There are two major types of conditioning:

1. Classical conditioning is a technique used in behavioral training in which a naturally occurring stimulus is paired with a response. Next, a previously neutral stimulus is paired with the naturally occurring stimulus. Eventually, the previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response without the presence of the naturally occurring stimulus. The two elements are then known as the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response.
2. Operant conditioning Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior.

Source: About.Com: Psychology

             Kendra Van Wagner

We have met with a developmental pediatrician, and we have done a preliminary interview with a clinical child psychologist. That's (still) all we've gotten done with the hospital. What remains is a battery of testing from the psychologist, which won't be possible until at least August (we've been waiting since last September) The result of the pediatrician visit was a report of findings which, while certainly valid, also yielded that it would truly be up to the psychologist to make a more accurate diagnosis.

What we got in the ped's report is "autism spectrum disorder ...[which is] symptomatic of Asperger's Syndrome". During the appointment we got a verbal heads-up that this was coming in our report, and that it would need to be dialed in by the psychologist; however, the ped felt pretty comfortable with the diagnosis based on his observations and his own test results.

So, with that, I want to sidebar and say that this is what we expected. We tried not to lead the doctors down this path; rather, we wanted them to tell us what their diagnosis is instead of us persuading them into this based on confirmation of what we knew were exhibited symptoms. I feel pretty good that we got an unbiased evaluation from a doctor who "knows his stuff" in this area.

When I have more news, I'll post again. AS is on vacation this month, so I don't have any real updates on him right now.

No, it turns out that every appointment I had with the Children's Hospital - ranked 7th in the nation overall - was either canceled in error, rescheduled without just cause, or just plum canceled because the doctor couldn't make it.

Was I furious? I still am. Children's still owes me a phone call that tells me when I can send in Mr. AS for his 2-session psychological evaluations. I'd certainly hoped to do them between the time we return from Japan (a different post I've not written yet) and the time kindergarten starts, but that's a 3-week span and the timing doesn't seem likely.

In recap, this evaluation was initially scheduled in December, 2007 for May this year because that was the first available appointment; it was initially scheduled as a 6-hour full eval in one session. Show me a 5-year old child that can tolerate 6 hours of medical torture and I'll take away their medication. Exactly one day before our appointment, the hospital called to cancel it "because the insurance company needs yada yada yada first...". I simply said to the appointment line worker "perhaps you could have considered that in the gap of 6 months that I've spent waiting for this appointment as to avoid such a conflict" and I guess I struck the magic note on her marimba or something. The very next day I was in their office meeting with the clinical psychologist getting my business handled.

So, I'm sorry to say to my readers that I still "got nothin'" to confirm what I already know, as I said in my last post. But, as a parent of the kid enduring this, I just want it to be done with so we can move forward.

If you believe those 2 sentences, sorry; they're meant to be a bit of cheek versus the deplorable tasks involved with selling and buying a new home. Combine those daunting chores with AS and, well, you've got a proverbial party for sure. In this post, I'll describe some of my own experiences.

Our realtor's name is Steve. I tell my AS son that "Mr. Steve is coming and we're going to see new houses today". How do you think that was interpreted? Well, first it was alleged that we were actually going to the doctor and he didn't want to go because he didn't want to get any shots today. When I explained that Mr. Steve is not a doctor, we were then subverting him into going to the dentist, which he also will not be attending today. Then, rather flatly, I was informed "I am going to the TV doctor, do you understand?" (the TV doctor is the eye doctor - different post)

Of course we understand; he has AS, so every new event is first catastrophic as the typical AS child first aims for the worst and then improves their outlook slowly as situations become less ambiguous.

Mr. Steve arrives - wailing tears ensue. It's one of those uber-loud shrieking fits that's normally equated to a harpy or pterodactyl. But - and lucky for us - when Mr. Steve whipped out pictures of houses instead of a blister pack full of syringes and vaccines, the wailing stopped. In fact, it didn't just stop - it ceased to exist as if I'd pressed his mute button not a moment before. AS Parents, we have all been in this situation.

So, as AS children often do, our son found his comfort with Steve and proceeded to be his little helper for the rest of the day. By the time we visited our last house, he was running up to doors to show Steve where the lockbox is, and then showing Steve how to retrieve the key once the combination was entered. Yes, he's 4, but he's a pretty smart 4.

