has no pain receptors in it. However, the head, outside of the brain can hurt, and this can be disabling.

Muscle tension headaches are among the easiest to treat without medication. Learning to tense and relax muscles is an important skill for people who have this variety of headache. Muscle tension headaches can also be relieved by progressive relaxation, by hypnosis, or by meditation.

Vasoconstrictive headaches are caused by increased blood flow to the vessels around the head. Roughly two thirds of these can be stopped by reversing that blood flow in a simple way without medication. The idea is to move blood away from the head. This is done by dilating (opening) the blood vessels in parts of the body that are away from the head. Taking a warm bath is a good idea. Running warm water over the hands is another. Make a cup of hot herbal tea (non-caffeine) and wrap your hands around it.

The psychologist was working at a secondary school in eastern North Carolina. The child stopped taking a test, complaining of a headache. He took a chance that it might be a vasoconstrictive headache (a good chance/guess because of the circumstances). The student and the psychologist went to the only nearby place with warm water, a sink in the teacher's lounge. The student held her hands under warm running water for a few minutes and her headache disappeared!!! She completed the testing without a complaint of head pain.

How To Drop-Out of School

All of the United States have a law that defines the acceptable age for children to drop-out of school. It's easy for a child who reaches this magical age to go to school sign some papers and, >>>Booooom<<< their education is finished. Many never sign out. They just stop going to school. School systems almost never go after them to sign the paper work. What a shame.

Children who drop out have no liability for just walking away. They can get public assistance and put a burden on tax-payers who support them. They usually get menial jobs and end up having kids who don't do well either. I'm not just talking about drop-outs who have learning problems. I am not going to get into the extended argument about school contributions to drop-out such as multiple grade retentions that have been researched and repeatedly demonstrated to be a failed way to improve student performance (in the long run). The process that allows children to drop-out needs to change.

Rule 1. Never refuse a child the opportunity to make the choice.
Rule 2. Require the child to learn what the choice means.

Every child who wants to drop out must be required to complete an assignment as a part of the process. The completed assignment is signed by the child, and placed in the child's record. The school reviews the assignment to make certain that every aspect of it is complete, interviews the child to make certain that he or she actually wrote it by asking the questions that were answered in the report, returning it to the child if it has been determined that they did not complete it and having them "try again" until they actually do it, and, finally, a school administrator signs it.

The assignment:

Part 1.

1. Read the newspaper "Help Wanted" section and find a job that they could get without a high school diploma. The salary must be listed in the advertisement or they must get a written copy of the salary offer from the potential employer. This must be included with the report.
2. Using math skills that they have learned in school, they must calculate their monthly salary after taxes and social security are taken out.
3. Read the newspaper again. Go to the advertisements for places to live. Find a place to live that costs the least, leaving them enough money to pay for the extras such as electric, heat (oil or gas, for example), and cell phone service.
4. Add together the rent, and the extras. Subtract that amount from the monthly income from the job after taxes. How much is left? That is the amount needed to buy food.
5. Forget about cable television, eating out, going on dates, etc.
6. Go shopping for food but don't buy anything. Add up the prices of what you might eat in a week. Multiply it by 4 or 5 (the number of weeks in a month). Subtract that from the remains of your monthly wages.
7. Now, think about how you are going to get to work. Add up the cost of transportation. Do you have any money left after buying food?

Part II

Determine how much money you can get from public assistance (aka, Welfare, Food Stamps, etc.). Complete the above task using the total amount of money that this turns out to be.

Part III

Go to the newspaper, and find the salaries of jobs requiring a high school diploma, or more education. Determine everything from Part I above. Make a choice.

Final question: If everyone was receiving public assistance (welfare, food stamps, etc.), who would pay for it?

How much is it costing to PAY Attention?

Back in August 2000 or 2001 Dr. Adrian Angold and others at Duke University published an epidemiological study of the rate of diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the western part of North Carolina in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. That study discovered that thousands of school aged children had been misdiagnosed and NEVER should have been medicated at all. Few people reference that article.

I have four important true stories about real children to tell you.

