By's Musings

Communication

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Which Came First: Visual Thinking or Aphasia?

Does the old conundrum (“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”) really have an answer? One can argue sequentially that to have an egg there must first be a chicken to lay the egg. However, from where did that chicken come? All of today’s chickens come from eggs that were laid by other chickens. The most recent announcement (October 2009) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claims that no chickens have been cloned. Thus, we can still ask, “Which came first, chicken or egg?”

I’m asking this question because I have noticed that there is a one-to-one correspondence between my struggles with words and my thinking in terms of pictures. On the other hand, when I am operating in a verbal thinking mode, I have much more facility with and memory of words.

In my sequential thinking mode, I find myself asking the question,”Which comes first: visual thinking or aphasia?” In this sequential thinking mode, I am really asking the question: “Does one condition cause the other?” In my visual thinking mode, I am trying to construct a story board. So which picture panel do I include first in my story?

I realize that my case is very unusual. My brain tumor was in the meninges in the right frontal lobe area. The small hole in my brain and the scar tissue caused by the removal of the benign tumor are in that right frontal lobe area. Although it is known as the executive brain, it is not the normal area associated with language.

Immediately after my surgery I noticed a decreased facility with words. I generally understood what people were saying. Almost all of the time, I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find the right words to use. This deficiency was much more pronounced in oral exchanges. When I was writing, I had more time to come up with the right word.

When I would mention the battle that was going on in my mind, many people would remark that they could not see that difficulty in my responses. However, I knew it was there. I also knew that I was answering questions by using a preconstructed story board and a previously prepared script. Ad lib responses were slow and not always on point.

For six months following the surgery, I went through extensive speech therapy for the aphasia. Month by month, I noticed slight but continual improvement until I finally reached the point that therapist’s evaluations showed that I was in the above normal range for my age group. This meant that the insurance company would no longer pay for therapy.

However, three months after the speech therapy stopped, I had a serious setback. I experienced four tonic-clonic seizures within a 30-minute time span. I lost consciousness the moment of the first seizure, and I did not wake up until four days later in the hospital. When I did regain consciousness, I immediately knew several things were different. I had lost many of the gains in the use of words that I had achieved through the speech therapy. I also realized that I was vacillating between two modes of thinking. The first mode was a verbal, analytic, quantitative, sequential mode, which had been my normal mode prior to the surgery. The second mode was a visual, metaphoric mode which was brand new to me.

It was immediately back to speech therapy. This time my progress was spotty. Some days were much better than others. It all depended upon which thinking mode I found myself in. When I was in the verbal mode, my performance on the therapist’s assessments was good enough, so that five months after the seizures my insurance company again said that therapy was no longer necessary.

Shortly after the therapy stopped for this second time, the tremors and hallucinations started. One year after the first tremors and hallucinations, the dysesthesia started. I realize that my aphasia is far from the usual forms of aphasia. For more than one year, I have been battling the aphasia, tremors, hallucinations, dysesthesia, and visual thinking. These conditions are not universally present. However, when they are present, I have noticed that verbal, analytic, quantitative, and sequential thinking is much more difficult. Complicating things is that the tremors occur almost at random. They are not associated with either thinking mode, or the aphasia, hallucinations or dysesthesia.

Again, the question: “Which came first: visual thinking or aphasia, hallucinations and dysesthesia?” However, in reverting to analytic thinking for a moment, are these factors occurring simultaneously because there is a third factor that is causing these two observable factors?

In the meantime, I know that if I am fighting hallucinations and dysesthesia, the visual thinking is not too far behind, and vice verse. Although I know that I can write in either mode, verbal or visual thinking, it is easier when I’m in verbal mode. Sometimes I can’t wait for the verbal mode to show up, so I plow ahead writing in the visual mode.

 

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Living in the World of Visual Thinking

I can’t believe tha it’s been almost two years since I published the post Living in a Metaphoric World and Trying to Communicate with the Academy.  Although many things have changed, many have remained the same. In October 2011, I was living almost exclusively in a metaphoric and visual thought pattern world. Over the two intervening years, I have worked very hard to regain some of my life in the verbal, analytic, quantitative, and sequential thought world. Today in August 2013, the best I can say is that “Some days are better than others.”  This, of course, drove me to the U2 song, Some Days Are Better Than Others, particularly the verse

Some days it all adds up
And what you got is not enough
Some days are better than others.

When faced with any question, situation, or problem, my thinking still immediately goes to a picture or a scene. Prior to my TBIs, I would have attempted to formulate a verbal description, before piecing together a verbal, analytic, quantitative, sequential explanation or solution. Today, I begin with a picture around which I build a scene. I will then put together a storyboard, and eventually a script. It is as if I am scripting and directing a movie.

