“It’s all because of you!”

 

Today’s Daily Prompt: What’s the best (or rather, worst) backhanded compliment you’ve ever received? If you can’t think of any — when’s the last time someone paid you a compliment you didn’t actually deserve?

Most of my students’ parents have said to me in the past that ‘my child’s improvements have all been because of your help’. While I am extremely grateful for the compliment, I genuinely feel that I do not deserve it. I believe that children’s development is influenced by a number of factors. In schools, teachers, teaching assistants, lunchtime organisers, bus drivers, security guards, their peers and of course, their parents and care-givers all have a hand in their development. Any improvement- no matter how small or huge- is influenced by a lot of people. Children’s teachers may teach them how to read, but the likelihood of this skill to be learned quickly and retained is influenced by parents’ (and the child’s) efforts to practice and reinforce it.

I always remind families that they – especially the children themselves – are also responsible for the children’s overall development. This gives the students and families a sense of control which they ultimately have. I understand that we as educators have a large role to play in shaping the kids’ futures, I am fully aware that we are only a small piece of the puzzle.

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An extension of myself and the reason for my existence

Today’s Prompt: Among the people you’ve known for a long time, who is the person who’s changed the most over the years? Was the change for the better?

My lifetime Valentine

Almost a decade ago, I have met the most beautiful, engaging, challenging, intellectually stimulating, yet slightly childish woman and my life has never been the same. We were teens when we met. Both childish, yet full of drive and ambition. We laughed, ate, cried, struggled, then succeeded. Our secret? Love, understanding and best of all, mature and sensitive communication. Nothing is left unsaid but nothing is left unresolved. Neither of us are perfect and we both know it. Still, we manage to make one another better.

My partner is my rock. She is always the one who gives me advice, listens without judging, and the one who can comfort me. Knowing that she will always be right beside me makes everything easier. Waking up in the morning and seeing her face makes me realise that everything is alright. Looking at her before I go to sleep assures me that I am loved and wanted. Having the privilege of making her smile and loving her for the rest our lives has been the best  gift the universe has ever given me.

She has, and continues to, make me a better person.

Thanksfor the prompt, DP!

He flaps his hands and screams a lot, but he doesn’t mean to annoy you

Many people with Autism, both young and old, may flap their hands, rock their body and scream with no obvious reason. These behaviours are examples of ‘Self-Stimulatory Behaviours’, also known as STIMMING. These behaviours are very common with people who have Autism Spectrum Conditions/ Disorders (ASC/  ASD) and they happen in most social settings. It comes to no surprise (yet to me, unacceptable) that when non-autistic people witness these behaviours, they either laugh or get irritated, particularly if the social setting they are in requires silence such as in the classrooms.

It is important for us and others around those people with ASD to understand why these behaviours occur. One theory suggests that people with Autism ‘stim’ in order to manage anxiety-provoking situations, such as when they enter a new room/ building, encounter a new person for the first time or when they are about to take an exam. Another theory posits that ‘stimming’ is a way of dealing with overwhelming sensory inputs such as sudden changes in lighting for example, when a teacher turns off the lights before watching a film in the classroom or more commonly, when the fire alarm rings. Sometimes, people with Autism ‘stims’ when they are excited.

People who work with individuals with Autism, i.e. teachers, classroom assistants or carers should recognise the pattern of an individual’s stim. Through observation, they will (at least) have an idea of what may cause the person in their care to stim. Once they know what the trigger is, they would be able to manage the situation. For instance, if a child stims when he/ she meets a new person, let them know in advance if someone is coming to observe a lesson/ visit for tea/ teach a lesson, etc.

We also need to make others aware of these behaviours and tell them what they need to do. I believe that making others aware, particularly in classrooms and playgrounds, stimming and the individuals with Autism will be better understood. At the same time, there may be less chance that others will exhibit negative behaviours towards children with Autism who stims.

More on Autism:

Optimum Outcomes for people with Autism

Diagnosing Autism: What you need to know

Vote for Miss Montana 2012, Alexis Wineman

What does Autism mean?