More recently than the next post, I saw a 7 year old from another county. This boy was clearly terrorizing his class and his teacher. He would never sit still. He grabbed a scissors whenever he could and would cut his own clothes, hair, and the hair of other students. The referral was for an evaluation of ADHD and other behavior, as you could well imagine. One of my favorite developmental questions is frequently left out of routine interviews concerning child development. It needs to be included. I always ask when a child first began to sleep through the night. This case was one of only a few where a child had never slept through the night. His nightly sleep was always interrupted, and not for using the bathroom. The simplest way to treat sleep problems is to establish a nightly sleep routine. This child had one. I strongly recommended that the parents try giving him Melatonin. He slept the night through for the first time. The next day he brought home his first "A" for behavior. The teacher thought that he had certainly been given a stimulant like Ritalin. The problem with any stimulant medication is that it would have bypassed the sleep deprivation/interruption and delayed correct treatment. Follow-up reports have indicated continued good behavior as the result of a complete night of rest.

I recently saw a 6 year old boy who had significant behavior problems in school that included biting one teacher, hitting another teacher, kicking a child, and punching another child. This boy was often out of his seat to the point where one note described him as doing cartwheels in class. One of my more recent concerns about small children displaying behavior and attention problems has been sleep. This boy was going to sleep at 11 PM and waking up at 6 AM to go to school. His teacher also reported that he would fall asleep at school. We know from research that 6 year old children need 11 hours of sleep per night. We also know that sleep deprived children are inattentive, active, and aggressive. I recommended that he get more sleep, and provided suggestions. His mom called back recently (12-4-08) and told me that he had two consecutive days of on task, appropriate behavior after going to sleep at 8:30 PM rather than 11 PM. It is likely that most psychiatrists would have put him on medication that kept him up, rather than working on the sleep problem

One child, a boy, attended a Christian school. His physician thought that he had ADHD, so he prescribed Cylert (Pemoline Magnesium), a very dangerous drug, despite published articles warning that it was harmful, in addition to an FDA warning. The boy also had Celiac Sprue, a digestive disorder in the same category as a cluster of irritable bowel disorders. He was not permitted to consume wheat products. The school psychologist that saw him three years earlier had warned his parents that Cylert was dangerous and gave them literature about its harmful effects on the liver. The physician did not change the medication despite the parents conveying the concerns to him. I was told, when I got to the school, that the teachers wanted him to take more medication. I saw a boy with yellow tinged skin. The "whites" of his eyes were yellow. I gave the parents a computer print out of an article that listed the dangers of Cylert, with the parts describing liver damage and potentially fatal results highlighted. I told them what I saw, without diagnosing anything else ("Your child has yellow skin and yellow eye whites"). I told them that it was critical to give the boy's physician the information. I tested the boy.

I went back to the school three months later. The parents of the boy saw me. They ran over to give me a hug. They exclaimed that I had saved their child's life. They also told me that their son's teachers congratulated them on increasing his medication after it had, in fact, been stopped, because he was paying attention and working harder at school than ever before.

A young girl's grandmother called me and begged me to test the child. The school in Texas had claimed that she had ADHD. The parents gave permission for the assessment. The principal at the school had called them once too often. They told of how often their child got out of her seat without permission. Her mother described how her daughter began to tap her feet while standing outside of the principal's office, with principal saying something like, "Will you look at that! I told you she has ADHD!" I accepted the case. The grandmother paid for her granddaughter's airfare. I saw an active, busy nine-year old. She had to use the bathroom twice while I tested her for about an hour and a half. My interview also revealed that this child's hand hurt after writing for a short time. I advised the mother to obtain a complete physical, being certain to give the physician a copy of my report (which explained the physical problems that I - a psychologist, not a physician - observed). The child had an arterio-venous (blood vessel) jumble that was causing her significant kidney problems - resulting in a frequent need to use the bathroom. The teacher, who limited bathroom breaks for students, was very concerned about how fidgety she was, and thought that this child had ADHD. It also turned out that the child had a bone malformation in her writing hand that caused pain. The symptoms of ADHD magically disappeared after the appropriate medical treatment of both problems. Ask yourself this: How many psychiatrists request a complete physical before they prescribe medication for ADHD? Think about it. See if you can obtain a copy of a book written by a psychiatrist about the usual failure to check for medical explanations of active behavior. The Hyperactivity Hoax is the book written by Dr. Sydney Walker, III. I hope that you find it and read it.

There are many drug-free programs to treat attention problems. The drug companies (they like to be called pharmaceutical manufacturers) have much more money to publicize their products than authors of drug-free treatment programs.