***

I wrote the above parts of this post in March and never finished it, so I'm here to finish it now. We are still house shopping, and we are still selling our place as well. Not much has changed there. AS has decided that when we have a showing, we're going somewhere so "Mr. Steve can come play inside".

The point of this post is to further demonstrate that typical AS children are both rigid in their minds and also hugely in touch with their surroundings. Where we parents find our center with our AS children is when we can provide a pleasant blend of both form and opportunity.

There is no "mold" that can be broken on children with AS; they won't just wake up one morning and suddenly not be afraid of new stuff and be completely open-ended kids. If we parents try to set that as a goal, we fail before we begin raising them.

The authors agree with economists who'd like to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by imposing carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system, but they think people need extra guidance.

"Getting the prices right will not create the right behavior if people do not associate their behavior with the relevant costs," says Dr. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics. "When I turn the thermostat down on my A-C, I only vaguely know how much that costs me. If the thermostat were programmed to tell you immediately how much you are spending, the effect would be much more powerful."

It would be still more powerful, he and Mr. Sunstein suggest, if you knew how your energy consumption compared with the social norm. A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption.

Meanwhile, the people with the below-average bills reacted by significantly increasing their consumption - not exactly the goal of the project.

That reaction was avoided when the bill featured a little drawing along with the numbers: a smiling face on a below-average bill or a frowning face on an above-average bill. After that simple nudge, the heavy users made even bigger cuts in consumption, while the light users remained frugal.

Mr. Sunstein and Dr. Thaler suggest applying those principles with something more sophisticated than smiley faces. A glowing ball called the Ambient Orb, programmed to change colors as the price of electricity increases at peak periods, has been given to some utility customers in California, who promptly reduced their usage by 40 percent when the ball glowed red in peak periods.

Another gadget, the Wattson, which changes colors depending upon how much electricity a house is using, collects data that can be displayed on a Web site. Clive Thompson, a columnist for Wired, has suggested that people start displaying the Wattson data on their Facebook pages, an excellent idea that I'd like to take a little further.

I have written before about the need for people to be recognized for their good deeds, and what that means in terms of behavioral strategies for the climate fight. At heart, we remain little children. No matter how grown up I may pretend to be, there is this place inside my heart, that smiles whenever my efforts get acknowledged . . . I call that the 'sticker effect'. The other insight deals with the 'lemmings' phenomenon, a behavior I have often observed in myself! Both behavioral tendencies are interrelated and stems from our inherent nature as social beings.

'Nudge' is behavioral psychology at its best. Maybe not as appealing to the big boys as fancy technology, but potentially just as effective to fight climate change.

It's commonly-held that Asperger's Syndrome is rarely alone in the mind of a child. Often, AS is either mistaken for some other condition, or it is properly diagnosed and later discovered to also be symbiotic with another psychological/genetic/emotional/otherwise distressing condition. Briefly, I want to touch on what these are. Parents, this isn't to increase your level of paranoia; I'm going after awareness, I promise.

This information is transcluded from aspergers.com, a publicly-available website offering this information at no charge.

Asperger's Disorder may not be the only psychological condition affecting a certain individual. In fact, it is frequently together with other problems such as:

* Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
* Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)
* Depression (Major Depressive Disorder or Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood)
* Bipolar Disorder
* Generalized Anxiety Disorder
* Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Most likely, you believe your AS child has ADHD or OCD unless their particular case makes them especially sedentary. I've believed that my AS son has ADHD for quite awhile, yet he has been successful in school once he learns the routines of attending. The truth is that it takes a medical professional (in many cases a developmental pediatrician specializing in psychological disorders) to accurately diagnose any of these conditions. The one exception to that statement is ODD, which is actually a behavioral condition rather than a psychological disorder.

What should we do as parents? I recommend some research; use this Internet - that's what it's there for. Secondly, I recommend you discuss all of your concerns with your child's pediatrician. Chances are that if you're battling AS at home, you've already done this. After that, reach out and ask for others to share their experiences. That is the purpose of this blog, and I hope that others can benefit from what I place here. So you all know, I normally have my AS son with me when I am posting in this blog since he is infatuated with computers; he is a constant inspiration for me to provide genuine life experiences.

I'll be posting about something more close to home next time.