What is PDD-NOS?

Communication difficulties in Autism

Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper: Asperger’s Syndrome’s Poster Boy?

Still unsure if Sheldon has Asperger’s?

DSM-V and Autism

The Autistic Me: BBC Documentary

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

Autism in the classroom:

Guide to parents of students with ASD on coping with the first day back to school

Common signs of Autism in the classroom

First day back to school: Top tips for parents of children with Autism

Practical tips to make your classroom Autism-Friendly

Inspiring People with Autism:

Dr. Temple Grandin

Jessica-Jane Applegate (British Paralympian)

Satoshi Tajiri (Pokemon creator)

Carly Fleischmann

More on Savants:

The Psychology of Savants: Memory Masters

Artists with Autism

The Einstein Effect: Is there a link between having Autism and being a genius?

Why is this song in my head and how do I get rid of it?!

Whether it’s Carly Rae Jespen’s Call Me Maybe, Nickelback’s How You Remind Me, or Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger, we all had a song or two that has been stuck in our heads for a while and we don’t quite know why. Such an experience is called ‘Earworm’, a term which is a direct translation of the German word ‘Ohrwurm’.It  has been found  that around 90% of the population have had such an experience at least once a week. Earworms have been found to last between a few minutes to a couple of hours (Beaman & Williams, 2010). Although it is a common experience, around 15% of people claimed that Earworms are ‘disturbing’ and ‘unpleasant’ (Liikkanen, 2008).

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

Although there isn’t a definitive theory which can explain why how songs get stuck in our heads, there have been a few suggestions:

1. Exposure: Some have proposed that songs/tunes are more memorable than others because we’ve listened to them a lot of times. However, a research by Victoria Williamson and her colleagues (Williamson et al., 2011) found that listening to a song is not a necessary pre-requisite for a song ‘worm-into’ our brains. Their findings suggest that being exposed to a stimuli which are (sometimes vaguely) related to a song can induce an Earworm. For instance, reading a number plate with the letters CMM can lead to remembering Call Me Maybe.
2. Memories: Being in the same place where you’ve heard a song can be enough to trigger an experience.
3. Mood: Williamson et al.’s findings also suggest that being in the same mood as you were when you first heard a song can also trigger Earworms.
4. Boredom: The same study have also found that in some cases, Earworms begun when people were bored or in a ‘low-attention state’.

 

HOW CAN I STOP IT?

Now that we know the possible reasons why an Earworm manifests, we must know of any strategies of stopping it. In a research conducted by Hyman et al. (2012), participants were asked to listen to a variety of songs, from those of the Beatles to current ones like Lady Gaga’s. They then completed a number of different puzzles, with varying difficulties. After these, they were asked to report whether there are any songs that are playing on their heads (and did so again after 24 hours). They found that puzzles which are too easy and too difficult induced the most number of Earworms. The researchers suggested that:

1. Earworms are manifestations of Zeigarnik Effect, i.e. we only cease to remember things/tasks when they are completed. In other words, a tune lingers in our heads because only a certain part (and not the whole of it) plays in our head. Hence, if we want it to stop, we need to consciously ‘play’ the whole of it.
2. Also, after we’ve listened to a piece of music, we need to perform an activity that will keep our minds and/or bodies occupied. However, we need to consciously avoid tasks that are too easy or too difficult for us.

 

HERE ARE SOME EARWORM-INDUCING SONGS FOR YOU:

 

REFERENCES:

Beaman CP, & Williams TI (2010). Earworms (‘stuck song syndrome’): Towards a natural history of intrusive thoughts.British Journal of Psychology, 101(4), 637-653.

Hyman, I., Burland, N., Duskin, H., Cook, M., Roy, C., McGrath, J., and Roundhill, R. (2012). Going Gaga: Investigating, Creating, and Manipulating the Song Stuck in My Head. Applied Cognitive Psychology DOI:10.1002/acp.2897

Liikkanen L.A. (2008) Music in everymind: Commonality of involuntary musical imagery. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Music Perception and Cognition. Sapporo, Japan.

