Mindroom Reaches Olympian Heights – by proxy
According to several Nobel prize winning mathematicians as well as sociologist Stanley Milgram, who with his ’small world phenomena’ laid the scientific foundations to the more populistic term (play) ’Six Degrees Of Separation’, we are all more or less a hand shake away from each other. Milgram’s theory is based on the idea that every person is connected by a chain of six people at most.
It is a lovely thought to entertain, as it gives you a sense that really, almost everything is possible.
Through just six handshakes you could therefore be linked to millions of other fellow human beings. The estimate is that we each typically have around 300 aquaintances – people we are on first name basis with. At a quick count, that means we are just one handshake away from 300 people, two handshakes away from 90,000, three away from 27 million – and so on.
It is therefore with not a little pride, that I hereby announce Mindroom’s sudden and meteoric rise and participation in the Olympics this summer.
Our patron, Eileen Hogan, Professor, Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts, London, has been commissioned by The All England Lawn Tennis Club in collaboration with The International Olympic Committee, to paint the Victory Ceremony of the Olympic Mens Single Final in tennis this summer.
It is the 2nd time the Olympic tennis will be played at Wimbledon – the 1st occasion was in 1908.
The painting, 80 cm x 160 cm, will initially hang in The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum. Perhaps alongside Eileen’s paintings from her artist-in-residency for the 2009 Championships . One of them, see below, featured as the official poster for the Championships the following year.
I have arranged an exclusive mini Eileen Hogan Exhibition for you here below.
The Wimbledon Tennis Museum by the way, is a an absolute Mecca for any tennis fan, with a collection of over 15.000 objects, the Championship Trophy and – of course – John McEnroe’s ghost in the changing room. I am serious!
Anyway, on Sunday the 5th August 2012, Mindroom will be right there on Centre Court, just one handshake away from Djokovic/Nadal/Federer/Murray.
Dreams do come true – as so many Oscars winners claim.
Exclusive Mini Eileen Hogan Exhibition
Portrait Card If you click here the Championship painting opens up. It also doubles up as a pack of 10 cards sold in aid of Mindroom.
The Wimbledon painting below also hangs in the Wimbledon Museum.
Wimbledon
Beehives
Sudden Snowfall - Bryanston Sq
www.eileenhogan.co.uk
Body and Soul
With the ingenuity and complexity of our human bodies and brains, it would be foolish to think they were not intertwined. So it is interesting to see that scientists are now starting to link the two.Of course not always, but at least they don’t exclude the possibility outright.
Attached here below is a link to an article in The Scotsman from a couple of weeks ago, reporting on a study from the US that evidence a link between diabetes and ADHD.
A double dose of disadvantage can dramatically multiply a child’s risk of getting ADHD. The disadvantages, in this case, the mother developing gestational diabetes and then on top of that having a low socio-economic status. The study from Queens College and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, showed that gestational diabetes and a disadvantaged living situation were separately associated with ADHD. Put the two together and the risk increases by 14 times.
‘Since ADHD is a disorder with high heritability, says Dr Nomura in charge of the study, efforts to prevent exposure to environmental risks through patient education may help to reduce the non-genetic modifiable risk for ADHD and other developmental problems.’
To follow Dr Nomura’s recommendations of patient education and responsibility, I will also attach an article, published in Treatment Strategies at Cambridge Research Centre, on the importance of patient collaboration and empowerment in the treatment of Diabetes. The article is written by Marianne Lundberg, a diabetes specialist nurse at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö.
Marianne who has 14 years of clinical experience with Diabetes patients, says:
‘Healthcare providers often ask how they can motivate patients to learn. However, the patient must play an active role in the teaching process and the process should be a collaboration to be successful. The implementation of an empowerment based approach takes time and requires support and clinical practice for the healthcare providers.’
Marianne and I have had many conversations during the years regarding our respective fields of expertise. How interesting that I can now join the dots between our professional worlds here in my blog.
Here is the article in The Scotsman:
And here is Marianne’s article on patient collaboration and empowerment:
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/3f0790a9#/3f0790a9/88.
