Executive functioning and the "Justice" of work-arounds

CONJECTURE

• Executive Functioning -- NOT IQ is one of the BIG ISSUES driving --- HOMELESSNESS and INCARCERATION.
• It does become even more problematic when the EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE folks want to say:
  • Your IQ or Talent really aren't very important
  • Pay Us to Teach You to BE LIKE US.
    • ​That can be a lot harder climb than what anybody thought --- because the EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING DIFFERENCES are often related to DEVELOPMENTAL and EPIGENETIC DIFFERENCES.
    • ​This is the TRUE BRILLIANCE of our CURRENT APPROACH:  we're not going to give you CREDIT for your TRADITIONAL INTELLIGENCE --- but we are going to use it against you.

​ON THE OTHER HAND

• Our great tragedies of the FALL of the BIG MAN or WOMAN are often the result of INTELLIGENT and/or TALENTED people who didn't realize they had EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING CHALLENGES --
  • ​Life could turn into one big cover-up.
• ​Further, if you have been in this hierarchical society -- you probably have been subject to some "SUPERIOR'S" temper tantrums.

EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING -- The DELICATE Approach

Ironically, Executive Functioning Challenges often do come with HIGH IQ and or TALENT.

• ​That's because a lot of the individuals do have HYPER-PLASTIC brains.
  • ​So its not that there is no NEURO-PLASTICITY going on --- there is generally much more than the average, BUT
  • The system may NOT  be sufficiently "weakening neighboring synapses" --- so there is a FLOOD of INFORMATION coming in all the time and it can "OVERWHELM" the person. (see the MIT article below right).

• The first thing is to acknowledge the INTELLIGENCE and Talent that the  Neuro-Diverse Person 

         possesses.

• I think it is hard for NEURO-DIVERSE people to TRUST if Neuro-Typicals can't do that.
• Further, the truth is --- those NEURO-DIVERSE STRENGTHS are important KEYS to RECOVERY.

ADDRESSING EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING

without Making it Worse -- WORKAROUNDS  

​The SOCIETY is faced with a CONUNDRUM when it comes to addressing EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING:

• By and large we're not doing a lot of PREVENTATIVE  IDENTIFICATION and SUPPORT.
• We tend to have a lot of CRISES
• That has a lot of social implications -- it has BIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
• By the time one gets to the "PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER" -- you do have a HYPER-CONNECTED BRAIN.
  • ​​Well, NOW is NOT the TIME to try to CONNECT the wiring in the brain even further.

WORK-AROUNDS

• "Work-Arounds" are the PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVE in many cases 
• "WORKAROUNDS"  are what Dr. Gail Saltz recommends in her book "The Power of Different."
• We're not trying to CHANGE the person, we're trying to WORK-AROUND any DEFICITS.
• AND MAXIMIZE Strengths.
• That can be healing in and of itself and give the person the BREAK they need to be a valued part of the COMMUNITY.

• The more that NEURO-DEVELOPMENTAL and PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS are recognized as:
  • ​Often beginning In Utero and 
  • Having an Epigentic Life of their own
• The more they won't be seen as issues of "MOTIVATION"
• Further, the "HYPER-CONNECTED BRAINS" of people with PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS to me tell a story of UNWITTING ABUSE.

​MIT scientists discover fundamental rule of brain plasticity

Study reveals how, when a synapse strengthens, its neighbors weaken.  (2018)

​Our brains are famously flexible, or “plastic,” because neurons can do new things by forging new or stronger connections with other neurons.

But if some connections strengthen, neuroscientists have reasoned, neurons must compensate lest they become overwhelmed with input. [Val's Note:  I think some people with "Neuro-Developmental" and "Psychiatric Disorders" are getting overwhelmed with "input"].

In a new study in Science, researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT demonstrate for the first time how this balance is struck: when one connection, called a synapse, strengthens, immediately neighboring synapses weaken based on the action of a crucial protein called Arc.