Psychiatrist Under Stress: Shooting Tragedy

The recent shooting at Fort Hood, Texas was a tragic event, as is true of all shootings such as this one where an individual goes on a rampage and shoots multiple victims. The news, gossip mills and other outlets for information are buzzing about the incident. The basic details can be found easily in other blogs and media sources. The individual believed to have shot multiple individuals on an army base was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was eventually wounded and taken into custody.

This is a topic that is related to mental health, but not specifically related to schools, education, or school psychology. However, the incident is very similar to other instances of individuals obviously experiencing stress and mental instability, acting out their problems in a violent manner with tragic consequences. Often these events elicit many reactions from people about what we should do now about this or what we did wrong in the past. It is hard to just take in information like this and not want to fix it or understand it.

In this case, the individual was a psychiatrist, which may surprise many people, due to the expectation that a mental health professional trained in helping people and alleviating emotional problems, should not succumb to such an extreme breaking down of his functioning.

Also, in this case, the individual was a Muslim person with a name that reflects the heritage. I wonder how many people jumped to some stereotyped conclusions about this being a terrorist situation or an America hating one. Those looking desperately for answers and fixes may well have latched onto that issue.

The evidence does not suggest any connection with terrorism or political motives.

At the end of the analysis and scrutiny of this episode and others, what can we conclude? Some will want to make bold decisions so this will not happen again. However, some of those emotionally-based decisions are not based on any solid foundation of evidence about what reduces violence. Of course, there is evidence somewhere about how to reduce violence. That evidence is usually what we are exposed to on the television however, after an episode of violence.

Some will take away the idea that violence is more common or frequent, that is is on the rise, leading to fears and perhaps paranoia. However, fear is not often the best lens through which to assess facts. There are statistics and trends collected regarding violence and how it ebbs and flows over time. Most people are more interested in the spectacular breaking news though, rather than studying the trends. So, the feeling trumps the facts again and whenever there is a highly publicized and visually presented event, people will interpret that the incidence of those kinds of events are on the rise. This is partly due to seeing something and hearing about something multiple times per day, even though it is just one incident. However, the media increasing our awareness, does not necessarily mean anything about how often or what direction violence trends are taking.

What I am getting at is that we should be careful to focus on the facts and implementing interventions that work, rather than react to emotions and impressions only.

What works at reducing violence?

Prevention works better than reactive events. Nevertheless, people focus on reacting. It's hard not to do so. Consider how many lives were saved through prevention practices (reduction in smoking, use of seat belts, helmets for bike riders) versus how many lives were saved through reactive events. Of course, some will say that countless lives were saved due to military strikes and wars, since they may prevent terrorism and assaults from abroad. However, we lose many lives through these reactive measures. How can we calculate lives saved due to the terror strike that was prevented? That is very hard to determine. However, it is clear that more lives were lost by our response to terror, via the Iraq and Afghanistan military actions than by the original terror attack.

I think that it is hard to be logical and fact-based when we are emotional and when we are grieving. Consider that improving conditions and increasing positive coping skills and other survival skills in children will go a long way in reducing violence. That does not sound very dramatic, but it is an effective way to reduce violence. There is a literature base dedicated to studying prevention and early intervention. There is little evidence that reactive or over-reactive methods work. As an example, "get tough" approaches in schools and within youth programs (Scared Straight, Zero Tolerance) do not have great track records in reducing violence and aggression.

See my previous blog entries about prevention, positive practices in schools and the failure of the Scared Straight program.

http://drweisz.blogspot.com/2009/04/school-psychology-podcast-episode-2-re.html

http://drweisz.blogspot.com/2009/10/write-text-here.html

http://drweisz.blogspot.com/2009/04/positive-behavior-interventions-and.html

Is Autism Less Rare Than We Once Believed?

I recall my professors in psychology discussing how Autism was a very rare condition. As a professional, I encounter many people who have a relative with Autism. Everywhere I drive I see bumper stickers proclaiming some connection with the disorder. We all hear about the rising incidence of Autism. What is going on?