This article has been used with permission of Treatment Strategies – Diabetes, Patient Cooperation and Empowerment, Marianne Lundberg, 2011, Vol.3 Iss 2. For further information please visit www.treatmentstrategies.co.uk
Elementary My Dear Reader
Learning difficulties, a term in need of improvement, is an issue that concern us all. Because it is amongst us all.
This past week my cultural intake has been active – and across the board top class.
I saw the Hollywood (Sony) version of ’The Girl With a Dragon Tatoo’ – and found it a worthy representation of the book and the original film. Rooney Mara, who has a Golden Globe nomination for her interpretation, was as excellent as Noomi Rapace in the role of the formidable Lisbeth Salander.
I then read Robert Harris’ latest thriller ’The Fear Index’ – in which the central character, Dr Alex Hoffman, has developed a revolutionary form of artificial intelligence that track human emotions, enabling it to predict movements in the financial markets with uncanny accuracy.It is a bleak look into a future that is already here – and the terrible havoc artificial intelligence can cause. Because Robert Harris is such an excellent writer, whose research I trust completely, I enjoyed the book, but it left me with a sense of claustrophobia and in need of emergency oxygen. Oxygen in the form of human emotions and irrationality, not just life based on calculations.
Finally, I watched an episode of BBC’s superb new series of Sherlock Holmes last night. It is a modern adaption of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic. By making Sherlock and Dr Watson young and by using multi media technology the creators have brought Sherlock into the 21st century in the most exciting way.The casting of Benedict Cumberbatch (wonderful name) as Sherlock and Martin Freeman (from The Office and Breaking and Entering) as Dr Watson, is absolutely perfect. Together they tackle the problems of modern day crime using Sherlock’s phenomenal way of reasoning and Dr Watson’s pragmatism.
So what, as Sherlock would ask himself, links Lisbeth Salander, Alex Hoffman and Sherlock Holmes together?
Elementary Dear Reader – all three have Asperger syndrome.
Lisbeth Salander – in case there is still a single person out there unaware of this modern Pippi Longstocking (Stieg Larsson’s own description of his leading superwoman), has a brilliant mind especially within IT, but certainly falls short on social graces.
Same is true for both Hoffman and Holmes.
-Ordinary people fill their hard drive with all kinds of rubbish, says Sherlock in despair, and that makes it very hard, he continues, to get to the stuff that really matters. All that matters to me is work. Without that, my brain rots.
-Put that in your blog, he shouts at Watson.
I have now Sherlock.
There’s Something About Mary
There was always something about Mary.
Mary is the only person, and certainly the only hairdresser, that Annie would allow to even come close to her with a pair of scissors.
At least three factors contributed to Annie’s non negotiable hairdressers phobia. The heavy rubber shoulder ’patch’, the high risk of tugging and an inexplicable but absolute fear of anything touching her ears. She freaks out, as she says herself, if anyone or anything touches her ears. An idiosyncracy that has made life very difficult at times. One grommet is still in there. hairwashing is not straightforward and volume control in the theatre an expensive problem. Booking a haircut and then cajoling Annie to go, was for many years a superhuman effort for both of us. Me trying to walk the tightrope of pedagogy (ha), truth, parental power, self preservation and estetics and Annie excercising her human rights.
Then along comes Mary. With her respect for client integrity, her humour and her innate people skills she cruises past All Hurdles with her scissors – and Annie emerges smiling and very happy with her styling.
This happy collaboration, together they decide which look to go for and together they usher me out of the salon until job done, has been going for the past 9 years since Annie was 12.
Mary has seen Annie through school, graduations, weddings, bobs, shoulder length and short hair and she has navigated Annie through mohikans, blue high lights and tricky hairwashes.
Not that I am not an open minded parent and not that I have forgotten my own long and windy evolutionary road within this particular field, but Thank You Mary.
Here’s to another 30-40 happy years of hanging out with you!