Williamson, V., Jilka, S., Fry, J., Finkel, S., Mullensiefen, D., and Stewart, L. (2011). How do “earworms” start? Classifying the everyday circumstances of Involuntary Musical ImageryPsychology of Music DOI: 10.1177/0305735611418553

I’ve literally just seen God! Can you explain why?

Over the course of our history, there have been people who claimed that they have seen God (Christian and others). These people are often able to vividly describe the ‘god’ that they have seen. They usually have an interaction with this ‘god’, which changes the way they live their lives. This phenomenon has been experienced by people, regardless of their stance on religion. But why? Did a ‘god’ really visit them? Or is it all in their minds?

 

Temporal Lobes and Spiritual Experiences

One theory proposes that there is a part of the brain, called the Temporal Lobe, which possesses the circuitry for religious experiences. This theory was proposed by Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran, who found that around 25% of people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) are obsessed with religion. After an episode of intense seizure, these patients claimed that they saw ‘god’ and afterwards are convinced that they should follow the path shown to them by that ‘god’. Prof. Ramachandran mentioned in an interview that after such an experience, most patients will be walking around with huge necklaces with crosses and bibles.

In order to test this theory, Prof. Ramachandran and his colleagues seeked to find out how people respond when they are shown neutral words (e.g. chairs and tables), sexual ones and religious words by measuring their Galvanic Skin Responses. What they found was that TLE patients are highlly responsive to religious words, but not on sexual and neutral ones. In addition, based on their skin responses, they are far less interested in sexually loaded words that neutral ones. Participants without damage to their Temporal Lobes on the other hand, were highly responsive to sexual words.

 

Can this be induced?

A better question, I suppose is that is it possible to give healthy (people without TLE) people these experiences by altering their brain circuitry? Dr. Persinger set out to do just that. He developed a helmet connected to a machine which if worn, alters the function of an individual’s Temporal Lobes. He asked participants, who did not know what the experiment was about, to wear this helmet while doing various activities. 80% of them reported feeling that something or someone (which they cannot see) was around them. It should be noted that Dr. Persinger insisted that the susceptibility to experience such a thing varies from one person to the next.

 

 

 

School Shootings: Prevalence, Causes and Possible Prevention Strategies based on Empirical Evidence

The world witnessed another tragedy on 14 December 2012, when 21 year-old Adam Peter Lanza shot and killed 20 preschoolers and six staff (pictured above) at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, before killing himself. School shootings such as this and the others before it shook society’s belief that schools are a safe place for children. As a result, most people would want to find out why these events occur and what can be done to eliminate or at least reduce the risk of it happening again. Many journalists and Social Networking Site users have come up with various theories on the subject. However, a lot of their insights are based on intuition, not scientific findings. So what do published academic research papers on school shootings actually tell us?

PREVALENCE

Despite the enormous media attention given to school shootings over the years, research has found that such incidents are extremely rare. One study estimated that the probability of a school shooting to occur is 1 in a million (Wike & Fraser, 2009).

POSSIBLE CAUSES

1. VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

One of the most popular claims that the media often throw at us is the causal link between excessive time spent playing violent video games and school shooting.. The studies that have been conducted to test this theory however, have yielded mixed results. Studies such as those of Anderson and Murphy (2003) and Carnagey and Anderson (2006) supported the said hypothesis. However, Ferguson et al. (2008) and Unsworth et al. (2007) found no link between playing violent video games and acts of aggression. Barnett, Coulson and Foreman (2008), on the other hand found that playing violent video games actually reduces aggression- a complete opposite of what most of the media reporters claim.

Another problem about the research on violent video games and aggression is the methodologies used in each study. Most experiments involve asking volunteers to play a selected video game for a period of time, and then observing the same people performing tasks in stressful (and aggression-provoking) situations such as white-noise bursts during a competitive activity (Ferguson, 2008). Since studies are bound by ethical issues, real-world acts of violence cannot be tested. As a result, the generalisability of their findings are dubious at best. Nevertheless, a meta-review by Ferguson (2008) claimed that there is no evidence to suggest that playing violent video games would lead to aggression, or school shooting.

