Interesting Autism Theory: Mating Polarization

Dr. Eide's Neurolearning blog has an interesting set of links and a overview of an interesting Autism/PPD theory that essentially says that the increased rate of PDD type behaviours in individuals in fields like math, engineering, and physics may lead to a group of systemizers who seek out a similar group in spouses. And when you mate those two groups together you increase the selection of genes that target those behaviours, and potentially increase the likelihood of extreme expression of those traits such as Autism.

Here is a excerpt of an excerpt putting that into a narrative:

"assortative mating," as he calls it, would have served to concentrate the critical genes, increasing the chance that such a couple will give birth to the most extreme systemizers of all those with autism.

Now this is not just philosophically driven theory alone. They did actually do some research. And they found that the incidence of Autism in the families of the Math/Engeineer/Physics students was 6 times higher than it was in English or French Literature students families.

That is a pretty large difference. Interestingly the Literature students families were twice as prone to bipolar disorder.

Now the result is interesting, but we have to first determine if there is other distinctions within these two "family groups" that could lead to increased rates of diagnosis. Are arts families more prone to seek out mental health treatment and assessment, while hard science families more likely to seek out psychoeducational assessment? Do families who are more logically driven have increased difficulty handling a child that seems on the surface to be acting without logic and therefore more likely to seek assistance which leads to increased PDD diagnosis? Is parenting style have anything to do with it? Let's hope not on that last one, because that started a lot of blaming in the past with this disorder.

You can read more about this at Dr. Eide's blog and the many great resources he linked too by CLICKING HERE.

Note: And for those who may have been at first confused as I was ... Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen is not Borat/Ali-G that is Sasha Baron-Cohen :) Though I am curious of what Borat's theory is on this as well. Most likely has something to do with the mother being dropped during mate abduction.

Possible Neuro Roots of Dyscalculia Identified

Medical News Today has an interesting little article on a research study that is claiming to have discovered the roots of Dyscalculia. By artificially stimulating right parietal lobe dysfunction in a normal population they were able to replicate the testing results of clients with the disorder.

Now I would not assume that this means it can be 100% confirmed that this is the causal area of the disorder. I can blindfold a person and replicate the results of being born blind but that does not mean putting things in front of your eyes is the cause of blindness. However, it is a promising result none the less and could lead to some positive results.

They article notes that it could lead to neural tissue based diagnostic procedures. I assume they mean things like MRI's. I think it is highly unlikely we could afford to use such high end equipment to diagnose Dyscalculia, but this same type of brain study research is what has lead to advanced psychometric measures for identifying executive functioning (great frontal lobe tools like Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System) and earlier identification of potential Alzheimer's (unique lobe specific tests like the Alzheimer's Quick Test).

You can read the news report by CLICKING HERE. The full press release (including contact information from the study authors) can be found by CLICKING HERE.

The article can be found in the following journal:

“Virtual Dyscalculia Induced by Parietal-Lobe TMS Impairs Automatic Magnitude Processing” in Current Biology on 17 April 2007

Quick Picks: News & Blogosphere

Short on time tonight and a very early morning tomorrow so I am going to be brief with tonights recommended readings.

Undiagnosed LD's Costly in Later Life

A recent Vancouver Sun article on the implications in young adulthood and beyond of an undiagnosed learning disability was not news to me, but is a good reminder of the reasons why we need to promote early identification and more accurate diagnostic methodologies in the face of intervention until we mask it models that are becoming increasingly focused upon. Unemployment and educational implications are obvious, but I think it is important to look at the anxiety and depression elements in particular. While I currently work with the full age range, historically my background is in adult assessment. During psychoeducational evaluations the frequency of at least mildly severe mood disorders was striking. Not surprising when you think of the hopelessness, repeated failures, and social-emotional stress that comes along with significant learning difficulties. You can read the article by CLICKING HERE.