There have been claims of Autism being caused by toxins in immunizations. However, the problem with these claims is that the more controlled studies do not find any evidence of the culprit that many point to in the vaccines: Thimerisol or a preservative with trace amounts of mercury. Nevertheless, to prevent parents from avoiding immunizing their children, thimerisol was removed from most vaccines in our country. Still, people reported rising cases of Autism and a certainty that vaccines are connected. One of the scientists who frequently blogs and podcasts about the fallacies in this belief is Steven Novella. In his blog, he recently shared a review of incidence of Autism.

There is evidence of Autism being less rare than we had believed. However, it is not a simple matter to tease out the reasons. Novella writes (2009) that two recent studies finding a higher prevalence of autism in the US than had been previously believe, adds to the environmental trigger of autism hypothesis. However, he points out the lack of evidence for this hypothesis.

In one of the studies, the CDC reported that current prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are not estimated at 100 in a 10,000 as opposed to the previous estimate in 2002 of 66 per 10,000.

The rise in the diagnosis has been rising steadily over the last two decades. Novella (2009) reports that the evidence points to the rise being related to more diagnosis and a broader definition of the condition. The combination of these two factors can lead to an increase in diagnoses. There is a possibility that there is also a rise in the occurrence of autism, but this possibility has not been proven.

An interesting point made by Novella (2009) is that if there was a steady increase in occurrence, the percent of children with diagnoses would be differentiated over time so that younger children would have more percentage prevalence while older people would have less percentage prevalence. This is not the case, however.

Novella notes, "Meanwhile, the strong consensus of evidence is that ASD rates are not truly increasing at all" (para 10).

Reference
Novella, S. (2009) Autism Prevalence. Neurologica Blog. Retrieved from http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1049#comments

Image Attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24350382@N07/ / CC BY 2.0

Does Sparing the Rod Spoil the Child

Among one of the most controversial issues in parenting is that of corporal punishment. It is called different things in different cultures, sometimes sounding more aggressive and sometimes sounding downright cute. It has been around for centuries and has spanned multiple cultures.

Whether you call it spanking or something else, is it an effective or efficient practice to discipline children, improve positive behaviors, reduced negative ones, reinforce values or maintain order?

According to many studies, there is not much going for the practice. There are other means of improving behavior and teaching values that are more effective and have less harmful consequences. That is the short answer, when you ask many psychologists this question.

In an article on the topic entitled "Spanking Leads To Child Aggression And Anxiety, Regardless Of Cultural Norm" in ScienceDaily, there is a summary of the research about the effects of spanking on childhood aggression (ScienceDaily, 2005).

According to this article, regardless of the cultural norms, when children are physically disciplined they are more likely to be anxious and aggressive than children who received other forms of discipline. The article cited this finding from the Journal of Child Development.

The article can be found at the following web address:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051114110820.htm


Study results on spanking and IQ are reviewed at the following website, as well.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1926222,00.html?xid=rss-health

In the article, Cloud (2009) reviews findings and writes, "Straus, who is 83 and has been studying corporal punishment since 1969, found that kids who were physically punished had up to a five-point lower IQ score than kids who weren't — the more children were spanked, the lower their IQs — and that the effect could be seen not only in individual children but across entire nations as well" (Cloud, 2009, paragraph 2). This article can be found at the above website of Time online.

I came across an interesting article by Eliza Ferree (2009) at the Blisstree.com website, entitled Does Spanking Cause Lower IQs? In this article, the author discusses a study showing an association between spanking and IQ were explored. According to a study involving hundreds of US children, spanking was associated with lower IQ. The more children were spanked, the lower was their IQ. Of course, a correlation of two variables does not mean that one variable caused the other. It is possible that both variables are caused by a third one. The comments thread is interesting to read as many readers cite the experience of having been spanked and being OK as if it were evidence that over-turns the evidence of actual research on hundreds of children with controls. The view that anecdotes are stronger evidence than well controlled studies is remarkable.

This article can be found at the following website.

http://www.blisstree.com/articles/does-spanking-cause-lower-iqs/#respond

What are the symptoms of Autism? Video about the basics.

In this Youtube video, you can learn the basic symptoms and signs that may indicate Autism. However, a thorough evaluation by experts is important to help determine the diagnosis with any accuracy. Often parents begin to explore concerns with their pediatrician, school staff and by pursuing their own research from books or the internet. Often, a neurologist or psychiatrist will diagnose the condition in children.