Some of my movie productions are visual travelogues, focusing on the scenery. Other productions are closer to documentaries, where I attempt to present a verbal description of what I see. In these I attempt to translate the pictures into words.  However, to use words, you have to have a ready supply of words. Here is where I experience the down side of aphasia. Sometimes I must struggle to find the best word. I know what I want to say because I see the pictures. Nevertheless, the right words don’t leap out at me as they used to do. It takes me back to one of my first posts, Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs.

One criticism of living in a movie, is that one is always living in a fantasy, a make-believe world. It is not real. Having lived in this fantasy land now for more than two years, I would counter that living in a world of words, analysis, numbers and sequence, is not living in the real world either. The words, analysis, numbers and sequences are only representations of the real world. If analogies congeal into dogmas, metaphors and pictures are easily mistaken for reality. C.S. Lewis said that the danger of using a metaphor is not that it may be wrong, but that people forget it is an analogy and not necessarily reality.

Which is the better description of reality? Having been a resident of both worlds, my answer would have to be, “It depends!” James Geary, New York Times Bestselling author of “I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World” gives us an answer. The answer is that it depends upon the audience. In his book Geary introduces us to the concept of expectancy bias. Individuals bring their own biases to bear upon any communication. Those differing expectations will cause individuals to create their own interpretations of your story. However, you can help lead individuals in particular directions by the  words, analyses, numbers, sequences, pictures, and metaphors that you select.

What’s left to say? Quiet on the set! ACTION!

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An Unexpected Joy

One of my favorite bloggers, Tara Fall, in a recent series of posts on her blog “Finding Strength To Stand Again” raised the topic of resiliency. She did it with the seemingly benign question of whether there is something in some people that makes them more resilient than others.

One of the unexpected joys that I have experienced with my aphasia is the excitement of discovering new words or rediscovering lost words. When I read Tara’s post “Question and Answer Week 2-b,”  the word resilient just jumped off the screen at me. My immediate reaction was I know that word from my recent battles with epilepsy, hallucinations, dysenesthesia, and aphasia. However, I also had a feeling that I was missing something. My academic background kicked in and I started researching the concept of resiliency.

Very quickly, I realized what had bothered me with the word “resilient.” A number of different definitions are in common use. I found this somewhat ironic in that the same day I read Tara’s post, I became part of a discussion thread that involved academics and professional people from all over the world. The thread began with the question, “What is a professor?”

Immediately people jumped into the discussion arguing about whether the word represented a title or a job position. In the course of the thread, as happens so often in academic discussions, some one raised the question about the difference between colleges and universities. At this point a contributor suggested that what we needed were certain words with “reserved definitions” so that confusions like this would be avoided. My reaction was, “That would be nice, but it isn’t going to happen.”

Returning to the word resilient, the first use that came to my mind was the ability to take a blow or weather the storm and bounce right back up. The victim comes back stronger than before. We see it in television commercials and news reports all the time. We are reminded of the 9/11 tragedy and the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. Immediately after the Boston Marathon Bombing, news reports, especially sports reports, highlighted the idea of being Boston-strong. Every evening, we are reminded that the New Jersey shore is open again for tourists, because “we’re stronger than the storm.” We’ve seen the same sentiment in New Orleans and Oklahoma.

What were the other definitions and questions that were running around in my head? The first involved the research that I had done about the idea of neuro-plasticity in relation to my situation. In my readings I found a number of scientists who said that my condition “was what it was, and I should learn to live with it.” Other scientists said that it was possible for people to change their brains to relearn skills or learn new skills to replace the ones that were lost. In a sense, this was a type of recovery. However, the scientist took great pains to emphasize that it wasn’t the former individual. In a real sense, it was a new individual. This is a slightly different view of resiliency. It still holds some hope for victims that they can become new individuals with new skills that in some sense may replace the ones that they lost. However, they will not be their “old selves.”  They will be someone different with different strengths and skills.

Many of the neuroscientists  I read concerning brain plasticity, referenced a new growing science of resiliency. As I researched this, I found it has quite a following among environmentalists, entomologists, and medical researchers studying bacteria and viruses. For these scientists, the primary idea is that one species or environmental state changes or evolves in ways that ensure the survival of the species or environmental state. Resiliency refers to the survival of the whole, not the survival or well-being of the individual. I am still trying to figure out what this has to do with neuro-plasticity.