Mary on Christmas Eve 2011
For more information on Mary and her salon BOOSH, visit www.booshhair.com
To start 2012 with resolve, I shall from today post a new blog every Monday. So from now on, lets start the week together. I promise not to be too wordy. Or even worthy.
Happy New Year and thanks for 2011!
The Power of Autism
Dame Steve Shirley, formidable businesswoman and philanthropist, announced last week her donation of £1million towards research into autism.
The contribution will support the creation of a state-of-the-art imaging suite which will enable scientists to study autism in new ways.
‘Research has moved beyond looking at the consequences of autism, Dame Steve says, we now need to look into how biology, genetics and behaviour all link together.’
Dame Steve knows what she is doing. Understanding the reasons for autism, or any other form of neurodevelopmental disorder, is where we must start. Everything else will then follow. I have been to see the lab at The Patrick Wild Centre at Edinburgh University, who are the recipients of Dame Steve’s donation, and I have looked into their microscopes (they cost £500,000 each). It was a very powerful and, for me personally, a very moving experience as it was a microscope just like that, that finally gave us Annie’s diagnosis. A chromosome deletion on Chromosome 1, the upper arm. ‘Annie’s syndrome.’
Looking through that particular looking glass and into the micro cosmos of the mechanisms of neural development, is also a most stunningly beautiful experience. I can easily envisage an art exhibition showcasing these magical, stylish, unexpected, colourful images.
You can view the stunning beauty of the brain here below in my miniexhibition ‘Reports from a high powered microscope’. Images kindly contributed by Peter Kind, Professor of Neurodevelopmental Science at the PWC.
Lorna Wing is another fundamental contributor to the understanding of autism. She has worked within the field for over 50 years and, as Christopher Gillberg says, ‘ she has always been right in her thinking’. You cant say that about many people. Lorna Wings thinking has stood the test of time. You can watch and listen to Lorna Wing in conversation with Christopher Gillberg (dated March 2011) on You Tube, I have attached the link here below. It is a hugely important and informative conversation on the very latest thinking on autism. It is also a master class in what it is to have an open mind.
You can watch ‘Lorna Wing in conversation with Chris Gillberg’ here.
‘Reports from a high powered microscope’
Synaptic Galaxy
Neuron in red dye
Dendrite tree branch
Image from Hippocampus
The Unannounced Future
The unannounced future arrived with devastation to the streets of London, spreading to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham, in the form of the riots last August.
It was the most serious civil unrest in a generation. Five people lost their lives and more than 3,000 were arrested.
The Government are talking to the victims and affected local communities, with help of a 4 -people strong committee, but what is even more important is to speak to the perpetrators and rioters in order to understand why it happened.
The causes and consequences of the English Riots 2011, will be examined in a study conducted by The Guardian and The London School of Economics. This powerful combination of journalistic reporting and academic rigour, inspired by an innovative report on ‘the Detroit riots of 1967’, combine the forces of leading academics and experts (LSE) and close to 60 writers and researchers (The Guardian) plus two unique databases compiled by The Guardian during and after the riots. The first database consists of more than 1,100 defendants charged with riot-related offences and the other database contains up to 2,5 million riot related Tweets.
The need for solid evidence and an analysis of the causes of the riots is absolutely crucial for future policy making which, per definition, you would expect to be informed by reality.
And the reality is that if we fail to offer young people hope and opportunity, then this might be one way of making your voice heard.
As one young person said, in the wake of the riots: “If you take away someone’s future, they will have nothing to lose”.
‘Reading The Riots Report’ is due sometime in the beginning to mid December (which is remarkably fast given the enormity of the material), according to Paul Lewis, part of the Core Team for the report, at The Guardian. But while waiting for the answers, the paper have launched one of the most sensible and co-ordinated Christmas Appeals in order to do something about the situation in the immediate.
Under the title of ‘Giving hope to marginalised young people’, they have selected eight charities that specialise in turning around the lives of troubled young people.
I know there has been a lot about The Guardian in this particular blog and very little on Mindroom, although these are Mindroom related issues, but we all need to join them in their ground breaking and hugely important work in securing the answers that might in the end bring back hope and opportunities.
