When I got home after my morning walk, I meditated first and then started on my morning around 6. Dorothy had texted to say she would be too busy today for our morning talk. I watched more of the Dahaene lecture on Reading in the Brain on YouTube. His book covers this information, but the video provides movies of the Brain's movement in real-time rather than just static images.
I spent time in the library alphabetizing a bay. There were only three books out of something like one hundred and fifty requested by St. Patrick's seminary in this area. This bay was dedicated to European history. There were a lot of books to reorganize when none were gone. It seemed like an overwhelming job. Then I figured out a way to do it that seemed like fun, like Tetris, moving a block from one location to another. I started this the other day.
I had an open shelf in a neighboring bay. I moved all the books from V through Z onto that shelf. Then I emptied the bottom shelf in my target bay. There were no authors whose names started with U. I looked for all the authors whose names started with R, S, and T and created piles for each group. I moved the books to Mike's desk and alphabetized them before moving them back onto the shelves. That worked – and it was fun!
I had an appointment with D. at 11:30. I started with his reading. Accuracy is his big downfall. I started applying some of what I learned from Dahaene's lecture. I had D. touch the primary visual cortex area with his finger as he listed the letters in words in a sentence. Then I had him put his finger on the letterbox.
Ah, the letterbox, sitting above the ear on the left side of the Brain. What a find! This is where the visual cortex shuttles all information relating to letters from both the left and right sides of the Brain. As Dahaene described it, the letterbox works in slices. Slice one receives information directly from the primary visual cortex; the letterbox examines elements of the letters one at a time. It looks for junctures, for example, the juncture created by the vertical and horizontal line in a T. Then, it clarifies the image of the letters. The next layer starts creating letter combinations, first two letters, then three, and the four and then words. D. does not use this process. His eyes race over the word creating a blur.
He consistently forgot or ignored the instructions I gave him to work slowly to decode and not jump to conclusions. His memory problems are one thing, but his reluctance, unwillingness, or inability to remember what I have told him to do over and over and over and over, drives me nuts.
I challenged him on his need to rush to a conclusion again. I established that he hated his inability to read accurately. I did the releases with him, "I let go of anything bad about my hatred of my reading problems and keep anything good or anything I still need about my hatred for my reading problem." Boy, that hit the mark. We sat for a while, watching the changes in the way he felt.
As I always do, whether it makes immediate sense or not, I led him in the complementary release. "I let go of anything negative about my love for my reading problems and keep anything positive or anything I still need." That showed up in a completely different place in his body. There was no agitation, only heaviness in the lower abdomen. I asked him if it felt different. He said yes. We sat with this. Then I got an insight as to what his love of his reading problems might be about. It felt like he was punishing himself for something. It felt like self-hatred.
I said, "I'm going to say something. I have no idea what it's about. 'It was not your fault.'" I asked if that made him feel better. He said yes. Well, that suggested we were on the right track. I did not track down what he felt guilty about, but I had my suspicions.
I had once worked on D.'s grief over his father's death in a car accident when he was three. His mom said he was upset for the rest of the day and asked me not to work on it again until she got a grief counselor for him. For that reason, I never mentioned his father's death. I didn't even imply that might have been the core trauma. I discussed why he might feel guilty, might feel something was his fault.
I asked him if he wanted to know why he might feel guilty about something that wasn't his fault. I observe that trying to figure out what we did wrong is a pattern whenever something happens to friends and family. What could I have done differently? If I had done so and so instead of so and so, might the outcome have been different? I consider this normal social behavior.
We know that the negative registers more dramatically upon us than the positive. If we returned without incident from a hunting expedition, nothing to think about. If there was an incident when a group member or I was in danger or, worse, injured or killed, I have to think about how I might have conducted myself differently. It's a survival tool.
Adults have some protection from being overwhelmed by this neurologically driven mental behavior. Children have none. I know it's called magical thinking. I suppose it is in part. We don't like having to admit we're not in control. I prefer the interpretation that all negative experiences are converted into learning opportunities. Part of learning is figuring out what the problem is and what the possible solutions are.
We did some work on math at the end of the session. I was delighted to see that D. remembered what we had covered on multiplication and division. At the end of the work, D. said he felt good. I hoped he wouldn't go to mom and say he felt bad. She doesn't object to his dealing with grief, just having me help him deal with it. She feels she has too much on her plate already.
I took a nap after that session. My alarm went off shortly before 2. I was supposed to have a session with H., the autistic brother of M. As I got up, I got a text from their mom telling me she had emailed me the test to work on today. I quickly called her; I was confused. I thought we were going to let H. choose his own material. Mom said this was for M. I went to the library and printed out an article on autism.
M. wanted to reread the article before answering the questions. She did a pretty good job on the answers, not needing much from me. She answered one question in a way that would be considered excellent in the local school I have been volunteering in. Many of the parents in this school are lower-income and poorly educated. I told M. outright that her answer would be good in some schools. However, if her classmates have their college-educated parents sitting at their side as they work sculpting their answers, her answer would be considered inadequate. I left it the way it was.
We were working away. I looked at the time, and we had been going for 45 minutes, fifteen minutes over our allotted time. I told M I had to go. I called mom and asked her to call me back. I told her that M and I went fifteen minutes over the allotted time. Doing only half an hour a week was M.'s choice. I suggested mom ask her if she wanted to continue doing this. She said yes. She had asked M. She told me that often M. was doing schoolwork all day until bedtime. OMG! That's horrible. No, I don't want to add to her burden.
Mom said M. is having problems making inferences. I told her I had material that addressed that skill. She said once we finish the current assignment, I should switch to the other activity.
A point was triggered by a comment in the article we read today on autism. It talked about the importance of getting early help for children with autism. There was no additional help other than what the school has to offer as far as I knew. Mom told me that she and her husband had hit the ground running when they became aware of his condition. He has received a lot of additional services. Ahh!! I was so relieved. I had thought they put the whole burden on me.
I spoke to my nephew's girlfriend, a neuroscientist working on a postdoc. A Princeton University. She said the cerebellum is indicated in problems with autism. I spoke to her on the phone over the weekend. I learned a lot and was inspired to pursue more about Dahaene's work, but we never discussed how the cerebellum impacted autism. Now, granted, she is working with 'autistic' mice.
Yvette walked in and delivered my mail. A small box was included. A birthday present from someone? Sort of. It's the three Dahaene books I ordered. Looking forward to reading them. I ordered all his books since speaking to my nephew's girlfriend. Dahaene sounds like my main man. Besides skimming his book, Reading in the Brain, looking for my underlining.
No comments:
Post a Comment