LDAC Releases 3-Year Study on Learning Disabilities

The meat of the aforementioned article comes from the results of the large scale LD study released yesterday by the Learning Disability Association of Canada. I have not had an opportunity to browse all of the information that has been released (they created an entire website for it) but it will certainly be on my ASAP reading list. You can see the LDAC press release by CLICKING HERE or even better view the results of the study at the studies website Putting A Canadian Face on Learning Disabilities (PACFOLD).

An Interesting Rant on Learning Disabilities

I do not know who Lydia Joyce is. From her website I can tell that she is a recently published author. I was not surprised by her profession given her LD related rant was so well written. Ms. Joyce speaks of the challenges of being disabled and how it should not be used as an excuse to avoid those areas where difficulty is by bypassing them all together, but rather to use training toward automaticity and strategy usage to alleviate the effects of the disability. It is a great and quick read and reveals a non-clinicians perspective. CLICK HERE to have a read.

Heavy Metal Music: Gifted Brain Food?

Maybe, maybe not. I thought finally I had justification for my loud musical tastes with this article that claims that Heavy Metal music may very well be the therapist of choice for the gifted set.

Interestingly, the articles support facts do seem to suggest otherwise. Here's a breakdown:

• "There is a perception of gifted and talented students as being into classical music and spending a lot of time reading. I think that is an inaccurate stereotype.

• Asked for their favorite type of music, 39 per cent said rock, 18 per cent R&B and 14 per cent pop. Six per cent said heavy metal and a third rated it in their top five genres.

Now based on that statement Heavy Metal is not the top Genre. It is actually the 4th on the list. Considering what genre's are left are we surprised that hard rock ranked higher than jazz, blues, and country (these are British students as well). And if a third ranked it in their top five genres that means that one of those actually beat it out with most students.

So, from this we can so far conclude that a portion of gifted kids listen to heavy metal.

And not only is it only a small group. It appears they may not be the well adjusted ones.

From the article:

• The heavy metal fans in the study had lower self-esteem and more difficulties in family relationships and friendships.

So from the information presented we can conclude that a small portion (6 percent) of gifted students prefer heavy metal music over other genres. In my best guess I would say there is less then 10 genres students routinely listen to so this is not even proportional percentage wise. I guess this shows you certainly have to read past the headline and introductory paragraph.

Dyslexia Misdiagnosis

*NOTE* Something went funky the first time I posted this (had a few blogger is unavailable warnings). As a result it seems that there was some paragraph formatting errors, as well as the loss of the end of one paragraph, and the complete deletion of another. Which made my post both confusing and actually contradicted itself by deleting my counterarguments :) I have reposted it with the changes italicized. *ENDNOTE*


The great posts over at Dr. Eide's Nuerolearning Blog continue. Yesterday brought us a post on the mis-diagnosis of dyslexia. I've certainly seen enough evidence of this in the past. However, I also feel that it is worthwhile discussing the overuse of the term Dyslexia for any academically evaluated reading problem that may be the result of other conditions.

Dyslexia is one of those disorders that lead to a lot of pseudo-specialized clinics popping up that rely on reading and decoding tasks to "diagnose" the condition. Unfortunately, like many of the education based disorders it is one that is typically defined by the resulting symptoms as opposed to the underlying causal criteria.

A quick look at definitions of Dyslexia online come up with such gems as:

"a reading disorder characterized by reading ability below the expected level given a child's age, school grade, and intelligence."

"An impairment of the ability to read."

Well there is a heck of a lot of things that can cause those symptoms. Actually last time I checked every diagnosable learning condition caused those.

The EIDE blog points to potential differential diagnosis:

• Carelessness / Motivation
• ADD/ADHD
• Pervasive Developmental Disorders
• Depression / ODD
• ID/MR

While the Eide blog posting describes these as conditions that are often misdiagnosed when students are actually experiencing something more inline with specific Dyslexia, I would argue that this is certainly a two way street with a number of individuals with these conditions being quickly given a dyslexic label by those who assess for the presence of dyslexia alone.