You could also check out something that I've written as a suggested program for all children:

http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/steven_edelman.htm

Join the association

A Russian discovered something interesting about 110 years ago. He was studying the salivary (spit) glands of dogs. Pavlov noticed that his dogs would start producing saliva way before they saw or smelled food. This happened because the dogs heard the very distinct (to them) boot sounds of the lab assistant that brought them their food. This somehow became distorted in the pages of history to the ringing of a bell. The same boot sounds at other times would also produce the saliva. The dogs learned that boot sounds meant food and made a connection. That connection stayed even when there was no food forthcoming. How could this ever be useful to people?

A professional journal article described a developmentally challenged person would only eat for one particular staff member. This became a problem when the staff member took off for the weekend, a holiday, or a vacation. A clever psychologist paired a succession of staff members with the preferred staff person, and the developmentally challenged person soon accepted a bunch of staff persons to provide food.

Certain levels of spinal cord injuries cause paraplegia and a loss of bladder control. Someone discovered that these paraplegics could empty their own bladders before they had accidents by applying a mild electric shock on the area outside the body that was above the bladder. These folks carried a small device that applied the shock. Before long, many paraplegics discovered that all they had to do was move their hand to area of their body above the bladder, and they would urinate without using the electric shock. There was an association between the movement and emptying of the bladder. Now, think about association learning and education.

One problem with learning to read is learning the sounds that go with letters. Some letters have multiple sounds that change depending on the other letters nearby. Thinking about the rules for word sounds might make an educated person become tongue-tied. Few of us think about the rules after a solid reading education. Some folks find it difficult or impossible to learn the rules involved in the sounds that letters make. Whole word reading may be a way to overcome it, even though some phonological dictators (nice double entendre there) would disagree.

Many less able children at the appropriate age can identify a picture of a dog, and say dog. Learning to read the word dog is an altogether different story. Suppose you repeatedly pair the printed word with the picture? What happens if you fade the picture (progressively make it less and less clearly visible)? It can be done by copying it, then copying the copy until it becomes almost unrecognizable, while maintaining the visible "strength" of the printed word beneath it. You can even use action pictures to teach action words. Sure the technique has its limitations. It also has the potential for teaching something that might have otherwise been "unteachable."

Another important skill that can be taught by association is multiplication facts. A bunch of teachers do not approve of this. You can do it at home and they will never know. Produce pages that contain basic math facts from multiplication tables. Mix up the calculations so that the children do not learn them in order. Now, give them a calculator. That is correct, a calculator. Few things equal a calculator for teaching math facts. Have them use the calculator to solve the problems. Do it over and over again with different pages and problems in different order. Give them a break every 30 to 45 minutes to stand-up and walk around. Set a timer for about five minutes, and then get them back to work. Work on it all weekend. They use the calculator on the first weekend day (Saturday). On Sunday start them with the pages and without the calculator. Check their work. Note the ones that they got wrong, and use them on new pages of problems to work with the calculator. Do it again next weekend. Be certain to provide some fun activities like a trip to the movies on the second weekend. You child has a great chance of learning the multiplication tables (multiplication facts) without stress this way and it is all because you joined the association.

Silent Arguing

Some folks allow loud arguments to get in the way of having a functioning marriage. A therapist who does not do family therapy suggested to a patient that she and her husband might argue silently in the following way:

Get a notebook for arguing. Go to the bedroom when you want to have a disagreement. Sit on the floor, on the opposite sides of the bed with your back against the bed. Bring the notebook. Each side has a pen or pencil. The person carrying the notebook into the room goes first. That person writes their first comment, question, diatribe, whatever concerning the issue at hand and passes the notebook across the bed to the person on the other side. Never throw the notebook. pass the notebook so that the other person can reach it. The other person sits with back against the bed until the first person has turned around with their back against the bed. The receiving person gets the note book, reads the first statement, skips a line, and responds in writing. No talking is allowed. The second person passes the notebook back after writing, and the process continues until a peaceful agreement is reached.

The first time the therapist's patient tried this, the total silence made the children curious. They timidly knocked on the door to find out what their mother and father were doing. The only thing that they were allowed to do is tell them that they were having an argument. The puzzled children left the room.

Another therapist told the therapist that this technique was also used by the well known psychologist, Dr. Stella Chess.