2. SOCIAL REJECTION

Some have argued that the perpetrators in school shootings turned into such through victimization. Indeed, the two killers in the Columbine High School shooting were believed to have been bullied by their peers (Peterson, 1999). Contrary to the violent video game hypothesis, this claim has been supported by research findings. In an investigation of 15 case studies, Leary et al. (2003) found that rejection and victimization were present in the majority of the cases they reviewed. Some of the killers have explicitly explained that their actions were their response to the way others have treated them in the past.. In addition to this, the US’ Safe School Initiative report, which looked at 37 school shootings between 1974-2000, have found that 75% of the shooters have experienced peer-rejection, victimization and/ or bullying prior to their attack.

3. LACK OF SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL COPING STRATEGIES

Retrospective analysis have found that school shooters often lack problem solving and conflict resolution skills (O’Toole, 2000). In addition, they lack empathy and they struggle to manage their anger (O’Toole, 2000). It could be possible that these individuals’ lack of necessary social and emotional coping strategies lead them into a spiral of being victimized, being depressed and in turn, put them in a state of permanent anger. Such anger could build up over time, which may lead to their ideation of murder.

4. ACCESS TO GUNS

Gun control has been a subject of debate for many years in the United States, largely because of the school shooting incidents. The argument of people who are in favour of the ban is simple: If you don’t have access to a gun, it is impossible or at least harder to shoot people. Wike and Fraser (2009) found (unsurprisingly) that all school shooters have easy access to guns. (NOTE TO OBAMA: I think it’s time to ban guns in your country)

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHOOL

Catalano et al. (2004) found that schools that focus on improving students’ attachment and emotional investment to their schools have fewer incidents of aggression (physical, verbal and substance abuse, and violence). In addition, school size also has an effect. A study by Wilson (2004) found that the larger the school, the harder it is to nurture students’ attachment to it.

SO WHY DOES A SCHOOL-SHOOTER-PROFILE NOT EXIST?

Some of you may be asking why there is no set risk-profile developed to spot potential school shooters. One reason is due to the rarity of these events. It is rather difficult to develop a reliable and generalisable risk-profile based on a small number of cases. In addition, a report by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) explained that profiling would lead to errors since a lot of students have the characteristics presented by school shooters.

POSSIBLE PREVENTION STRATEGIES:

Wike and Fraser (2009, p.167-168) have suggested six possible strategies to reduce the likelihood of school shootings:

1. Strengthening school attachment: through extracurricular activities that promote students’ sense of belonging and reduce alienation and hostile behaviours.
2. Reduce Social Aggression: through bullying prevention programmes and social skills training.
3. Breakng down Codes of Silence: Schools should provide ways in which students can voice their concerns and disclose their problems anonymously.
4. Establish resources for troubled and rejected students: Schools, families and communities should work together to develop strategies and gather resources to help troubled students. Mental health services should work alongside schools in order to help those who are depressed or have suicide ideation.
5. Increase School Security: The prescence of a policeman or a security officer may deter students to act out their violent/ aggressive intentions. It can also increase the feelings of safety of the students and the staff.
6. Improve communications within schools and between schools and agencies: Schools and relevant authorities should improve their ways of communication in order to help the school easily warn authorities about suspicious behaviours and/ or threats.

NB: Please contact me if you need copies of any research mentioned in this article. Click on the ‘Get in touch with me’ button on the top right-hand corner of this page.

Creationism vs Science (Part 2)

The documentary ‘The Trouble With Atheism’ (link) criticizes science and atheism, claiming that they are similar to religion.

Watch it and see what you make of it.

Creationism vs Science: Top Arguments (part 1)

I will be posting my favourite videos of the different arguments for and against the existence of God. First up, TheThinkingAtheist‘s Top Ten Creationsit Arguments:

What do you think?