Giving kids the social skills they need to succeed
“Albert Einstein admired (Niels) Bohr for ‘uttering his opinions like one perpetually groping and never like one who (believed himself to be) in the possession of definite truth.” Richard Rhodes […]
» Read moreEarly this month, Academy MetroWest hosted a free workshop for parents. Dr. Joe Moldover, a top-notch neuropsychologist in our area, talked about Non-Verbal Learning Disability, Asperger’s Syndrome, and High Functioning Autism. At one point during his presentation, Dr. Moldover described the way kids with these profiles learn social skills by comparing the process to teaching baseball to little leaguers. With some players, if you […]
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In my office, I have two green chairs that are more comfortable than my other office chairs. As chairs go, they’re entirely unexceptional. They’re comfortable enough but not extraordinarily so. But if you were to watch the way some of our kids argue over them, you’d assume they were truly heaven on earth for the butt cheeks of our nation’s youth! Groups at […]
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I spent a lot of time this summer listening to audio books. It was not entirely of my own volition. I brought my 9 year old daughter with me to our camp for 3 weeks. Between our commute – about 30 minutes each way – and then our family trips to upstate New York and Downeast Maine at the end […]
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“The real scholars were left in almost total freedom to ply their studies and their Games, and no one objected that a good many of their works seemed to bring no immediate benefits to the people or the community and, inevitably, seemed to nonscholars merely luxurious frivolities.” – Herman Hesse, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game Two summers ago, my […]
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Before I went to graduate school and embarked on a professional career, I flirted with the world of hippie-dom for a few years. I was captivated by Jack Kerouac’s writing that extolled the life of on-the-road spontaneity and the freedom to “dig” all that was around us. I spent my share of time at Grateful Dead shows, captivated as I was […]
» Read moreA few years ago, a couple of teenage boys I was working with asked me a question that must be on the mind of many an adolescent: “Bruce…is bastard a swear word?” I answered that it depends on the context in which it’s used, whereupon one of my young charges replied “Screw context! What the hell has it ever done […]
» Read moreA good neuropsychological evaluation is worth its weight in gold. A thorough assessment provides invaluable data about an individual’s cognitive, emotional, and psychological functioning, the way s/he processes and organizes information, and perceives and interacts with the world. A trained neuropsychologist takes the thousands of puzzle pieces that go into an assessment to create a coherent, rich picture of the many processes that make […]
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As a species, we humans are decidedly a mixed bag. Interactions with other people elicit emotions ranging from rage to indifference to joy. For most of us, the frustration inherent in everyday communication can be looked upon as a minor irritant – the cost of doing business. For other people, those annoyances are deal breakers. They see other humans as means to an end at best and […]
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“Well, I’m not giving my baby any more dangerous drugs. From now on, it’s nothing but fresh air, lots of hugs, and good old-fashioned Ritalin.” – Marge Simpson To medicate or not to medicate, that is the question. It is, at any rate, for scores of parents of kids and adolescents with ADHD. Paraphrasing the […]
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