Thanks to them, perhaps the future will be better tomorrow – as the unfortunate Dan Quayle once said.
For more information on the Guardian Christmas Charity Appeal
But just for the record, Mindroom would also be delighted to receive a Christmas donation, as we have no statutory funding .
Last year we helped over 450 children and their families affected by learning difficulties.
http://www.mindroom.org/index.php/get_involved/fundraising/
Jailhouse Rock Bottom
Mindroom sits on the Cross Party Group for Learning Disabilities in the Scottish Parliament. One of the many ways in which we collaborate with other groups and organisations. The CPG is masterly chaired by Jackie Baillie, Labour MSP for Dumbarton, who has a longstanding focus on and interest in learning disabilities.
I have said many times and for long time, that I think Jackie should become the next leader of the Scottish Labour Party. Jackie Baillie is a politician who speaks ‘normal speak’, in other words she does not trade in clichés and badly researched statements. Plus, and most importantly, she has a great sense of humour. Anyway, she claims she does not want to take on the challenge of the leadership, as she says that chairing the CPG for Learning Disabilities and other such responsibilities are more important to her. Which is very nice for the CPG – and a rather endearing political chess move.
At the latest CPG meeting we listened to a very good, but very disturbing talk on the prevalence of learning disabilities in Scottish prisons. Gary Doherty, a Nurse working in Greenock Prison, has worked with prisoners with learning disabilities for 10 years. His collated statistics and extensive experience of what goes on behind the high walls of our prisons makes for scary listening.
Out of the 8,000 prisoners in Scottish prisons, an estimated 1,000 have a learning disability. That is a conservative estimate he says. And yes, Im sure it is. Another hidden figure must be all the prisoners who ‘simply’ have a learning difficulty, ie anything above an IQ of 70 (which is the official cutoff between disability and difficulty). There is a Swedish study, by a team in Gothenburg, looking into the prevalence of these difficulties within the Swedish criminal justice services. Indications half way through the study show that more than 50% of the prison population have or have had an ADHD diagnosis.
Gary Doherty’s statistics tells us that there is very little help and understanding for prisoners with learning disabilities within the prison service.
Mindroom statistics tells us that learning difficulties are one of the big public health problem of our time.
The annual cost per prisoner here in Scotland is £32,000.
The emotional cost to each prisoner is incalculable.
I have attached here below Gary Doherty’s excellent ppp which contains important and easy to read information.
Just click on the title for downloading.
The Hardest Hit
I joined a very well organised, dignified and I hope effective protest rally at the weekend here in Edinburgh. The Hardest Hit Campaign, which is nationwide, is protesting against the impending very scary cuts to disability benefits. Reforms are set to save £18billion, according to Pam Duncan from Inclusion Scotland, who chaired the event. This at the cost of prospects, independence and dignity of those on disability benefits.
‘We are united in fury, she said.
Absolutely.
‘We didn’t cause the mess, so why should we have to pay?’ the protesters continued.
The event drew a record number of 1,000 protesters. However, the invisible number is much greater as many protesters simply couldn’t be there, -they are prisoners in their own homes, too ill to attend or cant speak for themselves.
The various speakers, who were given 5 minutes each, all delivered very powerful statements leaving you moved, very concerned but with constructive suggestions for solutions.
All except Iain Gray –leader of the Scottish Labour Party, that is.
‘You must fight’ he shouted.
‘You must fight the loudest’, he shouted even louder, when the first ‘cris de guerre’ didn’t seem to impress.
It was with a deep sense of injustice that I listened to his non committing, unconstructive, hollow shouting.
It is very simple Iain Gray, all humans are created equal.
And the point is, nobody should have to fight, nor shout, for equal rights to a meaningful and dignified life.
However, it is still the case that people with disabilities are languishing in the corners of society. Society seems to have a blind spot, its own form of disability- in its inability to accommodate anyone falling outside the norm.
I’ve always said that I am not a political animal. I think I have just contradicted myself. Although I would like to think that if I ever was to enter the political arena, my rocket would be fuelled by an uncontaminated human rights focus.
My idea of running a job agency, matching the 90% unemployment statistic among people with a learning disability to a potential job market, is still on offer.
Although a kind blog follower has pointed out to me that the name JobGenie.com was already taken.
So the new name is Mindroomworks.org.
Securely registered and owned by us. And available as a job opportunity.
Hardest Hit Rally, Edinburgh 22.10.11
Quasicrystals, Principals in Strasbourg and The Art of Simplicity
This years Nobel Prize in Chemistry has gone to Daniel Shechtman, 70, Haifa. Professor Shechtman, whose work was so controversial he was ridiculed and asked to leave his researchgroup, discovered the quasicrystal.
Seemingly impossible crystal structures resembling beautiful patterns in Islamic mosaics. And a pattern that broke all established rules of how crystals were formed. In defending his discovery, Professor Shechtman was willified by parts of the scientific community. 30 years later the quasicrystals have been seen in a wide range of materials and Daniel Shechtman wins the Nobel Prize.
I hope it doesn’t take as long for Christopher Gillberg, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Gothenburg University and the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, to be vindicated. Professor Gillbergs case against Sweden (the first case against Sweden for 15 years) was heard in the Grand Chamber of The Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg on the 28th September. A criminal conviction was imposed twice by Swedish Courts, on Gillberg, when he refused to compromise his promise of confidentiality to participants in his research. It is a case that will have very serious consequences for the Swedish scientific community if judges in Strasbourg rule against Professor Gillberg.
Meanwhile and back home in Sweden, the Swedish Society of Medicine have just awarded Christopher Gillberg what could be referred to as a junior Nobel Prize, for his ‘groundbreaking work and research within neuropsychiatry’.
Steve Jobs was another visionary, whose integrity and conviction eventually conquered the world. Thanks to him we now, not only have products we didn’t know we couldn’t live without, are also emotionally attached to our laptops. My MacBook Pro is my alter ego with infinite possibilities.
Simplicity, Jobs said, is everything. Simple can be harder than complex and you have to work hard to make it simple. But once you get there, you can move mountains.
And that is why my posting will end here.
I have managed to include the Nobel Prize, Human Rights and an IT revolution in just 340 words.
Quasicrystal
A Place For Everyone And Everyone In Their Place
The idea of setting up an employment agency for people with some form of extra curricular needs won’t leave me.
Its such a no brainer.
The market is there. 90% of people with a learning disability are unemployed.
Employers – meet an unexplored workforce with, often, extra ordinary skills and, often, unwavering loyalty.
What are you waiting for? There is no time to loose, for both parties.
I did a workshop with Royal Mail here in Edinburgh some years ago. They contacted Mindroom and wanted us to tell them more about what learning difficulties are and how they manifest themselves.
I remember standing in their offices looking out over the vast sorting room, which was more like an airplane hangar in size. An absolutely fascinating view of logistics and humans in synergy.
Or not, as the case may be at times. Which is why I was there.
A very simple analogy came to me as I was watching our Royal Mail being sorted, ultimately ending up in our letterboxes.
First of all, I said, chances are that at least 30% of your workforce have some form of learning difficulty. It is therefore really important to understand a little bit about what makes that particular employee tic or thrive.
Take someone with Asperger syndrome, for example, and give them the task of sorting your post. It is a routine based, quite solitary job which involves postcodes,sorting compartments and attention to detail.
Perfect.
Then take someone with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and make that person the postman/woman. Delivering post means being on the move, constant variety, multiplicity and new impulses.
An equally perfect match.
But for God’s sake, dont swap the persons and jobs around.
Such a shake up would end in tears and probably in losing your employee.
These are, of course, generalisations as each person is different with their particular carachteristics.
But it is really pragmatic food for thought.
Back to my suggestion of setting up that desperately needed employment agency, I have thought and discussed it so much since my last blog, that I now even have the name sorted.
Who’s going to take on my challenge of getting JobGenie.com (or org) going? Concept and name served to you on a plate.