Archival School Pscyhology Podcast Episode 012

On this third part of a series of episodes on Autism, I focus on fads, quackery and pseudoscience with respect to autism. For more information, listen to episode 010 Autism: What we know and 011 Autism: What we don’t know. I focus on several claims that have been unsupported by research, yet can be popular and cause harm due to lost resources (time, money, hope, etc.) and at times can be dangerous.

Unsupported claims include Bettelheim’s claim that Autism was not biologically based and was caused by parenting. I also focused on unsupported claims such as childhood vaccines causing autism, or chelation therapy, secretin, diet, supplements, auditory training, sensory integration training, chiropractic treatment and facilitated communication.

Archive show episode links

iTunes link for archive show which has this episode

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=327298656

Mevio link for archive show

http://drweiszarchive.mevio.com

iTunes link for podcast for new episodes
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=327297299

Mevio link for new show episodes
http://drweisz.mevio.com/

Image Attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkadog/ / CC BY 2.0

Pop Quiz Questions from Podcast Episode 47

Be the first to answer one or more of the pop quiz questions from SPP # 047 and have your name announced on the podcast. You can submit your answer(s) to me by leaving a comment on the blog here, by emailing me at drweisz@gmail.com or by phoning and leaving a voicemail message for me at (973) 440-8255.

1. The Feingold program is an intervention primarily involving:
A. reducing sugar
B. reducing food additives
C. homeopathic remedies

2. RTI is an approach that is used
a. in experimental schools
b. only in special education
c. regular and special education

The Diathesis Stress model most relates to
a. Schizophrenia and other disorders
b. Experimental interventions
c. Educational policies and legislation

Congratulations to Valeria for answering the questions from the last pop quiz correctly!

Image Attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/ / CC BY 2.0

The need to respond to violence with prevention programs

In the continuing focus on violence and tragedy in our nation's schools, the White House has attempted to responded to tragedy with an attempt to increase positive and preventive programs to stem the violence. The plan is to use Education Department grant award of $500,000 to improve supports and interventions that would reduce or prevent violence in schools.

This increase in focus on safe schools and violence prevention and response follows a death of a student at Fenger High School in Chicago. The act was caught on a cell phone video. Four students bludgeoned and stomped the student to death at Fenger High School..

Write text here...

Related articles by Zemanta

• After Chicago Teen's Violent Death, White House Tries to Mitigate School Violence (abcnews.go.com)

Image Attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iboy_daniel/ / CC BY 2.0

Update on police attack of a student who had his shirt untucked

Special Needs Student Beaten by Police

If you are revolted by the idea of a police officer beating a student for not having his shirt tucked in, what about adding to the story that it is a special needs student? Unfortunately, this is not an isolated or uncommon incident according to Charles Fox (2009) who writes the Special Education Law Blog.

A startling video-tape documents a campus police officer beating a student with special needs for not having his shirt tucked in. This took place in Dolton, Illinois.

According to Fox, "The tension on many school campuses that I visit is palpable. I sometimes feel like that the staff is expecting the students to stage a rebellion at any time, so any real or perceived slight or disrespect can be met with stiff consequences, albeit not normally in the nature of a physical beating" (2009, para 1).

Fox makes the point that this incident should not be viewed as representative of all police. In fact some, go out of their way to be supportive of students with special needs. For the entire article, see the link below.


Reference:

Fox, C. (2009) School Cop Beats Student With Special Ed Needs Caught on Tape. Retrieved on 10/9/09 from http://specialedlaw.blogs.com/home/2009/10/school-cop-beats-student-with-special-ed-needs-on-tape.html#more

Image Attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

http://specialedlaw.blogs.com/home/2009/10/school-cop-beats-student-with-special-ed-needs-on-tape.html#more

Related articles by Zemanta

• Officer resigns after alleged beating of student (cnn.com)

Responsive Teaching and RTI: School Psychology Podcast Episode 047

This episode focuses on the approaches of Response to Intervention (RTI), the rationale for this approach in education and the deficit model compared with a strength based model.

In this podcast episode I focus on the paradigm shift that RTI (Response to Intervention) proposes in education. RTI is being mandated in our public education systems in our nation. However, many parents and teachers no little or nothing about this paradigm. Some people have heard the term RTI, but are unsure what it means and what the big deal is, when they do hear some of the details of this model.

