Brain Gain

Margaret Talbot at The New Yorker has an incredible piece on the use of drugs like Adderall and Ritalin to give “regular” non-ADHD students a competitive edge by allowing them to concentrate.

New psychiatric drugs have a way of creating markets for themselves. Disorders often become widely diagnosed after drugs come along that can alter a set of suboptimal behaviors. In this way, Ritalin and Adderall helped make A.D.H.D. a household name, and advertisements for antidepressants have helped define shyness as a malady. If there’s a pill that can clear up the wavering focus of sleep-deprived youth, or mitigate the tip-of-the-tongue experience of middle age, then those rather ordinary states may come to be seen as syndromes.

Oh dear.

Both Chatterjee and Farah have wondered whether drugs that heighten users’ focus might dampen their creativity. After all, some of our best ideas come to us not when we sit down at a desk but, rather, when we’re in the shower or walking the dog—letting our minds roam. Jimi Hendrix reported that the inspiration for “Purple Haze” came to him in a dream; the chemist Friedrich August Kekule claimed that he discovered the ring structure of benzene during a reverie in which he saw the image of a snake biting its tail. Farah told me, “Cognitive psychologists have found that there is a trade-off between attentional focus and creativity. And there is some evidence that suggests that individuals who are better able to focus on one thing and filter out distractions tend to be less creative.”

This sounds right to me, seriously.

This is scary stuff.

OnPoint on NPR had a show on this in February, listen here: Mind-Enhancers for All?.

Stop worrying about your children!

Stop worrying about your children!

Kids today are just as safe as they were in the ’70s, says “Free-Range Kids” author Lenore Skenazy, and what’s really distressing is an alarmist culture that refuses to let them grow up.

Tell that to “helicopter parents.”

Forward Motion Coaching

Forward Motion Coaching
P.O. Box 89
West Boylston, MA 01583
508-835-2482
ForwardMotion@charter.net
http://www.forwardmotion.info

This is a great talk by Michael Merzenich done at the TED conference.

The training program is from Dr. Merzenich’s company, PositScience.

I’m not sure about the training program but the talk is fascinating generally and as it applies to people with language learning issues.

“I am not a puzzle, I am a person”

Elizabeth Svoboda at Salon has an interesting piece up today: “I am not a puzzle, I am a person”.

People with autism don’t need to be “cured,” argues the burgeoning “autism culture” movement. Not all parents or medical experts agree.

The Education Professionals

http://www.theeducationprofessionals.com/

The Education Professionals showcases career and recruitment opportunities for teachers, teaching assistants, nursery nurses, school support staff and lecturers looking for jobs within Dubai and the Middle East.

The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School

The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School
1365 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
773-702-1203
http://orthogenicschool.uchicago.edu/

Pediatrician Agrees to Stop Practicing After Abuse Charges

Dr. Melvin D. Levine, the North Carolina pediatrician who faces a lawsuit accusing him of molesting young boys during physical examinations, has signed a consent order agreeing that he will never again practice medicine in North Carolina or anywhere else.

Word Finding Difficulties

Word Finding Difficulties
http://www.wordfinding.com/

This Word Finding web site provides information about Word Finding for professionals, parents, and learners with word finding difficulties.

LDAA-Calgary Chapter

Blaine Hrabi, Regional Coordinator
Destination Employment, LDAA-Calgary Chapter
Suite 340, 1202 Centre St. SE
Calgary AB T2G 5A5
403-283-6606
403-270-4043 fax
http://www.ldaa.net/