“Mama said,

28 August 2008 at 3:26 (ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, OMG, Pain, Prosopagnosia, Sleep, Teaching/Tutoring, Tinnitus)

‘There’ll be days like this,’

‘There’ll be days like this,’ Mama said.”

The Shirelles, “Mama Said”

Coming down with some virus most likely, as the school nurse says it doesn’t look like strep throat (despite the sore throat that’s making it hard to lecture).  I can deal with that.

Headache, only ’bout a 4 out of 10, not so bad of itself. I can deal with that.

Ditto the tinnitus, which alas, seems to be making it more difficult to understand people, especially those students more than a few feet away from me, which is most of the time — why do the most soft-spoken students sit in the back corner?  The auditory processing glitches don’t help, either; I’m sure some of the students think I’m not paying attention, or am losing my hearing.  At least no one is going around yelling to me in the mistaken impression that volume = clarity.

Five hours sleep.  Definitely need to get to sleep sooner, and I would were it not for the class prep I have to do before and after classes.  Okay, now it’s getting really challenging.  I’m dropping words in the middle of my sentences once or twice an hour, and does that ever make me feel stupid.

I’m hungry because I didn’t eat much due to the sore throat & canker sore.

Two of the pieces of paper I really needed to have with me were not in my binder.  No, I’m sorry, I don’t remember the date of the next exam right off the top of my head.  No, I’m sorry, I haven’t memorized the ID labels to all of the slides (but I can tell you what’s important about the slide).

We were reviewing the results of the first exam.  This is the first college-level science class that many of the students have had, and some of them haven’t had a science class in years.  Bumpy ride.  It’s also the first full exam I have written, and every teacher knows the hidden hazards of writing such.

For some reason I decided to hand the graded exams out, rather than just letting the students pick their own test up.  I’m faceblind, and have not yet memorized the seating chart.  Definite planning error on my part.

My PowerPoint — that delightful gizmo that helps keep the tired, the distracted, the forgetful, the sick, and the first-time teacher from losing track of the game plan — the PowerPoint file on my flashdrive proved to be an older version that did not have the other half of the slides I needed to remind me what I was going to tell the class this evening. That too, of itself I could deal with, although the presentation was not at smooth as I would have liked, and we had to go back a few times and fill in something I had not mentioned earlier.

But all of these things together, oy vey!  I muddled through everything, but did not feel very brilliant or smooth.  I didn’t even have all of the lab equipment fully prepped because I had rushed in right before class.

And then shortly after class started, one of the professors came in to do a surprise Observation of me as a new instructor.

At least I didn’t have my trouser zip left undone, or have a strip of toilet paper (loo roll) stuck to my boot!

Mama said there’ll be days like this …

1 Comments

Depiling

24 August 2008 at 0:51 (ADD/ADHD, Coping strategies, DSM, Stress, Teaching/Tutoring, Work / Employment)

That is, de-pile-ing*.

* Not to be confused with depilling, which is trimming off those annoying “pills” that form on knitted garments. Presumably those wee balls of fuzz form due to the blasted orneryness of the universe, especially with regards to the cosmos’ dreaded knack for providing supplemental stress to anyone with OCD tendencies.

Depiling means to systematically remove piles of clutter.  On my desk, that means not just the usual bills, statements and paperwork, but also:

  • documents to be scanned,
  • Copy Center requisition forms,
  • old appointment cards and unnecessary receipts unloaded from my pockets and other ephemera,
  • 35mm slides to be scanned,
  • an empty postage-stamp strip,
  • wire twist-ties,
  • caps to ball-point pens I don’t even use,
  • hort industry infomercials masquerading as press releases or “educational materials”,
  • spare tins of lip balm and cuticle salve,
  • important receipts to file,
  • a really cool concave rock to use as a water dish when I refresh Rosie’s habitat,
  • the booklet on Inservice courses for Job #2 that I cannot attend because of Job #1,
  • beads that are still surfacing from when the curtain tie-back snapped last month,
  • the previous week’s market and dinner menu list,
  • the catalog that lists the non-credit classes I teach (Job #3),
  • fluffs of white, tan, brown or orange hair from our four cats,
  • exam schedules for the two classes I’m teaching,
  • fragments of adhesive bandage wrappers and other débris,
  • my Immunization Record that needs to be updated (Pneumovax, hooray),
  • paperwork for a student’s disability accommodations,
  • a spare lint-roller to remove light cat hair from dark clothes & reversi-wise (vide infra),
  • music CDs to add to my iTunes,
  • a collection of pages of notes for teaching methods to integrate,
  • random paperclips,
  • the manilla folder of notes and drafts to a research paper for which I need to comment,
  • empty prescription bottles, the pages on Inservice courses for Job #1,
  • drained pens,
  • duplicate bills to magazines I love but can’t really afford to renew and don’t have time to read anyway (not even at the library where they’re free),
  • a button that may or may not go to a garment any of us currently wears,
  • Personnel Absence Report receipts,
  • my weekly pill-minder that I set on my MacBook when I go to bed to remind myself when I wake up,
  • blank index cards that I use for my To Do lists I keep in my pocket,
  • and of course, the assorted no-longer-sticky notes, some of which still list things I need to do, and a couple that bear tantalizingly cryptic notes for blog-post ideas.

For anyone out there who is chronically cluttered or ADHD, none of these things is surprising.  That I manage to keep track of three different jobs in addition to various other personal and professional responsibilities is nothing short of amazing. That I also have chronic free-floating anxiety about forgetting something Very Important is also not surprising.

Back in the early 1980’s, I stayed home with our tots and was a free-lance writer.  Anyone who has done this knows that one never fills either role as well as they would like, and that the paying job doesn’t pay well because it’s part-time, and the non-parenting hours (and even the parenting hours) are filled with trying to cram in tasks edge-wise.

Because I was working for several employers simultaneously while also sending out queries to magazines, the sheer amount of paper to keep straight and deadlines to meet and the inevitable scheduling glitches (the can’t do This because I gotta do That but-before I can do That I gotta do The Other Thing) damn near drove me nuts.  I know my frantic moments and frustrations and disorganisation damn near drove my family nuts some days as well.

The number of times I forgot my hair cut appointments were an embarrassment. The number of times I would get home and then had to go back out to drop something off or pick something up were legion. At that time, ADHD had only recently hit the DSM, and people usually associated such with hyperactive boys.  I wouldn’t get my own diagnosis until 20 years later.

Like many people with ADHD, I felt terrible about my inability to stay organised.  It wasn’t that I didn’t care.  It wasn’t that I didn’t try.  I tried appointment books and made lists and made calendars and made lists and re-organised my paper filing system and made lists … and still I failed to keep track of stuff.  I even managed to lose track of a check by using it as a bookmark! (Reading that Einstein did the same thing was mollifying, but would not have impressed the bank.)

The problem of course is not a lack of willpower.  It’s not always a problem with writing things down — after all, I HAD that calendar and the lists.  The problem was “remembering to remember”, meaning remember to check the lists and the calendar at the appropriate times, especially with regards to calling people during “normal” business hours.  The problem was putting things into the Things To Do pile, and then not remembering to get them done before they were due.