One idea in the RTI approach is to change the focus from deficits to strengths. The question becomes, what can the child do now. How can we create an educational approach that is maximally effective at teaching the child from their strengths, rather than from a teaching to the average approach. When we teach to the child’s abilities and focus on the skills they need, create realistic goals for attaining those skills and examine the effects of our methods, with modifications when those methods are not achieving what we want in order to stay on track for the goal, we are using a strength based approach.

Musical Attributions:

Music used in the podcast is covered by Creative Commons licenses. These include Terraperfida’s Ego Trippers and Kalido 1's Stir Crazy, both of which are featured on http://tribeofnoise.com.

A special thanks to Shannon Hurley for her recording of a very beautiful song, Sunrise. You can check out more of her music on her myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/shannonhurley

Image Attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31796655@N07/ / CC BY 2.0

Motivational Video - If you never failed you've never lived

Importance of Social Emotional Competence for Students in School

In one of my more popular podcast episodes (episode 009), I discussed the importance of social and emotional competence in schools. In this episode, I talked about the research by Dr. Michael Bernard as well as other research that supports the finding that promotion of more social skills and competence has benefits to students, including improved academic functioning. This is also a major emphasis of PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports).

I argue the point that teachers and everyone else working with children should teach social emotional skills. It is critical to academic success as well as social and emotional success, based on research. Michael Bernard’s article titled “It’s Time We Teach Social Emotional Competence As We Teach Academic Competence.” This article can be found in the Reading and Writing Quarterly, 2006.

For more information, check out this and other podcast episodes from the (Archive) School Psychology Podcast with Dr. Gaston Weisz on iTunes or other podcast catchers, as well or on Mevio.com.

iTunes link for new show

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=327297299

iTunes link for archive show
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=327298656

Mevio link for new show
http://drweisz.mevio.com/

Mevio link for archive show
http://drweiszarchive.mevio.com

Dr. Bernard highlights five foundation skills that are supported by research as fundamental. These are 1) resilience, 2) confidence, 3) the ability to stick to it even when a task is hard or persistence, 4) ability to get along with others, and 5) organization.

How do you actually teach social emotional competence? It’s not enough to occasionally verbalize some nice values. It is necessary to systematically and explicitly teach the skills. If students are taught the skills through explanation, modeling, practice and feedback, similar to how academic skills are taught, they are more likely to learn them and practice them. Most of us want students with a high level of social skills and emotional functioning. The empirical evidence indicates that they will also be better equipped to perform well academically.

Reference: Bernard, Michael E.. Reading & Writing Quarterly, Apr-Jun2006, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p103-119


Image Attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/ / CC BY 2.0

Video on ADHD: ADHD as a Brain Disorder

In this video, ADHD and the Brain, the brain differences of people with ADHD is explained using clear language and visual graphic representations. The video is featured on Youtube and can be found at AnswersTV.com

New parameters have been announced by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) to increase the systematic guidelines for medicating children safely and effectively, according to John Walkup, M.D.

These parameters set best practices for medical and psychiatric assessment, treatment, monitoring and educating of families about the disorders and treatments.

For further information the article can be found in full in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2009).

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, September 2009 - Volume 48 - Issue 9, pages 961 - 973.

Image Attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pkmousie/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Why Positive Approaches in Schools Are Being Emphasized

There has been more and more discussions about reducing punishment, segregation and coercive approaches in schools and in parenting. I observe that there is a great deal of support for this approach by some, but skepticism and derision by others. I understand that many paradigms or philosophies have their fans as well as their detractors. There are many personal preferences about such beliefs or values. There are cultural and tradition-based factors for why people might favor "old school" approaches and be critical of doing things differently than they were done in the past. Changes for the sake of change may not be a benefit.

However, in examining the reason for the emphasis on school-wide positive practices, it appears that there is more than trends, using buzz-words or cosmetic trivialities. There is a great push for changes toward more school-wide positive approaches due to findings that punishment, segregation and coercion tend to be less effective, tend to be over-used and tend to increase over time, as they may work in the short run, but then stop working well unless you increase the intensity of the approach. After you remove the child from class for 2 minutes and find it no longer has the same effect, you move to 4 minutes and before you know it, the main office has become the child's primary educational setting for most days and he's only a visitor in the classroom.

