| | Re: Post 12 by Jody
The subject was female, and she didn't just "have a bad" day. She was unable to pass basic competency tests in the public school system.
Part of what I did for this teacher was admister IQ tests. He was pretty objective about the process--giving several different types of IQ tests over time to and making comparisons of the results. I believed the data. I've also seen psychological evaluations where children who are physically abused or neglected lose IQ points, going from 110 to 80, so I would think if you can go down, you can go up. It has to do with the quantity and quality of the neural pathways.
Re: post 26
(Donald, maybe you didn't have ADD. Maybe you were a hedonist?)
ADD is a memory problem, and it is also related to sensory experience, particularly auditory and kinesthetic sensory experience. The person is bombarded with stimuli and is always "on," so-to-speak. Their brains are in deep concentration all the time, so it is hard to shut down and fall asleep on regular cycles. Contrary to the name "attention deficit" it is actually a hyperfocus ability. ADD is a misnomer.
The ADD person's ability for making creative connections can be remarkable--because of the amount of data received. But, they may not remember where they left their glasses or what model car their friend drives. It's as if nature needed to compensate for the broader sensory awareness--so something in memory had to give.
One book I read on it, Thom Hartman's book on the Hunter-Farmer theory of ADD, gives the illustration of a deer herd. They are all chowing down on grass. The "non-ADD" majority, for lack of better terminology, are eating peacefully. But, there is a small percentage of the herd, maybe only one or two, that will be attuned to slight sounds in the distance, like the footsteps of a mountain lion. The "ADD" deer will jolt upright and bolt when it hears or senses the slight rustling sound, thereby alerting the group to the danger. The others follow and run, though they did not hear the approaching predator.
I'm not sure what "ADD" is. But, I do know that sensory abilities vary amongst people and affect how they react to situations. These sensory abilities are mutable with effort or dimished with non-effort. It's similar to the variance in eyesight. Some people have 20/20 all their lives. Others develop into 20/20. Others would be evolutionary dead ends were it not for glasses...But, for someone who has ADD, you can't just tell them to "think" their way out of it. It's like telling someone who needs glasses to just see better.
A person should do whatever they can to improve their reasoning ability. Can the person with ADD learn systems to find their keys and glasses? Of course. But, for others, the idea of not knowing where their keys or glasses are at all times is unimaginable.
I've heard accounts of Einstein leaving his house without pants on, or calling his wife to find out where he was suppose to be going. It's been postulated that Einstein had "Asperger's syndrome," which I think is somewhere on the continuum with the other memory "deficit" disorders...That's just my own hypothesis, although maybe someone else has more information on this?
Which brings me to another question. Does anyone know Objectivist scholars whose fields are psychology or neuroscience? I would love to know who they are. Thanks.
~Allison
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