Of course, the reason that everything I was using was piled on top of my desk was that out-of-sight meant out-of-mind.  (Plus, there were the random moments of putting Very Important Objects in Safe Places and then forgetting where they were.)  The only way to literally have everything in sight would have been to cover an entire wall in cork tiles and buy a gross of push-pins.  But other factors prevented this, including the fact that my first home “office” was nothing more than a shelf in the linen closet where I stored postal supplies, manilla folders, and an antique typewriter that was so painfully cranky it would have even given pause to a steampunk enthusiast.

Eventually I did learn how to develop enabling routines.  One of those is what I have spent the past half an hour doing, whilst also scanning various documents and slides, and working on this blogpost, because hey — multi-tasking is what we like to do!

I make it a point to de-clutter my desktop every Friday or weekend.

Not only do I remove the trashy bits, but I also rediscover things I need to attend to on a regular basis, refill my pill minder, pay any bills that are due, and I check my calendar and re-assess what my new To Do list needs to include.

Fortunately, the decluttering has gotten easier over the years, as I finally realised what general categories of clutter pile up.

  • I have the wastepaper basket at hand to dump rubbish into.
  • I have a place to set all the papers that simply need filing.
  • I have a desk hutch with shelves for each of my classes and jobs, and to improve upon that file-by-pile method I also have brightly-colored folders to fine-sort each pile.
  • I make a separate pile of things that need to go elsewhere, and not until everything is sorted do I make just one loop around the house to put those away.
  • If I have a set of papers that is turning into a new project to keep track of, I grab another folder to put them in.
  • I review my small bulletin board and remove old things I no longer need, and tack up new things I don’t want to lose — part of what makes a small board effective is that it does not stay the same week after week — constancy means a loss of apparency as it simply becomes part of the scenery and thus unnoticed.

Well, the scanning is done, so I need to wrap this up and make up a test for Monday (et cetera).  The other part of what makes the system work is to not get so wrapped up in tidying and organising that I don’t get back to the actual work!

6 Comments

Backwards Symphonies

16 August 2008 at 1:57 (ADD/ADHD, Arthritis, College/University, Home stuff, OMG, Pain, Sleep, Special Education, Stress, Teaching/Tutoring, Tinnitus, hyperacussis, migraine)

“It’s been a long week — I bet you’re ready to decompose.”

I stared at my husband, blinking through the mental fog of too-many-jobs-not-enough-sleep.

“I’m not ready for the compost pile yet,” I replied, trying to figure out what his latest malapropism was meant to be.

“Or whatever the term is,” he added.

My brain finally catches up. “Decompress,” I answered.

What an incredibly long week.  I can’t remember the last time I had one like this, and in my over-busy world that’s saying something.

Wednesday last week I had a pneumonia vaccination, which left my arm so sore I couldn’t take off my jogbra without assistance, nor even get my hand up to head level until the weekend.  Moreover, Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

The Crystal Ball Crack’d

7 August 2008 at 17:42 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, College/University, Communication, Community, Family, Learning Disabilities, Love & acceptance, OMG, Parenting, Work / Employment, advocacy, attribution errors, developmental disabilities)

The Kid recently took the ACT test, which like the SAT, is frequently used by colleges to determine scholastic abilities, and in his case helped place him for which college writing class he needed.  He had to ask his sister what the test was like, and her impressions about its difficulty level.  I could not personally provide any opinions, because I had never taken the ACT or SAT.

I never took them because no one thought I would go to college.

They made massive assumptions about my abilities and my future. So here’s what happened, and something to think about. I welcome you to please post comments, and more links to other positive blogs and sites.

My grades in secondary school grew worse over the years, and I had to re-take a semester in one class (English of all things, which in later years proved to be ironic when I became a freelance writer, with hundreds of items in print).

By this time in my life, my parents had divorced.  My dad lived in another state, and was even more of a non-player in my life.  Alas, my mother had spent years futilely trying to make me more “normal”, from requiring me to learn right-handed penmanship, enrolling me in a “charm school” at the local Sears & Roebucks to improve my feminine graces, and so on.  But as the years wore on, my faults (problems) became more and more apparent.  She no longer described me as “very bright”, but was quick to list all my failures and describe them in damning detail, until I was ready to vomit or pass out from the stress (though I never did, even though either would have been a relief).

By 9th grade it was apparent to all that I was not gifted scholastically, and the general consensus was that I was lazy, stupid at math, not trying hard enough, and acting up just to make her life difficult.  When she was drunk, my failures and interests and personality traits would be compared to her ex-husband’s, “you’re just like your father, the bastard”.  Even as much of a socially-clueless 14 year old that I was, I knew that these kinds of comments were untrue and inappropriate, and the problem was with her attitudes and her drinking.  But they still hurt, terribly.

I would not be diagnosed with ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, and Prosopagnosia until I was in my 40’s.  Such diagnosis hardly existed in those days; certainly my difficulties were not considered to be due to anything but my own personal failings.

No way, my family and school officials decided, could I be college material.  I could not keep track of my assignments, I still struggled to learn and remember my multiplication facts into 8th grade, and I flunked or barely passed classes.

Given my social difficulties and subsequent lack of dating, and even my utter lack of domestic abilities (mom warned me off taking a sewing class because doing so would “ruin my GPA” - grade point average), I was obviously not highly marriageable. This was the 1970s, and most people still thought along those lines — an astonishing number of girls went to college to “get their MRS”.

The goal then was to get me some kind of minimal trade training, so I would, as she fiercely reminded me many times, not be a burden on the family. It was made plain to me that once I graduated high school, and then later turned 18, I was to be out on my own.  I should not expect financial assistance from her.

So I was enrolled in typing, which was a miserable experience beyond the whole ordinary ordeal of learning to type on manual typewriters.  The room was a cacophony of noise.  The instructor was adamant about constant attention to task, proper posture, and graded with the intent on us producing perfection — as soon as a student produced a typographical error, then the score was made. (Additionally, the students’ pages were  held up to the light against her perfect copies to check centering and spacing). There were many days when I would produce an entire page that was otherwise perfect but for a typo in the second line, and my grade would be an F because I had such a low word-count.  Given my problems with developing manual speed, tracking text (near-point copying), attention, and transposing letters and numbers, I struggled to get a C grade.

But the clerical work that was deemed best for me also required taking bookkeeping.  Not surprisingly, this was also a very difficult class for me.  My aptitudes and interests were not really taken into consideration, because after all, even if writing and science and art were what I liked best, I had not done well in those classes, now had I?  Besides, clerical work was what my mother knew, so like many parents she expected me to follow occupational suit.

Unlike many such students, my story has a relatively happy ending.  I did manage to graduate high school, to everyone’s relief.  A year later, I even enrolled in an evening class at the local community college.  College classes were not easy, partly from my intrinsic difficulties, partly from not having the necessary study skills, and partly from not having a solid academic background.

