tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post8668929269541807076..comments2024-02-14T11:18:50.296-08:00Comments on Wiring the Brain: Does brain plasticity trump innateness?Kevin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07172255754953214162noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-78470440325482869492013-12-06T15:24:55.831-08:002013-12-06T15:24:55.831-08:00I appreciate your logic. It needs to be used more...I appreciate your logic. It needs to be used more often, especially in regard to the autisms. It just seems anyone's guess is used as the basis for science, but it's like..."let's throw this at it and see if it sticks." Pub Med offers study after study that pretty much proves that. Proving it, is often inconsequential in my eyes, because you can always find both sides of a hypothesis represented, somehow. <br /><br />But logic is logic.<br /><br />ABA is as bad or as good as the practitioners who use it. (Lovaas had problems.) Seeing all children as children first is helpful. It is recognition of behavior brought down to what is perceived as it's most basic tenets. (I believe there are 4 functions of behavior, social attention, achieving desired tangible or activities, escape or avoidance, and to obtain pleasure.) Adults in positions of power can "educe" or draw forth that which is within. Because it makes children so vulnerable, testing for practitioners is very strict regarding ethics, 80% of those who fail the testing to become a Board Certified Behavior Analyst do so because of the ethics portion. But a great share of the people who work with the kids are off the street...and that is where the good or bad remains to be revealed. Behaviorism, in itself, makes the caregiver more predictable, and that is it's strength. To me, it seems like the more seriously autistic kids live in a mightily unpredictable world, through no fault of their own. It is a construct that can be used, and I worked at a residential school where 90% of the teachers were very calm and predictable. They got a lot of cooperation from kids who were placed there as wards of the state, their problems so severe their local school systems, and more sadly, their parents, could not handle them. For my mildly semantic-pragmatically disordered son, no...it was too intense. But for those kids, it made life livable.The teachers actually felt dispirited if they used punishment. Like a parent, it feels like failure on your part if you have to punish your child. <br /><br />Anyhow, it just makes sense to think that plasticity must have opportunity to develop. Thank you.<br /><br />Usethebrains Godgiveyouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05026223483117357541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-1418011185215961042013-03-22T14:47:00.421-07:002013-03-22T14:47:00.421-07:00There is definitely so much linked to the brain he...There is definitely so much linked to the brain here. So much more research has to be done with this. I hope to see it happen to benefit so many. <a href="http://ottawa.mrelectric.com" rel="nofollow">Electrician in Ottawa</a>gamefan12https://www.blogger.com/profile/17700305176595632282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-70329797689238285082012-11-23T06:02:16.410-08:002012-11-23T06:02:16.410-08:00Interesting post Kevin, thank you. Like Lili I...Interesting post Kevin, thank you. Like Lili I'd like to comment on the example of 'children with autism'. <br /><br />By definition, children and adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders have less well-developed social skills than most people. And clearly, "innate differences in the brain circuits mediating social behaviour, general anxiety, risk-aversion and other parameters…" would quite likely reduce their opportunities for rehearsing social skills and thus overcome those innate differences. But I think there are some pretty big assumptions being made here. <br /><br />1. You've used the word 'innate' several times, but haven't actually defined it. Do you mean literally 'inborn', or 'with biological origins', or 'genetically determined'? <br /><br />2. With that point in mind, the social behaviour, anxiety and risk-aversion of neonates aren't noted for their sophistication, so could you say what sort of differences you mean when you refer to 'innate differences in the brain circuits mediating social behaviour, general anxiety, risk-aversion and other parameters' and the 'preconfigured settings of a shy child’s social brain circuits'? <br /><br />3. You cite studies showing that people with autism are less interested than controls in faces , but those studies don't show that that reduced interest is 'innate'. Even if there were evidence that newborns who later developed autistic characteristics were less interested in faces than infants who developed more typically, one would need to demonstrate that it was faces that were of less interest rather than faces as subsets of arrays with stable visuo-spatial features . There's been an ongoing interest in the visual processing issues involved in ASDs, after all. In other words, although we can say with some confidence that reduced interest in faces or social interaction are emergent properties of development that contribute to the characteristics of something we call 'autism', I'm not sure that we have any evidence that 'seeking out social interactions' (or not) is an 'innate faculty'.