Natalia wrote:
> Mike,
>
> In your first paragraph you express an intuition that these kids'
> behaviour stems from deviant neurological status. I'm not sure
> whether, when you say, you don't think it was learned behaviour, you
> mean learned because of poor modelling, or learned because of
> conditioning--as in reactive self-protective response.
I'm inclined to think that such extreme behavior occurs because his
brain is wired wrong or has bad neurochemistry. I don't think of
either of those as "learning".
> Emotional, physical or sexual abuse could easily be one of the
> causes.
Yes, if a small child is repeatedly brutalized in some way, that
probably can lead to dysfunctional neural development -- unrepairable
bad wiring. I wouldn't apply the term "learning" to that but perhaps
I'm wrong not to do so.
> Where this article mentions specific related deviations, one still
> has to wonder if this was part of the mapping at the time of birth,
> or did it develop after a period of stress(ors) at an early age for
> the individual in question.
Hard to say, isn't it? Axonal ramification and synaptic patterns are
far from complete at birth. It's reasonable to infer that much human
variation originates from variations in that process, especially over
the first 5 or so years. And environment is surely influential in
those years.
But I would hesitate to speculate on the family life, mothering skills
etc. in this case to the extent that you do. Gregory Bateson's
notion of "schizophrenogenic mothers" is, AFAIK, now rejected in favor
of more organic mechanisms. What the DSM classifies as "personality
disorders" are less clearly defined than schizophrenia, possibly
because whatever organic conditions predispose to them are less
rigidly deterministic. OTOH, an established diagnosis of adult
psychopathy is regarded as largely unresponsive to any therapy.
Homosexuality is hard-wired, not learned (or at least that's the
current doctrine.) AFAIK, no one has found any significant, repeated
differences between brains of homo- and hetero-sexual people. Yet it
represents a very significant difference in social behavior, also
unresponsive to therapy. (As many sadly clinically abused guys from
the not so very distant past can attest.)
> As well, the 50% of children previously observed with tendencies
> toward psychopathy who turn into psychopaths figures thrown around are
> predictable, yet misleading.
Well, yeah. Psychology is well-meaning, sometimes very careful,
fumbling in the dark.
> Giving the anti-social, restive child patient natural substances
> they seem to be missing may be beneficial, be it oxytocin, omegas or
> even C's and B's; ...
Patricia Churchland does cover quite a bit of research on correlates
of oxytocin and "trusting" or "cooperative" behavior under rigidly
controlled experimental conditions -- all surrounded by caveats about
"over-interpreting" the results, though.
> A camp clinic for similarly wired/deprived kids is ridiculous.
I quite agree. Handy for research, you can hardly expect a
therapeutic effect.
> Could be genetic, could be a tumour pressing on a certain part of
> his brain that reacts only to some as yet unknown chemical
> stimulus. Could be deviant wiring. But they really should do a
> thorough physical and psychiatric analysis before they condemn this
> child to life as another case study.
Yes.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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