In contrast, the use of principles that are researched and used consistently and school-wide, such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports has been demonstrated to improve overall school climate, reduce and prevent behavior problems and address more intensive behavior problems much more effectively. However, the immediacy of stopping a problem behavior which is so reinforcing to a teacher, is not always there with proactive and positive approaches. It is more subtle and takes more time to have its effects. Just as taking care of health with simple things like washing hands is less dramatic than getting a surgical intervention, we often underestimate where we should place our focus and energies to get the greater benefit - prevention.


You can learn more information about school wide positive practices, including parent involvement at these websites:


http://pbis.org

http://fifsinnyspbis.tripod.com/

http://sss.mpls.k12.mn.us/sites/6c9fd336-96c5-451c-a8a6-b6f00373668d/uploads/Section_B_Behavior.pdf

http://www.pbismaryland.org/

http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/pub/eres/EDSPC715_MCINTYRE/SchoolWideSystem.html

Image Attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebolasmallpox/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Positive Behavior Approaches in School: Systematic Supervision

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40mYbGuVR70

Choosing Treatments for Autism

This is an educational video about Autism from the vodpod.com website. There is an interesting discussion of treatments, including complementary approaches.

more about "Choosing Treatments for Autism", posted with vodpod

Link

http://vodpod.com/watch/1878314-choosing-treatments-for-autism?pod=psydocgw

Why are Special Education Laws Needed?

In a previous podcast episode, SPP 42, I examine the background and reasons for special education laws. The abuses of the past in inadequately meeting the needs of children with disabilities led to our current legislation and educational principles designed to protect the educational rights of all individuals. You can now access this episode on Mevio.com or other podcast aggregators (e.g., iTunes, Podcast Pickle, etc.) under the podcast show name (Archive) School Psychology Podcast with Dr. Gaston Weisz.

Here is a link directly to the audiofile:

http://69.16.184.129/f4h2x5q4/cds/media/22774/episodes/170209/drweiszarchive-170209-05-03-2009_pshow_314244.mp3?dopvhost=media.podshow.com&doppl=3f47bd0575e290d775b290d730a215b0&dopsig=3d9418822fecb83062d1a5a0fec4c242

or to connect to the iTunes link:


http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=58262385&id=327298656

Why Are Laws Governing the Education of Exceptional Children Necessary?

In the past, children with disabilities, along with many other differences were excluded from education or given a second class education.

Civil rights laws highlighted the fact that separate is not equal when it comes to educational opportunities.

Six Major Principles of IDEA (Heward, 2009)

•Zero Reject: Schools must educate all children with disabilities

•Nondiscriminatory Identification and Evaluation: Schools must used nonbiased, multifactored methods of evaluation

•Free, Appropriate Public Education: An IEP must be developed for each child

•Least Restrictive Environment: Must be educated with children without disabilities to the maximum extentappropriate

•Due Process Safeguards: Parents’ and children’s rights protected

•Shared Decision Making: Schools must collaborate with parents


Reference:

Heward, William L. (2009). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education (9th edition). Pearson, New Jersey.

Regions Visiting My Website

Please leave me a message and tell me how I can make this blog as interesting and useful to you as possible.

Here are the top regions visiting my blog last week according to Project Wonderful advertising statistics.

201: United States
14: Canada
3: United Kingdom
1: Belgium

Famous People Who Did Not Let Their Disabilities Hold Them Back

Many famous people who are celebrated in their respective fields had disabilities, which sometimes were not known by the general public. Did they accomplish greatly despite their disabilities or were they unique in many ways which were not completely defined by their supposed disabilities?

Many people would have used disabilities as an excuse to discount someone's potential. The next time you hear someone question the potential of a student, child or adult due to a disability consider the interesting exceptions to our assumptions. Below are a list of famous people either who are known to have had disabilities or believed to have had disabilities, based on the website: http://community.disabled-world.com/

Famous People - Speech Differences and Stutter

Famous People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Famous People with Mood Disorders

Image Attribution

http://community.disabled-world.com/