<br /><br />I'm equally perplexed by the fact that you've equated dyscalculia with inability to subitize. Is there any evidence for this?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-9541132216328032602012-09-07T04:55:25.239-07:002012-09-07T04:55:25.239-07:00I am really thankful to the author of this post fo...I am really thankful to the author of this post for making this lovely <br />and informative article live here for us. We really appreciate ur effort. <br />Keep up the good work. . . .<br /><a href="http://superespresso.com/" rel="nofollow">ewald struggl</a>Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05148693666969918752noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-19332161792866325872011-11-25T09:32:42.484-08:002011-11-25T09:32:42.484-08:00Just wanted to thank you, not just because the nic...Just wanted to thank you, not just because the nice post, but pretty much more because my grandfather is nearly recovering from his surgery and he has almost nothing to do but staying on bed all day, his best source of entertainment has been this blog and <a href="http://www.xlpharmacy.org" rel="nofollow">xl pharmacy</a>, I feel this is something good for him and his recovery.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-83398465959478097062011-11-25T05:16:25.995-08:002011-11-25T05:16:25.995-08:00the adult brain work in a different way, with the ...the adult brain work in a different way, with the years the brain develops a several functions, many of then work in a simple way, others for the contrary are so complicated, some experts from <a href="http://www.pharmacywiki.org/bmpharmacy.html" rel="nofollow">bmpharmacy</a> research center are agreed in brain studies must be based more in functions that structure.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-38312286506762497272011-10-13T18:33:22.321-07:002011-10-13T18:33:22.321-07:00I couldn't find any details about the number a...I couldn't find any details about the number and age of the subjects in one of those studies, so I can't tell if it supports your assertion about autistic infants.<br /><br />The other study was small study involving adults, in which it was found that autistic were less distracted by "irrelevant face stimuli", which is surely a good thing. This study doesn't support your claim about autistic infants.Lili Marlenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09303890038396510279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-21282534105810545732011-10-12T00:19:24.951-07:002011-10-12T00:19:24.951-07:00Thanks Lili for your comments. I know there are q...Thanks Lili for your comments. I know there are questions about the effectiveness of ABA and other behavioural treatments or early intensive educational interventions in autism. The view from the report you cite is: "Evidence suggests that there is an undefined subgroup of children for whom early and intensive behavioral interventions may elicit robust gains while others may not demonstrate marked improvement." As I said above, this is unlikely to reverse initial defects but may limit the amplification of these defects due to the interplay between innate preferences and experience.<br /><br />There is lots of evidence that people with autism show less interest - as a group, on average - in faces. Here are a couple of recent studies: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787936<br />http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21705475<br /><br />There are many others. I should point out that this does not necessarily apply to all patients with a diagnosis of autism.Kevin Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07172255754953214162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-66918922596628709772011-10-11T20:58:08.639-07:002011-10-11T20:58:08.639-07:00Have you read this clinician guide published this ...Have you read this clinician guide published this year by some US government body?<br /><br />http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK63534/pdf/clinautism.pdf<br /><br />"For most interventions, the evidence is insufficient to permit an estimate of their benefits or harms."<br /><br />It paints a very bleak picture of autism interventions in childhood. The only treatment that appears to have good evidence for effectiveness has a list of very nasty side-effects.Lili Marlenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09303890038396510279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6146376483374589779.post-28389980675171194282011-10-11T20:24:47.276-07:002011-10-11T20:24:47.276-07:00"This circle may be most vicious in children ..."This circle may be most vicious in children with autism, most of whom have a reduced level of innate interest in other people. They tend, for example, not to find faces as intrinsically fascinating as other infants."<br />Evidence? References?<br /><br />"There is good evidence that intense early intervention in children with autism (such as Applied Behaviour Analysis) allows them to compensate for innate deficits and lead to improvements in cognitive, communication and adaptive skills."<br />The autism researcher Michelle Dawson seems to be often claiming the opposite. She recently mentioned "the problem of autism behavior analysts not declaring COIs in published papers, much less in "best practice" reports." In my experience, when researchers fail to declare conflicts of interest, that is a bad sign.Lili Marlenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09303890038396510279noreply@blogger.com