But the glory of the American system is that such colleges provide opportunities for adults of all ages to acquire the these things, and to gain higher education. I worked hard, and slowly figuring out how I learned, which was not always in the ways that others thought I should study.  Sometimes I had to drop a class and re-try it later on, to finish it successfully. Later on in my 40’s I was to also get some of my issues diagnosed.

I now have a Master’s of Science. I teach college students.  No one would have expected this based upon my previous performance. (Employers who place near-complete trust in Behavioral-Based Interviewing, please note!)  And this point, amongst all the others about the perils of attribution errors, and learning disabilities, and dysfunctional families, this point is crucial:

A child’s future abilities cannot always be predicted,

when based upon their current abilities.

Many parents of children who have developmental disorders worry that their children will never be able to attend school, or finish school, or go on to college, or hold a job, or live on their own, or be loved by a partner, or have a family, or talk, or be potty-trained, or any number of milestones.  Just because the child cannot do the same things that their age peers can do, or are expected to do.

This is one of the biggest points of contention or discussion between the “autism community” (parents of autistic children) and the “autistic community” (children, teens and adults who are autistic, and many of whom are parents as well).  Even beyond the farcical assumptions that either community is monolithic with regards to attitudes and knowledge and politics et cetera, there are inherent issues that need to be mutually addressed.

One of the best resources for the autism communities are the autistic communities.  If parents go around just talking to other parents, especially those other parents who are consumed by the “Terrible Tragedy and Selfless Suffering Families” world-views, they may fall prey to this easy assumption:  If my child can’t do it now, he’ll never be able to do it, and our lives will be ruined.

Sure, not everyone takes it to that extreme.  Sure, there are a few children who do not achieve many of those life-goals.  But those lack of achievements does NOT automatically mean that their lives are ruined, or their families’ lives are ruined. They do NOT automatically mean that people cannot live relatively happy, healthy, and productive lives.

Please do NOT assume that not being able to use speech as a reliable means of communication is the same as not being able to think, or not being able to communicate, or not having anything to communicate.

Please do not assume that because a child does not learn in a traditional manner that they are learning “the wrong way”, or that they cannot learn at all, or that they must be taught “remedial learning lessons”.

Please do know that even when children have problems, and are slower to acquire skills, they are not doomed.

Please do not give up on them.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

~First words (at age 35) of an autistic man [quote source]

I welcome you to please post comments, and more links to other positive blogs and sites. Kindly see the newly-updated “NOTES TO COMMENTERS” box in the top of the left sidebar for important information. Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments

Prescription for Thought

6 August 2008 at 5:56 (ADD/ADHD, DSM, Parenting)

This belated post is especially for Debora, who asked for my impressions about ADD/ADHD medications for children.  (Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television.)

Medicating kids or adults for ADHD is a sticky topic.  Everyone has opinions!  Like many topics of heated discussion, usually everyone has several good points to make, and there are always a few people who take things to absurd extremes.  So let’s look at these points individually.  (I’ve boldfaced the points, so if you’ve already reached a state of analysis on that point, you can skip to the next one.)

Does ADD/ADHD even exist?  Is it just some scam made up by drug companies to make money?

Some years ago I received an email from someone who had decided the latter. I replied back with the following, which I have updated to reflect new information: Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments

A few updates

1 August 2008 at 2:28 (ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Disability Blog Carnival, Family, Pain, Skeptic's Circle, Teaching/Tutoring, Tinnitus, migraine)

The 92nd Edition of the Skeptic’s Circle is up, and The Lay Scientist gives us the latest press conference news as given by the Team Skeptic Manager Martin, from the state-of-the-art Olympic training facility in Beijing!  Prepare to be amazed — but never bamboozled.

The July issue of the Pain-blog Carnival is now up at How to Cope With Pain blog.  Readers share a variety of subjective experiences and treatment information.

Speaking of things painful, I put up a couple of photographs I modified to demonstrate some of the visual disturbances I experience during migraines.  Due to the trigger potential, I put these on a special page.  (The images are described for those with impaired vision.)  Alas, the Kid was laid flat by a migraine today — the preventative meds certainly help reduce the numbers of attacks, but they don’t completely eliminate them.  However, he reports that the new medication is a definite improvement over the old one, wooziness notwithstanding. A quiet “Hooray” for this encouraging news.

And although the timing isn’t quite “news” anymore, it’s not so late for it to be “olds”, so do check out the 42nd Disability Blog Carnival over at Pitt Rehab, where Greg gives us a break from the usual busyness for some summery relaxation at the beach, and plenty of great links.

As for me, I have to blame day-long teacher training class all week for my dearth of posting.  It’s been really good, but so intense — having to sit and focus on attending, listening, and learning for hours on end is hard.  Every day I run an errand right after class, and then come home to crash for a 20-minute catnap for my brain to do some filing before I can even think about cooking dinner.  The fatigue is a good reminder of what it’s like for all our students!

(Now if only the tinnitus would Shut Up.)

P.S.  Time to play ADD hide-and-seek: if you were a $100 calculator left in some random location by a teenager, where would you be?

P.P.S.  We already checked the breadbox.

3 Comments

Remembering to Remember to Remember to …

11 June 2008 at 20:44 (ADD/ADHD, Home stuff)

I went and drew the bath. When the tub was full, I took off my pyjama top, and realised that I had forgotten my towel.

I fetched the towel and then realised that I meant to mow first before bathing.

Shut the bathroom door to keep the heat in, I went and changed into gardening clothes. Unplugged the mower from the charger, got one strip done, and then realised that I had forgotten to put on the bag — I wanted to bag the grass clippings to use them for mulching the vegetable garden.

Fetched the bag and put it on the mower. Mowed several strips, enough to have filled the bag, and then found out that I had forgotten to remove the chute block that lets the grass into the bag.

At this point, I realised there was a trend: I kept forgetting things, including the planning-ahead bits. Oh, yeah — I forgot to take my medicine this morning, including my ADHD med.

Usually I try to put my pillbox atop my MacBook when I go to bed, to remind myself the next morning to take my medicine promptly.

But that requires remembering.

4 Comments

More “Trap Bias”

11 April 2008 at 5:45 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, DSM, Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Gender / Sexuality, Learning Disabilities, Mathematics And Statistics, epidemiology)

Whenever I read statistics about the “increasing rates of autism”, I heave a big sigh. Those statements invariable contain a whole number of assumptions, many of them flat-out wrong, or at least unexamined. In the epidemiological data, there are diagnostic issues and census issues and statistical issues and of course, the inevitable agenda issues in the reportage of the census results and analyses. I’ve previously discussed a number of these problems, including incidence versus prevalence, and correlation versus causality in the post, “Epidemics of Bad Science vs Epidemics and Bad Science”

What I would like to address today is a related issue with diagnostics and perceived prevalence, meaning, “How do we know who has autism or AD/HD or a learning disability, and how many such people are out there?”

In entomology (and in other zoological branches) we have a concept known as “trap bias”. There are a number of ways of taking a census of an animal population, including using traps. A “trap bias” means that the kind of trap you use to census a population will limit the responders to your census, and thus create unintended biases in the results.