More research on resiliency lead me to a fourth definition. This definition came from the popular psychologists associated with Psychology Today. In a series of posts they suggested that pyschology has identified factors that make some people resilient, while others wilt under pressure. The resilience factors were an optimistic outlook on life. These individuals are almost always positive. They have the power to regulate their emotions. This struck me hard. Prior to my TBI, I was always known as being even keeled, with my emotion under control. After the TBI with damage to my right temporal lobe, I have much more trouble controlling my emotions. I erupt much more easily. The third attribute of resilient people was that they could accept criticism  well, and could see failure as a form of helpful feedback. When Edison was asked if he was discouraged when experiment after experiment failed when he was trying to invent the light bulb, his answer could have been the battle cry of the resilient ones: “Of course not. I now know a thousand things that won’t work. I will soon find the one that works.”

But I wasn’t done with resiliency. Some lines from a hymn kept playing in my head. As usual, I had only part of the words, so I had to do a search to find the hymn. The words that were echoing in my head were, “When sea billows roll.,” I was more than slightly embarrassed when I discovered it was one of the most popular hymns of all of Christianity, “It Is Well with My Soul.”  

The words of the first stanza are

When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know [say], It is well; it is well with my soul.

The story behind this hymn involves a tragic sea accident. The words were written by Horatio Spafford just after he got a telegram from his wife informing him that only she was safe. She had to tell him that all four of his children were killed when the ship on which they were traveling to Europe sank. Spafford was a modern day Job. Almost everything he loved was taken from him. His response was “Praise be to God.”

I don’t believe that it is inherent to us. It is a gift of a loving father to his children. If we accept God’s grace, we like Job can say,

…, ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ (Job 1:21 KJV)

This final type of resiliency is a resiliency built upon faith in a power outside of ourselves. I have seen it my life. I can truly say, “We serve a God of miracles, not a God dedicated to our convenience.” We should reply with our tears, like the father asking Jesus to heal his sick child. When asked if he believed,  the father replied,

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. (Mark 9:24b KJV)

“Lord, give me your resiliency. Help me in my unbelief.”

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Life Cycle of Alumni: Part IX — Fundraising Law # 6

The sixth of Richardson and Basinger’s laws of fundraising was:

Law #6: You can’t thank a donor enough.  We must remember that donors are people. Even when they are disguised as foundations or corporations, there are people behind the gifts. One of the fundamental attributes of human nature is that people like to be appreciated. It is imperative that you express gratitude for each and every gift. Once is not enough. You must keep on expressing that gratitude in a number of different ways.

This post will consider how this principle fits into the processes of student recruitment, retention and alumni development.

Recruitment: It is difficult for a school to thank prospective students and their parents too much. However, a contact every day may be over the top. Nevertheless, multiple contacts from multiple offices keeps prospective students interested.

Prospective students are interested in a number of different aspects of college life. This opens the door to many different offices or individuals to contact prospective students and their parents, offering information and appreciation.

Prospective students want to know about academics and majors. This opens the door for faculty and current students to contact the prospective students with pertinent information from their different perspectives. Prospective students want to hear what faculty expect of students. They also want to know how current students see the school and the academic programs.

Parents of prospective students tend to be most interested in financial arrangements and career possibilities. This opens the door to the financial offices and career services to provide pertinent information and show appreciation for the interest shown by the prospective students in the institution. However, this needs to be done very carefully because the prospective students must be made to feel and believe that they are in charge of their lives.

Prospective students want to know about the campus residential, social, and athletic life. Christian students want to know about spiritual life and opportunities on campus. These provide opportunities for residential and social life personnel to explain their programming. Current students can provide a distinct view of campus life. Coaches and current athletes provide excellent voices for athletic programming. Chaplains, spiritual affairs, and current students can speak to questions about spiritual life on campus.

All of these communications must serve two purposes. They should provide information to prospective students. However, they must also be composed in such a way as to express appreciation to the prospective students for their interest in the institution.

Retention: Once a student is enrolled, the institution is not off the hook. It must continue to make the student feel as if they are appreciated. Each and every employee must treat current students as if their jobs depend upon the satisfaction of the current students with the service and treatment these students receive, because they do. If current students feel they are not appreciated and not getting satisfactory service, they will find a college at which they feel they are appreciated.

Providing great service and a sense of appreciation does not mean that an institution has to give away the store. The institution should strive to provide a quality education at a fair price. The purpose of institutional offices is to serve the students and meet their needs. Faculty should be there to help students learn. If students get the feeling that they are an after thought and an inconvenience to the faculty, they will become an after thought and go somewhere they can learn and feel appreciated.