In the end we are probably looking at cases where people are being overly influenced by the type of conditions they are looking for as opposed to evaluating with a blank slate type of mentality. It very likely goes in both directions, and I strongly suggest glancing at the Eide posting.

It's brief but worth a read. CLICK HERE to take a look. Make sure you go all the way to the bottom to see a great reading list and suggested links.

News Updates: About Me!

It may of not made it into any formal news but I do have an announcement to make. I have formally resigned from my full-time position at PsychC0rp Canada effective the end of March. My role as a clinical measurement consultant was very exciting and brought with it many lessons, an opportunity to meet (and often eat) with many of the juggernauts in our field, and brought me all the way from Vancouver to Newfoundland to Mexico. It was an amazing opportunity to learn all there is to know about the assessment measures that are out there and has really allowed me to grow to new levels as a clinician. Unfortunately, as is with any learning experience there is a time to move on and go to the next step in a life long learning process.

I am now returning to private assessment on a full time basis and will be working between Hamilton, Toronto, and the Kawartha Lakes region for the foreseeable future. The vast majority of my work will continue in the realm of psychoeducational assessment but will likely also include some side work in clinical psychodiagnostics. I look forward to my next adventure and backwards to an excellent experience!

I will be continuing to update this psychoed blog (likely even more often), attending conferences, and reviewing tests. I look forward to sharing all of that with each of you! You may not be a chatty bunch but I do see the amazingly large number of visitors I get from all around the world and thank you for coming back to this blog time and time again!

Michael

News Updates: Friday March 23rd

Just a few news links I felt were worthwhile to share.

LDAQ Workshop Pushes for Earlier Diagnosis

It's not news to anyone that LD assessments and diagnosis typically do not happen in most boards until around the third grade or beyond. There has been a push for earlier identification in Ontario but this has more to do with skill set evaluations as opposed to formal LD type diagnosis. It is not surprising to me that identification has been pushed out of the earliest years of education. This is of course a problem as the longer it takes for a child's educational and learning style to be profiled the more likely they will have fallen behind, and the further they will have fallen. When these children are directed towards slower paced programming it is certainly going to lead to life long problems if they are already three to five years behind.

An address at the Learning Disability Association of Quebec's annual conference (a much more assessment oriented conference than you'll find at LDAO) this week suggested that we need to move identification to the pre-school level. The time may really have come for this in Canada. I suspect that a great deal of the influence towards a later identification model of LD had to do with the somewhat archaic ability-achievement discrepancy approach. The sensitivity of these discrepancies are muddy a bit if there is very little academic experience and expectations in place to have a discrepant weakness in. As we move to a more inclusive and appropriate model of learning disabilities, including information processing deficits, phonological processing, and executive functioning we can certainly expect a better ability to appropriately and accurately identify at an earlier age (since many of these constructs are more stable outside of academic exposure). What do you think? Time to dust off your WPPSI-III and DAS!

CLICK HERE to read a very brief note from the Montreal Gazette on this.

Assessment & Treatment of Children From Diverse Ethnic Backgrounds

Psychiatric Times posted an entire article online this week exploring this issue in the United States. The article is from 2003 (not sure why it was listed as breaking news) but is an interesting read discussing cultural variations in the presentation of conduct disorder, ADHD, and bipolar disorder in children. Some symptom variations were present, but interestingly this seems to be due in part to reporting. They noted that some negative behaviours were not reported upon in minority youth as they were seen as more normal. They also noted that the minority youth were far less likely to be treated through medication. This may be due socio-economic status or other factors. In the end it is worth skimming through. CLICK HERE to view the full article.

Kurzweil Reading Recovery Software

Earlier today I presented to a group in New Brunswick on Reading/Writing assessment and intervention in a developmental framework (as opposed to standardized achievement batteries). During I had discussed with some attendees about the Kurzweil reading recovery software program. Since several of the attendees were given this website in their information I thought I would provide the details here.