Now, if a few synapses in your brain just fizzled from that wordy definition, let’s try a simple example. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

Transitions, ACK!

16 March 2008 at 22:29 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Coping strategies, Parenting, Stress, Teaching/Tutoring, Work / Employment, meltdowns)

Read up on descriptions of students with autism, Asperger’s, or Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, and you find the familiar piece about how such people “have rigid routines” or “cannot deal with changes in routine”. Some of those descriptions are um, much more rigidly defined than others. I have real problems with descriptions that use a lot of always or never, as real humans just aren’t that binary. In such cases, the author is being more literal-minded than the group they are describing!

In contrast, statements worded as, “Dislikes changes in routine” or “Has difficulty with unexpected changes in routine” would be much more accurate, especially with regards to the unexpected changes — you can brace for, and plan ahead for expected changes in routines.

Therefore, consistency in routine is suggested as a good instructional, parenting, and employment tool. It’s also recommended for students with AD/HD as a support measure.

But you know what? Everyone is attached to their routines. We like to get through our morning preparation without a lot of glitches. “OMG, we’re out of coffee!” We expect holiday celebrations to go a certain way, and when two people become a couple they find out how many rituals were specific to their own families of origin, and then the couple has to decide how they are going to select and combine both of their rituals.

People in general don’t like having to adjust their day around massive changes in their schedule, and are more than a little vexed at unexpected and unavoidable challenges thrown in. Airline travel went from something exciting to a dreaded ordeal as airport security became tighter and tighter, and the airlines restricted what kinds of and how many comfort objects people could bring with them on the plane. No, “comfort objects” aren’t just teddy bears or worry-beads; a wide variety of mundane objects like your favorite bed pillow, brand of soda and portable music player are also comfort objects.

So why are some people so much more attached to their routines, and then undone when faced with changes?

There are a several reasons, related to situational decoding, compensating, and attention-switching. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments

Time to go

29 February 2008 at 6:31 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Coping strategies, Home stuff, Work / Employment)

“How long can it take to walk out the door?”

Other people ask us this. They are incredulous as we struggle to get to places on time, much less with all the materials we needed to have.

We also ask ourselves this when we are getting ready or planning. Surely, we think to ourselves, merely walking out the door and getting into the car takes almost no time at all.

As if!

And that’s why we struggle to get to places on time.

It takes us far longer to “get our shit together,” to remember everything we need, and then get into the car, and unload all the baggage, settle down, and get ready to drive. The least speed-bump in the getting-ready process (like a mislaid car key) throws everything into chaos, which stresses us beyond dealing with that little event, often resulting in getting so distracted from our tediously-created coping methods so that we forget something we usually can remember, or almost-forget and have to go back in (maybe more than once) to fetch something nearly forgotten.

Take a deep breath.

Let it out slowly.

Yeah. Just thinking about these situations reminds us of all those crazy days, weeks and months and years of them. We remember all the scolding, the embarrassment of being late, of missing appointments, of getting to places without something important or even the most necessary thing that may have been the reason for us going there in the first place.

Just being stressed about trying to leave on time makes things worse; the clumsiness increases. Even after finally getting ready one morning (in N-recursive steps, as usual), Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments

De-stressing with O.T.S.

28 February 2008 at 0:29 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Stimming, Stress)

Funny short story:

Hubby and I are at the local pub having a Guinness. Naturally, the big-screen televisions are on, and he asks me, “Are you watching the basketball game?”

Are you kidding?! I think to myself, and answer, “No.”

There’s a slight pause, then he asks, “Are you staring at the ceiling fan?”

Busted!

Well you know, I’m there to relax, right? Chatting with hubby about life, and enjoying my ale is only part of that.

A pal of mine is very stressed. Sadly, this is a common problem. But even worse, over the years the repertoire of natural coping methods have been so discouraged, extinguished or suppressed that my pal can hardly name what is helpful. Now that is really sad.

We all have ways of dealing with stresses. They can be roughly divided into three general categories: organisation [O], timing [T], and soothing activities [S]. I have denoted each with an initial because the text flow did not easily lend to listing these in categorical sections.

Prevention [O]: We avoid situations that we know will be stressful. Sometimes we can have someone else do a task for us, or set things up so the task does not actually have to be done.

For example, Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments

A shot in the arm, A slight kick in the butt

18 February 2008 at 20:23 (ADD/ADHD, Anti-Quackery, Autism/Asperger's, Communication, Community, epidemiology)

Last week I took two of our cats to the vet for their annual check-ups, including the Rabies, Feline Distemper, and Feline Leukemia vaccines. Some years ago we lost one of our cats to Feline Leukemia; the poor kitty died just a few months before the vaccine was available.

This Saturday past I reminded my gardening students that if they cannot remember when they last had a Tetanus booster, they they should go and get one, because a booster is recommended every ten years. The number of people to have survived Tetanus is vanishingly small; it’s pretty much a death sentence. It’s also easily prevented by a simple vaccine. Sure, your arm is a bit sore for a couple of days, but that beats dying an extremely painful and highly unnecessary death. As I reminded my students, “You get your pets vaccinated, you get your children vaccinated, so you should get yourself vaccinated!”

Except there are a few people who don’t want to get their children vaccinated. A drop in vaccinations means not only that some people get sick, but a drop in vaccinations also means a loss of “herd immunity”, meaning that most of the population is not immune, so there are enough people who can catch and then transmit the disease. When you make a decision to not immunise, you are not making a decision that affects just you and your children. You are a making a decision that affects everyone else in your community.

That is why we had recent epidemics of mumps and measles in the UK and the US, leading to hundreds of sick people, and some who were disabled or killed. Because I work with students in various schools, I get lots of exposure to viruses. I had not previous had a mumps vaccine or the disease, so during those epidemics I went and got the MMR. Now I’m protected against Mumps, Measles and Rubella (even though I had the other vaccines in ‘63 and ‘70, the combined vax helps boost my immunity). I also went through the Hepatitis B series that year.

So yes, I’m a big proponent of vaccinations.

And no, I do not subscribe to the hysteria generated by a few noisy, well-meaning but seriously-deluded or paranoid people who believe that there is a world-wide conspiracy Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments

Communication Blips

17 February 2008 at 5:50 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Communication)

I’ve not been posting much lately, due to a combination of a head cold (you would think that would result in more sleep, but good sleep still eludes me), major changes in my job schedule, an evening class that I’m taking sucking up time with studying, new Saturday classes that I’m teaching sucking up time with preparations, and ongoing communication blips between my household wireless router and the AirPort card in my MacBook. I think the wireless problems annoy me most of all, because it’s being able to rely upon the little things that enable us to deal with the big things.

Having digital communication blips reminded me of the other sort that we sometimes deal with around here.