Alumni:  Alumni are people and need to feel appreciated. If all the communications they received from their Alma Mater are requests for more money, the facade of appreciation disappears quickly. Alumni Offices must help alumni remember what they have received from their Alma Mater. They must celebrate the alumni accomplishments. They must thank the graduates for sharing their talents with the institution and society at large. As long as the signs of appreciation seem real, the institution is then in position to encourage alumni to give back to their Alma Mater so that the next generation of students can experience the same benefits that they experienced. In making such appeals, the institution should highlight prospective and current students showing their appreciation to the alumni for the opportunities which they are receiving because of the generosity of alumni, and the trail blazing that alumni have done in opening career paths and doors to those that are following.

Alumni are the fruit of an institution. They are living billboards for their Alma Maters and free advertisements. An institution must continually thank and keep alumni involved with the institution. The best way to thank alumni is to provide ongoing services, such as life-long learning opportunities; campus services like ongoing career counseling, computing services, health services or job placement file services; access to campus facilities such as the library, gym, or bookstore; or reduced-price access to cultural or athletic events.

 

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What Can the Academy Learn From Temple Grandin and Her Cattle Chute Designs?

Who is Temple Grandin? She is the author of Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, the subject of the HBO film “Temple Grandin”, and the designer of one-third of the livestock-handling facilities used in the United States today. According to the flyleaf of her book, Thinking in Pictures:
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who…also lectures widely on autism—because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity.

So what? My question remains: “What can the academy learn from Temple Grandin and her cattle chute designs?” I am persuaded that we can learn much. However, I don’t believe I will be suggesting what you’re probably thinking right now. I am convinced that many people reading this are saying to themselves: “The obvious purpose of cattle chutes is to herd cattle in an inexpensive and efficient way into or out of holding pens, with the last set of chutes leading to the slaughter house.” The above analogy would suggest that students are cattle and that institutions of higher learning are either holding pens or slaughter houses. Although I have heard people seriously make those comparisons, I am not going there.
I want to focus on several ethical values, design principles and practices that Temple Grandin employed in her work that were highlighted in the book and movie. I originally picked up the book because of neurological changes in my life. Due to several traumatic brain episodes, I have found myself living in the land of metaphors instead of the land of words and analytic, quantitative and sequential thinking in which I grew up and resided for more than 40 years of work in the academy. As I read the book and watched the video, a number of images jumped out of the book and off the screen, and caught my attention. If we were to use Grandin’s values, principles and practices as we design and operate our institutions of higher learning, I believe that they would be more humane, inexpensive, efficient and more effective in producing the learning in our students that we all desire.

The principle that drove Temple’s designs was that form was to follow function. First we define what we want to do. Then we design our processes and instruments to achieve the desired end.
The first value to be emphasized was respect for life. Temple respected cattle and pushed cattle ranchers and meat packers to respect the cattle. By force of her will, she was able to demonstrate that respecting cattle produced better and more efficient results in moving cattle from one place to another, right up and through the point of slaughter. Our students are alive. Shouldn’t we respect them?
The first of Temple’s practices I want to emphasize is the practice of looking at the product or process through the eyes of the intended user. In designing her cattle chutes, she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the operating chutes to see what the cattle saw and encountered. In this way, she was able to find the places where the cattle stumbled, where they were confused, where they balked, and where things went smoothly. How many of us have crawled through the obstacle courses that we run our students through? Do we know where the path is too dark to see the potholes? Do we know where outside light confuses our students?

The second of Temple’s practices involved changes that Temple made to the then prevalent chute design. Temple changed the design of her chutes from straight lines with right-angle turns to curved lines. How did she figure this out? She studied how cattle behaved. She noticed that they were calmer and more responsive when moving in arcs rather than straight lines. How many of us have studied our students’ behavior and changed our pedagogy to get more responses from our students?
A second change Temple made in chute design was to replace slatted sidewalls with solid side walls. Why? Because she noticed that the cattle were distracted by outside interference like uneven sunshine producing glares and shadows that the cattle didn’t understand or recognize. Temple was challenged on this change by the cattlemen because of costs (solid walls were more expensive to build) and the fact that the slatted walls gave the handlers the opportunity to prod the cattle along when they got all tangled up. Her response was measured. She pointed out that since the cattle liked the arc movement and solid walls, there would be far fewer roadblocks, meaning less work for the handlers and more contented cows which meant more and better beef.
So what can the academy learn from Temple Grandin’s design of cattle chutes? We can learn: 1) Respect for our students, 2) Define our desired outcome and design our forms to achieve the desired functions, 3) Study our students, and look at learning through their eyes. 4) Remove unnecessary obstacles to make not only their life easier, but ours also. 5) Contented students will produce more and better learning.

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Overview of By’s Musings

You have reached my blog, which I intend to use for writing about my passions. I am working on a schedule of publishing a new post at least once a week, usually on Monday mornings. Please check back regularly or subscribe to be informed of new posts. Currently you will find blogs in the following major categories: