It’s not everyday reading something on the Internet can move me to tears, but I’ve given up hope on seeing something like this post (and commentary) at Whiskey Fire. The study is not yet published and I know it only begins to scratch the surface but for the first time since the tests were done on me I have hope, if not for myself I can imagine glad tidings for tomorrow’s little Dickens.
When the neuropsychologist laid it out for me 10 years ago I was crying and he was almost crying, because he couldn’t answer my very pointed questions and account for the disparities in my mental examination. An evaluation spanning eight hours over two days, as comprehensive as it gets, followed by a 25 page report and two hour debriefing and still something missing hangs in the air. In the end I knew that he knew and we both knew what I needed to hear that he couldn’t say. What I didn’t know was that he couldn’t say it because there was no supporting cognitive science to make our unspoken hypothesis official in a formal setting. Correlation is not enough to move the world off its ass, but I have had enough correlation to last a lifetime, and that time is running out. Catch up with me.
He tried to make me feel better like Jake the Snake talks at Whiskey Fire — it’s not a life sentence, keep building up strengths, focus on your incredible resilience and amazing inner resources. Oh please. Show me the science.
Now we’re talking. It’s a start.
“This is a wake-up call…these kids have no neurological damage… yet, the prefrontal cortex is not functioning as efficiently as it should be….researchers suspect that stressful environments and cognitive impoverishment are to blame…The study is suggestive and a little bit frightening that environmental conditions have such a strong impact on brain development…”
Suggestive and a little bit frightening indeed.
Superb post, and all the links. I can tell I’m going to sleep well tonight!
Hi, I can’t remember introducing myself, if I have already, then apologies – the memory doesn’t work as well as it used to, but I’ve had you in my blogroll for a good while.
I don’t find the ’science’ surprising at all. But it works both ways sometimes. My background was very unsettled – supercrap to be honest – but there was love at the right times and there was learning at the right times, and I consider myself very very lucky in retrospect.
My poor uncle, buggered senseless by his masters at school wasn’t so lucky – he is still completely ruined.
The deck of cards is varied and skewed in every way. And the cards impart the skill you have to play them with. It is all very sad. I wish for the time machine like everyone.
Really interesting post. And links. Just to say it again. More please.
atb david
Flawedplan,
A lovely post. Thanks for the link and persevere.
Is “manquetropic” a word?
It is now.