So. I have a teenager of the typically reticent sort, who at times is given to answering open-ended questions in monosyllables. That in itself is not particularly uncommon. What we do run into are situations where the Kid is still learning what needs to be actively communicated, rather than assuming that others will know what is wanted or planned. These are the little blips of “mindblindness” that we sometimes run into with the Asperger’s and/or AD/HD kids. (Adults have these problems at times too — the difference being that we have figured out the more common situations, but still miss moments here and there, leaving our spouses and co-workers puzzled or annoyed).

What are these communication blips? Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments

Maslow Cleans House

16 February 2008 at 4:56 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Coping strategies, Home stuff)

This How-To post is dedicated to a pal of mine who was commenting about how hard it is to get the apartment (flat) tidied and cleaned up. I was trying to describe how I used Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, natural supports, and the Premack Principle together as means for organising this most mundane set of chores.

In this case, we don’t mean that housekeeping is “hard” in the sense of physically mopping a floor, but hard in the sense of figuring out where to start, how to keep the momentum going, getting the job finished, and even figuring out what to do with stuff. The so-called “executive functions” of planning, execution, self-monitoring et cetera are not limited to office work — they are just as necessary in the realm of what used to be referred to (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) as “domestic engineering”.

Amazingly, tidying and cleaning a small apartment is more difficult than doing the same in a full-size house. Granted, the larger house has more rooms, which in turn means more square area to be vacuumed or mopped, and may mean twice as many toilets and tubs to scrub. But the problem with the tiny domicile is that the average 21st-century post-industrial resident has a certain amount of Stuff for daily living, and that amount of stuff does not shrink proportionately just because the domicile does. (I love the German word for “stuff”, Kram, because cramming my Kram into odd places is what I spend a lot of tidying time doing.) Worse, small residences usually lack great amounts of storage space. Unless you are spartan in your personal possessions by dint of poverty or strong design aesthetic*, you have more stuff than the meager cabinets and closets will hold.

Of course we have to pick up first to clear the surfaces so we can clean them. But we could spend all day trying in vain to get things picked up, especially if we have AD/HD and are easily distracted. Picking up is way too recursive — you pick up one thing to put away, take it to where it belongs, find something at the end point or en route to the end point, pick it up, maybe put away the first thing, try to put away the second thing, maybe manage to do so without being distracted by the third thing, or get interrupted by a phone call or a cooking timer or remember something else or…

Heavens, at that rate you would need to get your shoes re-soled before you got the place picked up! And in all that, you’re making a half-assed attempt at trying to clean things as well, because you got thirsty and found something moldy or spilled in the fridge and –

ARGH!

To make any headway in my own domestic engineering, I finally had to set up a hierarchy, somewhat similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The needs are dual, based upon the needs of the residents for living there, and also upon the housekeeper for being able to get things done effectively. My own order of operations is set up as much as possible for natural supports to be created. Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments

Fishing With the Wrong bAIT

9 February 2008 at 23:43 (ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism/Asperger's, Tinnitus, hyperacussis)

The other day (er, week) I promised to post some thoughts on AIT, so here they are.

There are plenty of treatments offered to cure or improve Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). Auditory processing is not just about hearing. Hearing is the sensory business that the ears do, and the auditory processing is what the brain then does with the signals from the auditory nerves. The ears also have the semicircular canals, which provide us with information about balance — that sense of balance, along with the proprioception of our joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons and bones, give us the sensory information we need for coördination. In auditory processing disorder, the sensory part of hearing often works just fine; it is not a hearing problem, it is an understanding problem. The ears are getting the information and are sending suitable signals; but there are some “tangles” or “speed-bumps” in the interpretation of the signal.

One treatment popularly lauded on Web advertisements is Auditory Integration Training (AIT), which is supposed to also help problems related to tinnitus, hyperacussis (oversensitivity to high-pitched and/or sudden noises, or sound in general), autism, ADD or ADHD. Depending upon the practitioner, AIT may also be sold as effective treatment for dyslexia, stuttering, depression, speech delay, and even head-banging or echolalia. That’s quite a list of highly diverse issues, which immediately sends off mental warning bells.

AIT was developed by Dr Guy Berard, who is also the author of the (out-of-print) book, Hearing Equals Behavior,

“Everything happens as if human behavior were largely conditioned by the manner in which one hears.”

(Hmn, I bet a lot of Deaf people would beg to differ with Dr Berard’s assertion!)

So how is this method supposed to work? Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments

The 3-pound Exemption (disembodied woo)

26 January 2008 at 4:29 (ADD/ADHD, Anti-Quackery, Cognitive biases, Medical Quackery, advocacy, hate groups)

You gotta feel sorry for Topeka, Kansas. The state’s capital city is not only home to the infamous Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, and has recently been the battleground for Intelligent Design vs Evolution counter-counter-legislation by the school board (currently with the majority ruling pro-science), but now the capitol is host to the paranoid propaganda by the CCHR. CCHR is the Citizens Commision on Human Rights, which despite the generic name is really just a front for Scientology. Their exhibit is titled, “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” (well, no hidden biases there). Correspondent for the Kansas City Star newspaper, David Klepper, writes that the “the Capitol sees its share of traveling displays and wandering weirdness”. He notes that any group that can pay the fee is allowed to put up a display as long as it is not obscene, and describes the content thusly: Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments

ALDs in the Classroom

13 January 2008 at 4:55 (ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Teaching/Tutoring, hyperacussis)

On my page about Auditory Processing Disorder, someone had enquired if using ALDs (Assistive Listening Devices) in the classroom would be helpful. Her daughter, like many students, did not want to be singled out by using them and perceived by her peers as being “weird”. I thought I would expand upon the response to include more information. Please note that these suggestions are slated more toward APD and general educational design suggestions, rather than toward ALD equipment for students with severe hearing loss.

Although ALDs do work to an extent, they may not be the best choice for some situations. We should also note that although schools focus on the deficiencies of the student’s hearing, listening comprehension, or attention, quite frequently some of the deficiencies are really in the design of the school classrooms. These make it more difficult for students with APD, ADHD, or hyperacussis, and they also make it more tiring for the instructors who must spend all day trying to talk over noisy environments, and for the other students. (More on this aspect in the latter part of this post.)

One type of ALD is an FM or infrared system that involves a microphone (for the teacher) and receiver headphones (for the student). Naturally this is highly visible, so not everyone wants to be singled out in this manner.

The microphone must be positioned correctly, so the speaker’s voice does not fade in and out of range (you may have experienced this yourself when sitting in presentations or conferences). Of course, both pieces of the equipment needs to have fresh batteries and be in good repair, or it’s useless.

Sometimes microphones with speakers are recommended for teachers so they can broadcast better to the students in the back of the room. Usually the speakers are not high quality, and such systems just add to the amount of noise, rather than improving the clarity of communication!

Because the microphone is used by the primary speaker, it presents problems if anyone else in the classroom speaks. Either the mike is passed around when there are group discussions or questions, or the listener does not get comments and queries by the other students in the room. The latter not only removes a layer of information, but can also lead to reduce social inclusiveness because the person with the headphones loses the small commentaries that may not be part of the formal instruction, but are part of the socialisation and informal culture of the classroom. Even if the microphone does get passed around, the other students’ lack of familiarity with holding the mike where it can pick up their voices and the considerable junk-noise of passing the microphone do not improve the listening experience.

I will say that there are special situations when an ALD such as this would be especially good, such as when the teacher is doing instruction during a bus ride, in noisy places like zoos, factory tours, science museums and so on. It should also be made clear (and probably reminded) to the teacher that PA announcements are often unintelligible to people with APD (or hearing loss) — this means that messages will need to be passed on, and the teacher should not rely on the student being able to follow those announcements, except where they are simply following the herd of students. (I’ve had my family page me at airports and other places, and I not only couldn’t understand the page, I couldn’t even tell that I was the one being paged!)

There are alternatives to using an ALD, which should be considered and probably tried before deciding to use the ALD.

Students with APD should get “preferential seating”, which is often used for ADHD students as well. This means sitting near the teacher and/or instruction board or instruction area. The point is to reduce the amount of space and distractions between the student and the source of information. This is especially helpful if the student does some lip-reading (not everyone with APD is even aware they do this).

The teacher should be careful to not address the students when writing on the board. (Unfortunately, most teachers start out very conscientious, and then after a few days revert back to their old habits.) The student will have to get in the habit of asking, “What was that?” or “Can you repeat that?” or may have to advocate after the fact. Meaning, when everyone has started on the work, raising her hand, and then when the teacher comes by to talk with her, point out that the teacher was talking to the board (again) and she couldn’t understand everything. She could also have a special hand-signal to make when the teacher turns back around from the board, to alert the teacher of the missed communication.

Have the instructor turn on captions to broadcast media — these are good for the ESL students, and they help the other students catch the terms and spelling of details they need from the program. It’s best for the teacher to not point out that they are turning on the captions for your daughter specifically — just turn them on, and if anyone asks, simply explain that they are on so everyone can more easily understand the dialog. That’s the truth; there’s no one need for one person to be singled out.

As I referred to earlier, the classroom design can aggravate APD and ADHD difficulties. Not all of the problem should be set at the feet of the student!

“Noise” is composed of a number of factors. Most people just think of the volume (measured in decibels). But there is also the complexity factor — it’s hard to focus on one sound source when there are other sound sources going on at the same time. There is also the noise-to-signal-ratio factor where clarity is important, and clarity can be lost from not just background noise, but also echoes, unclear speech, and poor transmission equipment (fuzzy speakers, tinny receivers and so on).

ALDs are often recommended because the student (or employee) is having trouble hearing or understanding because the room is atmospherically noisy. This is in large part due to bad environmental design — too many hard surfaces, noisy HVAC (air conditioners, radiators, fans), various kinds of equipment, lots of voices at once and so on. Please note that “noisy equipment” does not mean it has to be loud by OSHA standards — students who are distractible and/or have APD problems and/or hyperacussis will find the noise levels in an average classroom to be more of a problem than many of their peers. (This also applies to many students with autism.)

Things like area rugs, draperies and acoustic tiles (or new, much more effective acoustic tiles) will help muffle a lot of the echo and reverberation. Turning off equipment when it’s not being used helps more than people realise, and is also important to save energy. If there are times when multiple instruction is going on (for example, an aide helping a few students) then setting up an area with a couple of those portable, upholstered cubicle-type dividers will help not only your student, but also be more effective for the aide and the other students. It’s always easier to “sell” an idea when the benefits to numbers of people are described.

I don’t believe that students with ADHD or APD should not even be in settings with the “open classroom” design that was in vogue some decades ago, as having several different classes and multiple instructions and larger numbers of students milling around is just too much to deal with effectively. Schools that have tried to retrofit open classroom areas into individual classrooms often end up with inadequate materials (due to budgetary issues). Unfortunately, merely pulling a folding divider wall between two rooms does not adequately damp all the noise that seeps through. A suspended (common) ceiling that is sometimes added along with the partitions does not effectively mute sound, but rather serves to transmit the sounds from one room to the next.

Likewise, rows of file cabinets are also poor excuses for walls between “rooms” in libraries or other resource rooms. It’s hard for adults to work in such environments, so I don’t know why we expect that children should find it easy. Furthermore, pretending that experiencing classes in such poorly-divided greatrooms is good practice for working in “cubicle farms” is nothing more than piss-poor rationalisation, what Alfie Kohn refers to as “getting hit on the head lessons” (justifying bad educational practices as preparation for more of the same).

Sadly, there are a great many districts that are suffering from insufficient classroom space. Teachers and students end up in a variety of locations that were never meant to be classrooms, and have had only minimal modifications, usually hanging up a whiteboard and cramming in some desks and chairs. In addition to features like thin, hollow “temporary” walls that have been there for years, odd room shapes or cramped conditions (including putting the board on a free wall rather than one that works with the traffic flow or desk orientation), and ventilation quirks we often find that these ad hoc classrooms are poorly placed with respect to other functions of the school.

Usually school architects try to create noise-buffer zones between the classrooms and the other functional areas of the school, such as the gymnasium, lunch room, kitchen, power plant, or specialty classrooms such as shop (wood/metal/engine working) or band instruction. These desperation classrooms are stuck in all sorts of bad locations, even in part of the custodian’s storage area. I remember having my Government class in a tiny room set in the back hallway by the gymnasium (it was probably once the coaches’ office), and the students reached the room by virtue of going through the boys’ or girls’ locker room. We spent the entire time assaulted by the locker room and pool chlorine smells, and the instructor had to talk over the noise from the adjoining gymnasium and natatorium.

Many older school buildings were designed in eras when passive lighting and ventilation were more commonplace. These frequently have high ceilings hung with banks of fluorescent lights and tall windows that are usually shaded by metal blinds. Those high ceilings and the hard surfaces combine to accentuate the noise echo and reverberation, and the banks of fluorescent lights are often noisy in their own regard. Because the fans are beneath the windows, the air flow will create ripples and rattles in the blinds, even when teachers try to pin down the bottoms of the blinds with stacks of extra textbooks. These are the sorts of rooms where general amplification speakers are especially un-helpful.

In summary, Assistive Listening Devices are helpful for reducing some of the noise-to-signal ratio.  However, they cannot substitute for effective interpersonal communication skills, and can only mediate some kinds of environmental noise problems.  They are not an easy fix to the problems faced by a student with APD.  As I have mentioned before, our various assistive devices do not remove our cure our problems, but rather, are part of the system of coping methods.

2 Comments

Mystery Jam and Other Achievements

8 January 2008 at 3:10 (ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism/Asperger's, Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, IEPs, Learning Disabilities, Special Education, epidemiology)

I lost a label. I don’t mean the sticky label missing from the jar of “mystery jam” in my pantry (the goo is yellow, so I’m pretty sure it’s last summer’s ginger-pear jam), but rather a diagnostic label. For many parents, one of the highlights or milestones in life is for their child to “lose the label”.

Once-upon-a-time the getting that label (or labels) was highly important, so everyone knew what the problem was (well, sorta) and so the child could get some kind of educational or therapeutic services. Getting the label was oft times a relief because it meant that Someone Official had recognised that the child’s problems were not due to bad parenting, moral failure, or general laziness on the child’s part. Usually parents suspected something was “off” for quite a while, so having that validated is a bit of a relief.

Of course, then once the suspicions are confirmed, there are often new kinds of feelings while adjusting to the new daily reality. Frequently there are skirmishes with school districts or other bureaucracies. Sometimes there’s a bit of a grieving process for not having the perfect little darlings imagined during pregnancy. Some families have issues with relatives not understanding, accepting or even “believing in” whatever problem with the child is dealing with. Nasty episodes can erupt in extended families if one of the parents is accused of “causing” the problem or bringing “bad blood” to the lineage.

And of course, a number of parents eventually realise that the child’s issues are echoes of some of their own issues. Going through these things is very complex, sometimes stressful, and often enlightening. Having a child with a disability does not automatically tear a family apart or make the siblings resentful; depending upon how the parents respond to the issues and to each other, it can strengthen the family members’ ties to each other, and lead people to be more compassionate and less judgmental.

So losing the label can mean that the family has (finally!) managed to get beyond a lot of those stresses. Or so it seems.

But what does it really mean to “lose the label”? It can mean a number of things. Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments

It’s Not Just Me

5 January 2008 at 5:58 (ADD/ADHD, Accessibility, Autism/Asperger's, migraine)

“It’s not just me.”

I always feel ambivalent saying that. It’s part, “I’m not nuts or just being whiney, it’s real,” and part “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”

Recent stories on BBC News describe how fluorescent light bulbs are not just good for saving energy — they can also be problematic for some people. The lighting can worsen skin rashes in people with photosensitive conditions, including, “the auto-immune disease lupus, the genetic disorder Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), certain forms of eczema and dermatitis, photosensitivity, and porphyria”

It has been estimated about 100,000 people in the UK with these skin conditions will be affected.

ME (Myalgic encephalomyelitis, AKA Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) was also mentioned.

Dr Colin Holden, President of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: “It is important that patients with photosensitive skin eruptions are allowed to use lights that don’t exacerbate their condition.”

The bulbs were also mentioned as potential triggers for migraines or epilepsy.

However, Karen Manning, from the Migraine Action Association, said this could be damaging to some sufferers.
She said that up to six million people in the UK suffer from some sort of migraine attack.
“These bulbs do trigger migraines for some of our members - it’s either the flickering, or the low intensity of the light, causing eye strain.

Some people with AD/HD or autism also complain about similar problems with fluorescent lighting.

Currently there is a plan in the UK to voluntarily phase out incandescent bulbs by 2011, as part of the effort to reduce overall CO2 emissions.  This is important as part of the world-wide effort to reduce global warming; the US could stand to be more proactive.

But we need to remember the important tenant of Universal Design:  there is no one perfect solution for everyone.  Employers, schools and other organisations will need to be able to have options for people, as indicated by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) and similar rulings.  Hopefully advances in LED lighting or other new technologies will result in other products that work well for various purposes.

6 Comments

All in the family

10 December 2007 at 12:13 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Community, Family, Love & acceptance, epidemiology)

Sometimes after a child gets a diagnosis (or diagnoses) the parents begin to realise many of the same issues from their own childhoods, and on through adulthood. In our family it took the opposite route. It took years to really see the aspie qualities of my kid, partly from unfamiliarity, and partly because in a geeky family like ours … most of those qualities are “normal”. Not until the teen years did the social issues, the APD issues, and ADHD-related educational issues really become unavoidable. The tics went away after several years, as happens sometimes. But I think there was less “denial” as there was unawareness and a sense of internal normalcy: “this is just the way we are”.

A very nice article by Benedict Carey illustrates this: Your Child’s Disorder May Be Yours, Too

Mr. Schwarz, a software developer in Framingham, Mass., found in his son’s diagnosis a new language to understand his own life. His sensitivities when growing up to loud noises and bright light, his own diffidence through school, his parents’ and grandparents’ special intellectual skills — all echoed through his and Jeremy’s behavior, like some ancient rhythm.

His son’s diagnosis, Mr. Schwarz said, “provided a frame in which a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated aspects of my own life growing up fit together for the first time.”

…

It can alter the present, too, if parent and child have enough common ground. Mr. Schwarz, the software developer in Framingham, said he became in some ways like a translator for his son, who’s now 16.

“I think there are a lot of parents of kids with these diagnoses who have at least a little bit of the traits their kids have,” Mr. Schwarz said. “But because of the stigma this society places on anything associated with disability, they’re inhibited from embracing that part of themselves and fully leveraging it to help their kids.”

Our understanding of diagnoses mean changes over time, and we leave or entirely skip that stage of grieving over not having a promised “normal” child, or possibly even viewing the issues as horrible things that must be cured at all costs. Instead, we find that our children are different rather than damaged, and that we ourselves are oft times different as well. We move from grief to acceptance, and realise that acceptance is not the same thing as resignation.

In fact, we do not have children with broken wings, but we are in many ways flocks of different kinds of birds, not unlike the diversity of finches that Darwin found in the Galápagos, all adapted for slightly different niches. After all, we don’t all need to be penguins attired in identical tuxedos.

5 Comments

Favorite Things

10 December 2007 at 1:52 (ADD/ADHD, Coping strategies, Disability Blog Carnival, Food, Teaching/Tutoring, migraine)

The weather for the past few days has been absolutely dreich, with fog, snow, freezing drizzle, more fog and sleet. Three of us have had migraines this week, possibly related to such. There’s nothing worse than waking up to a migraine with the blinding blue snow-glare piercing one right through the eyes to the brain, or the sleet-magnified echo-chamber effect of having a Boeing jetliner come grinding down the street and then going by again and then OMG going by a third time (jeez, it’s the bloody snow plow scraping off the ice), and let’s not forget crickets that suddenly mature to start chirping (STFU!), and lamp timers that develop annoying rattles (my apologies to recent house guests).

Even worse, the weather’s bad enough to make driving dangerous, but not bad enough to cancel school — teh suckage!

Meanwhile, today I’m snugged down at home, and have just made up some lentil soup (a vegetarian Indian recipe) in the crockery-cooker, so recipe at end of post (apologies to folks down-under who are contemplating summer fare).

But there are the very good parts, including family in town for an early Christmas, and being also blessed with necessities like warm homes, full larders and effective medications. We also have a number of little things that not only delight us in small ways, but even make life just so much more pleasant, and reduce our stress loads. As usual, “you don’t appreciate something until you’ve lost it” so we often don’t realise just how much these mean to us, and how supportive they are, until we’re away from home. Here are some of my faves, which fall into two categories: technology that enables me to do things, and creature comforts.