You can take a look at the Kurzweil program by CLICKING HERE.

And by clicking here you will find the primary Canadian distributor that I have crossed paths with over the years.

At its most basic level Kurzweil is a computer based text reader that will allow a child to listen to scanned or digital texts while following along on screen. At a more complex level it is a very strong piece of software that allows students to overcome reading deficits, increase fluency by utilizing a choral or silent read along strategy, as well as increase vocabulary. A similar (and last time I checked cheaper) software that does similar things is called Text Help. But most people agree that Kurzweil is the gold standard.

Other useful software remediation and training tools that can be really helpful are Naturally Speaking (speech-to-text), Inspiration (Visual thinking and learning pattern tool), and iPod friendly books on tape from services like Audible.com.

Advocacy in the news

Two unfortunate but interesting cases in the news about LD/ADHD advocacy.

LD leads to death?

The first is a group out of the UK that has released a report about the deaths of Learning Disabled individuals in hospital care. Here is a quote:

"An independent inquiry is being launched into the deaths of six people with learning disabilities ... the deaths were avoidable and pointed to "widespread ignorance" within the health service."

Now here is a break down of three cases presented as examples:

• 43-year-old Martin, went without food for 26 days while in hospital following a stroke. That left him too weak to undergo surgery and he died on December 21 2005.
• Cancer patient, Emma, 26, was told by doctors in 2004 she had a 50/50 chance of survival but they did not treat her as they believed she would not co-operate with treatment
• Mark, 30, died eight weeks after being admitted to hospital with a broken leg.

Clearly unfortunate cases. I have to admit though that I really wonder what they are referring to when they mention Learning Disability. I have never evaluated a person (or worked with) a person with an LD who would of died of these incidents (maybe the first one if the stroke was severe enough. I have certainly seen hospitals starve people before). Perhaps these could happen in very severe cases of MR, but LD? How the heck did they allow someone to die of a broken leg. Thankfully there is an inquiry. Read more by CLICKING HERE.

ADD Student Denied LSAT Accommodations

A really interesting case out of the states was reported on today about an ADD student that was denied extra time on the LSAT (law school entrance) exams after a court reviewed his case. In a nutshell they acknowledged that students with learning disabilities do often qualify for extra time and accommodations on high stakes exams but that this particular gentleman did not because his IQ of 110 (75th percentile) was not significantly discrepant from his previous LSAT results (unaccommodated) of 46th percentile. They noted that he scored about where you would expect an average student to score. An interesting statement and thought but there is some HUGE errors in that statement and makes me really wonder about the lawyers and psychologists involved:

1. Just eyeballing it that is pretty darn close to a significant discrepancy
2. There was a comment that his processing speed was significantly lower than his other abilities and was the reason for the need for extra time. This means his FSIQ was probably an underestimate of his actual comprehension and reasoning abilities. Had they used his VCI/POI score (or whichever if they used something other than WAIS) they probably would of found he was well above Average (since he technically already is High Average)
3. I've seen the LSAT and it is extremely heavy in reading content and is multiple choice. An ADHD-Inattentive subtype is clearly at a disadvantage
4. The old adage that you cannot achieve higher scores then your ability score is clearly been thrown out the window. Students who implement appropriate strategies and skilled /directed problem solving techniques can clearly preform higher then expected.

I do wonder about one thing. They say he fell at the 46th percentile nationally. Is that compared to a norm group representing the entire population or just college students who took the LSAT. If that is the case he is probably way above the 46th percentile when compared to a random peer group and therefor operating no where near a discrepancy. You can read the full article by CLICKING HERE

What should we do?

So how do we resolve this? We get rid of these stupid LSAT, GRE, MCAT and other large scale entrance exams that have been continually proven not to do anything but otherwise thin the herd. They have been routinely shown not to correlate to grad school success and one study even showed them being negatively correlated.

They should at the least get rid of power tests of these domains and move towards content tests that are based on criteria that identify individuals who would be good for identifying specific traits related to success in a field.

A question on accommodations with high stake testing

I must admit that I am actually torn on the idea of accommodations of high stake testing. On licensing exams where individuals may be placed in environments in which they need to make high speed decisions on medications (dosage) or procedures do we want to bypass this high speed element for individuals who may face these types of challenges?

I'm going to say yes they should. Some of the most talented, knowledgeable, and qualified individuals I have met in Psychology, nursing, and in other fields have been those who have specific learning difficulties like working memory. They are also individuals who are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and put strategies in place to compensate for them. Maybe these individuals are even better prepared because they are aware of the challenges and put steps in place to avoid them. I have certainly heard of cases of individuals without these problems performing medical errors or cutting off the wrong limbs.

I also think that the concerns were influenced by the large array of low functioning individuals we come across in our lives. In reality they are never going to make it into these types of environments in the first place if they are not able to accommodate their daily life challenges. So is this really an issue at all?

LD and Criminal Justice

There is an interesting news editorial/article that can be found by CLICKING HERE that explore the increased ratio of learning disabled individuals in US prisons and the systems failure to deal with this group effectively.

The article and the comments posted seem to get overly influenced by IQ scores themselves and push towards a if you have an IQ below 70 you are not bright enough to do anything else than commit crimes kind of mindset. There is a lot wrong with this of course as we know low FSIQ's is reflective of MR/ID/MID not LD. But if we ignore all that, the article in itself is of interest in that it really does force us to think about cognitive deficits outside of the education system.

It is pretty easy to suppose that individuals with executive functioning based LD's would be more likely to end up in prison than their peers. Difficulties with generalizing rules and effective problem solving strategies, impulsive patterns of responding, ineffective strategies to make decisions between effective vs. non-effective responses, inability to set shift away from emotionally charged responses. These are really a blueprint to poor responses to life stresses.

I wonder if there is a role for the psychoeducational consultant in the criminal justice system or if this is the place for forensic psychology. Competency to stand trial is certainly in the forensics realm, but I think this is something different. It also would have to do with training. We know that typically LD based individuals have difficulty generalizing learned strategies. My guess is that the success of prison based remediations is dramatically lower in LD groups than controls. There could very likely be a socially and individually based benefit of having LD specialists (both assessment and strategy) in prisons.

Webcast: Reading Assessment

My guess is that many assessors start and finish their reading assessments with tools like WIAT-II, WJ-III, or KTEA-II. Maybe your adding a CTOPP or an extra subtest here or there. However, as phonological processing expands its role in LD definitions and goes beyond the simple reading discrepancies we've used in the past, we really need to look a step beyond the basics. I've recently (and very happily) added Pro-Ed's TOWRE to my testing along with the current decile-based version of the PAL (and I am very excited in a geeky psychoed fashion about a standard score based PAL-II this year).

To beef up on your reading acquisition knowledge there is a decent resource called Reading Rockets which is a collaboration of many groups and seems (at least at my glance) to not be a company driven $$$ site. There are also advertising an upcoming reading workshop Webcast on April 4th. You can find further information by CLICKING HERE.

Why so slow? Processing speed, Cognitive Flexibility? No sorry just big changes coming soon!

For the few dedicated readers out there you might wonder why it has gone over a week without updates. I have been just swamped over the last week as some big things have changed for me in the Psych world that required my full attention. Some of you have already heard the news but I will formally announce on here shortly.

Workshop: Sternberg

The man of a million intelligences himself Dr. Robert J. Sternberg is going to be presenting in just under two months at a public workshop put on by Peel District School Board in Mississauga. The Peel series in the past has been somewhat teacher/parent driven so I'm not 100% sure specific or detailed it will be but this is one of the few chances to see one of our fields legends in the GTA.

Here are some details:

NINETEENTH ANNUAL SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY CONFERENCE
“SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE IN THE CLASSROOM: Practical Applications for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment” – Robert J. Sternberg, Ph.D, Thursday, May 3.

Registration Fees:
Diane Evans, Psychology Department, Peel District School Board
HJA Brown Education Centre
5650 Hurontario Street, Mississauga
Ontario L5R 1C6

For more information: Telephone: 905-890-1010 ext. 3177; Email: psychconference@hotmail.com

Conference to be held at the Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts Centre Drive, Mississauga, Ontario.

Asperger's Classroom Strategies

One of the SERT teacher blogs that I follow had two brief posts this week on strategies to be utilized with Asperger's identified students in classrooms. The recommendations do not have a lot of detail but they certainly do add some insight into some recommendations that you may want to consider in reports and future IEP designs.

They are brief and worth bookmarking or making note of some areas you might have not been covering:

CLICK HERE for Part 1

CLICK HERE for Part 2

Sensory Processing Disorder: A Parent's Perspective

I actually do find time to read outside of the psychoed literature but unfortunately psychoed seems to track me down no matter where I try to escape. Wired is a technology magazine that I frequent and is pretty holistic in its coverage and this time has added an interesting little article looking at a child's sensory processing disorder through his tech oriented father's perspective. It is well written, brief, and worth a moment of your time. CLICK HERE to have a read.

Web Resource Updates

Dr. Eide's Neurolearning blog had a great week of blog entries related to domains we frequently test in our standard psychoeducational batteries.

Reading Between the Lines & Working Memory

A great little post that looks at how Working Memory demands and deficits can negatively effect performance on a students ability to work with inferences. The post provides some compelling evidence that could effect interpretation of things like Reading Comprehension (WIAT-II), etc. (CLICK HERE).

Normal Developmental Increases in Visual Spatial Memory

Just a brief overview of an article (see the bottom of the Eide post for the original article from UofT) discussing normal developmental curves for visual spatial development and the ability to overcome deficits using verbal strategies. The results will certainly help support your CMS, WRAML-2, and Beery interpretations. (CLICKING HERE).

Fluent Reading

Another interesting post, this time on neural relationships with reading fluency. Noting earth shattering but an interesting read and overview none the less. (CLICK HERE).

ADHD Best Practice Guidelines

Last week the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) released guidebooks and pocket cards for the assessment (their definition of assessment) and treatment (medical) of ADHD. The etiology, assessment, and non-medical treatment side of things on their data sheets are pretty limited but the medical treatment side of things (surprise!) is very thorough.

As a result it is a great resource for psychoed professionals actually as our medical knowledge is where our weakness usually is on this disorder.

You can download their full document by CLICKING HERE (recommended) or their summary pocket card by CLICKING HERE.

ADHD News Clips

Two interesting ADHD tidbits from this morning that I thought I would share.

There is an interesting information piece on Girls & ADHD (CLICK HERE to view) up at Scholastic's website (from their Instructor Magazine) which discusses the warning signs of ADHD in girls that are often missed due to the decreased presentation of the typical ADHD-profile that we see in boys at this age. For my education and non-psychology readers this is a nice and useful little write up. It's a good reminder of the variations between these two profiles for you diagnosticians as well.

Shire has received FDA approval in the US for a new ADHD drug called Vyvanse. This has been all over the news for the last few days but this is the first professionally oriented news clipping I have found about it. The drug is reported to have a decreased likelihood of abuse. Which is very good news, as an increasing number of alarming articles about stimulant abuse have been popping up over the last few years. The review can be found by CLICKING HERE.

Workshop: Langley, BC

This one is more for parents and educators. There is a free workshop next week in Langley, BC @ Alex Hope Elementary (21150 85 Ave.) titled Supporting a Struggling Student.

It "will help people understand how to identify early signs, and share practical suggestions to address concerns" and is put on in part by LDA-BC.