  • The internet. It’s hard to imagine life without this font of information, fun and community. Howdy to you all out there!
  • My MacBook. Years ago I got my first personal computer with word processing, and haven’t looked back. I store my music on it, create PowerPoints to show pictures and illustrate methods in my gardening classes, keep track of my calendar, use it to download and modify and print pictures, play games, and of course, write and store all sorts of documents.
  • To take all those fun pix I have my digital SLR. No more 35 mm film to load and get developed or slides to scan! I can shoot over 600 photos before downloading, which means plenty of shots to get just the Right One, and I can play around with interesting angles.
  • My New Beetle beeps to let me know I’m low on fuel, and furthermore, will beep again the next time I start up the engine to remind me that now I really need to fill the gas/petrol tank. It also has heated seats which sounded like a ridiculous frill until the first winter, and then I realised that I could get myself warmed up by the end of the first kilometer of driving, rather than by the time I’d reached my destination.
  • My microwave that gives me a reminder beep a minute later, when I’ve forgotten something in there after the finish beep. This is fabulous for the AD/HD brain! Sometimes it takes that second reminder beep to penetrate past the hyperfocus to alert my consciousness.
  • And since I have that extra small microwave from when I had a second home in my campus apartment, I now keep it in my bedroom where it’s invaluable for also warming up my Rice Sock. The rice sock is simply a tube sock filled with 1 lb (1/2 kg) of dry rice, and knotted shut. I warm it up for a minute or two in the microwave, and then drape it where-ever I’m cold, stiff or sore. Unlike an electric heating pad, it eventually cools down, so there’s no risk of burns, and it conforms to my body much more nicely. It’s even nice in the summer, when I keep it in the freezer to cool down by draping it over my neck or forehead. Any time of year it’s great for draping across my eyes to shut out the light. Everyone needs a rice sock!
  • Shearling slippers for the chronically cold feet; thankfully these things “wear like iron” (last a long, long time) as I wear them around the house for all but the barefoot months of the year.
  • My mug warmer, a small electric hot plate that keeps my coffee or tea Just Right for however so long.
  • Old, soft 100% cotton pillowcases, ironed blissfully smooth (bonus if the bed linens were dried on a clothes line and smell like sunshine). Cotton also feels cooler in the summer time.

“A few of my favourite things” is the theme for the next Disability Blog Carnival, being held right here on the 13th. You can submit one of your blog posts by using this page, or posting a link in the comments section here (if you can, please send in links by Today-Monday or Tuesday). More links to Disability Blog Carnivals can be found where Penny L. Richards has posted them on this page of the Disability Studies, Temple U blog. They’re great reading!

Here’s that soup recipe, for some chow to go with all that reading:

MYSORE RASAM

2 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 cup yellow lentils (toovar dal)
1 teaspoon turmeric
15 ounce/ 400 g. tin tomato sauce
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground red chillies
1 teaspoon salt

Sauté the mustard seeds in the butter. Add to the lentils and spices, plus 4 cups water and simmer for 35 minutes, until the lentils are tender. (Or cook in crockery-cooker for several hours.) Mash or puree the lentils, and simmer 15 minutes more. Soup may be strained for a consommé.

5 Comments

Absolute Nonsense

4 December 2007 at 2:33 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Tourette's / tics, epidemiology)

Over in England, Mary is working to get her son assessed for ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome and Asperger’s. I would think that the TS would be a fairly easy diagnosis for their specialist to make, especially if various people at home and school have documented lists of various motor & vocal tics. The ADHD diagnosis can sometimes be trickier, if only because the more noticeable tics tend to overshadow things, but given the frequency with which these syndromes are co-occurring (I hate the term “comorbid”), no one should be surprised. Likewise, AS also tends to come in these “package deals”.

But the reason I mention all this is to comment about one of the aspects of the interview process that she mentioned:

They did not think, for various reasons, that he has Asperger’s, mainly because he is highly creative and also has a sense of humour (doesn’t take everything literally as most asperger people do).

Boy, talk about literal-mindedness! There’s nothing like absolutes to mess up diagnostics. When people start throwing around concepts like “always” and “never”, I get the impression that their experiences with different students (or clients, or adults, or children) is limited to memorising narrow diagnostic criteria and the obligatory (brief) psych rotation during training, rather than with numbers of rather diverse, real people.

Asperger’s or autistic kids do not:

  • always take things literally;
  • never have a sense of humor;
  • always have flat affect;
  • never make eye contact;
  • always drone on incessantly about their special interests;
  • never have friends;
  • are always computer or math whizzes;
  • always demonstrate stereotypical flapping, rocking, or stimming;
  • or lack imagination — as the man himself said:

“It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential.”
~Hans Asperger

After all, everything is relative — we’re comparing how the person is compared relative to their peers. Likewise, if the family has members with TS, AD/HD, AS or any other co-occurring conditions, well, it shouldn’t be too hard a diagnostic stretch to consider that the person of enquiry may well have similar issues!

As a pal of mine used to jest, “There are absolutely no absolutes.”

4 Comments

The Fine Art of Fidgeting

2 December 2007 at 17:41 (ADD/ADHD, Coping strategies, Stimming)

Most people think of children with Attention Deficit HYPERACTIVITY Disorder as being kids who bounce off the walls, sometimes literally so. Several years ago, there was some debate as to whether or not our kid had ADHD. All of the disorganised, inattentive, losing-things, forgetting-things details were there, as well as the bedroom floor that was invisible from clutter. Certainly the kid couldn’t sit through dinner without hopping up from the chair several times. But in school the kid behaved somewhat differently (as children often do), and remained appropriately seated. Because the kid is also rather reticent, there wasn’t the frequent class interruptions that one gets with the talkative sort of ADHD student.

The kid is now 16, and not surprisingly, has matured as well as gotten older. Years of developing support systems at home have paid off in some areas; Read the rest of this entry »

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ADD-itional News

13 November 2007 at 0:46 (ADD/ADHD, Science)

While driving home, I just heard this latest ADHD news on NPR (link has text synopsis):  some children diagnosed with ADHD do literally grow out of the disorder by the time they are in their 20s.  Parts of the brain responsible for “the control of action and attention” experience about a two-year lag in these children, compared to their age-cohort.  The MRI study at the National Institute of Mental Health looked at scans of over 400 children (half diagnosed with AD/HD) taken over several years, to track the development of various areas of the brain.

Previous studies have shown that the AD/HD brain shows structural differences, as well as differences in the levels of neurotransmitters*.  Although some people continue to have these differences into adulthood, not everyone does.   Apparently this is sometimes merely a maturational delay, and sometimes a more permanent developmental difference.

* No, AD/HD is not “just an excuse” to cover up lazyness, or due to “bad parenting” (although poor parenting practices can certainly aggravate related issues), nor is it due to food colouring, sugar, et cetera.  There are a plethora of MRI scan studies out there demonstrating that the condition has a real, physical basis.

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a-Tunes

5 November 2007 at 0:07 (ADD/ADHD, Autism/Asperger's, Humor/ Fun Stuff, Stimming)

So last night the aspie kid, dad and I were sitting around the kitchen table, playing card games. We made a dent in some of the leftover Halloween candy, consumed a couple pots of tea, and generally had fun. Later on that night I was thinking over the evening, and I realised that there were some marked differences compared to similar evenings of my own youth. Read the rest of this entry »

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