I've said this before - but I have a lot of new readers (and thanks for reading) - let's consider the mind of a child with AS versus a "normal" child. A "normal" child's mind is quite like a car; it drives on a road from point A to point B, and often realizes that there is more than one way to get from A to B, but chooses a preferred route understanding that other routes offer different opportunities along the way. If the preferred route is unavailable, a secondary route can be taken with minimal interruption and may prove to be better than the original. So, what about a child with AS? Their mind functions quite like a train; they are quite capable of getting from A to B in a timely fashion, but there is only one real path to accomplish it. Changing the route somewhere in the middle often causes a cascading effect if it is even possible; but, rarely the train is able to switch onto a different line and still arrive with little impact.

Let's use this to discuss children's routines and use the start to finish of a routine as A to B. AS children have one method that they will use for any activity, though in some milder cases adaptability is a moderately-developed skill and this is less true. AS children do not want to comprehend change - they are stepping out of their safety zone into some vast unknown realm of chaos, much like a train jumping its line. How do we impart change as parents?

I've talked to many parents who have tried either brute force or bribery to no avail. I'm also guilty of trying the bribery approach with mildly-successful results. But in trying to be a parent who wins over the hindrances of AS, I wanted to find a way that's both effective and not based in false-pretense. I've learned that demonstration is the best way for my aspie to accept a change. What works for me is what I call the "watch papa" approach.

Ok, so that sounds well and good, but my kid's already tuned me out and is melting down so I can't try that. Yes, I hear you; yes, it happens. I deal with that all the time - using the method of small decisions I described in my last post, first I aim to get my child calmed down enough to listen to what I'm saying. If I am trying to enact something simple, I break down the changes themselves into the decision process and get it done that way. However, this is also effective in a proactive manner - and this is how I recommend doing it to prevent said meltdown. Parents normally know in advance that they've got to make a change to a kid's routine. The key here is to introduce it to the child before you actually need it to be accepted whenever that's possible. A good time to do this is immediately after something that they enjoyed doing, or alternately whilst they are playing - you should always try to choose a happy time. Right when kids wake up is not normally a happy moment for them, so don't try it then.

So, in review - change happens. Be proactive. Make kids make decisions if necessary. Don't be fake.

I should say up front that I've learned first-hand this technique is more powerful with AS children than it is with synaptically normal kids. Why that is - aspie kids thrive on structure, rigidity and order. When they deluge into chaos, this technique is an effective method to insert those qualities which the average AS kid craves. Normal kids may or may not, depending on age and developmental capacity, be able to discern decision making from any other parenting technique because it may not be something they desire.

So, how do I do it such that it's effective? I'm sure you're wondering. I do have some tips and advice to share. First let's set the mindset of the parent before attempting to use this technique.

• You must, as a parent, abstract your personally-bound emotions from the situation and be an empathetic enabler.
• Maintain a level head and do not play the emotions of the child.
• Your child is not weak, and in their own mind they are doing nothing improper. You should understand that very clearly so as not to dole out punishment unjustly. Chances are that the child will not understand the intent or basis of the punishment.

Now let's talk about the actual decision process a little bit. Here are the things that work for me:

• As with all children, tone of voice is critical - it is the most important element of the message you wish to deliver. If your voice is scornful, you will be ignored or feared, but not heard. If you are airy and hyper-gentle, your message will be heard but lost. Find a middle-ground here. I like to think of the Mister Rogers demeanor when framing my own voice. Something firm but soft, and gentle.
• Be sincere. This is especially true with kids over 5 who can deduce that they are being deceived. You must present your child with 2 truthful choices, else you will not be effective ever again with this method. AS children often do not forget when they are wronged.
• Analyze what you'd like your child to do. Break down the end state into smaller tasks if necessary and present more than one set of choices. Here's an example: kid likes but for some reason doesn't want to eat broccoli and is having a meltdown because it's on the plate. First question: "would you like to eat your broccoli or would you like to sit quietly and not eat?" notice that you have an out that's enforcable. Second question: if the kid chooses to eat, "would you like to use your fork or spoon?" or something similar.
• Reward them if they fall back in line with your regular expectations, depending on the situation

I promise you this is an effective technique. It gets me through so many chores with both of my children, but especially with AS. What techinques do you use? Have you tried the decision path method described here and had success? Had failures? I'd like to know.

In this episode, AS goes to a local dine-in Mexican restaurant.  As Denver is very populated with a large Hispanic community, most of whom come up from Mexico, you can assume safely that there are some very, VERY good Mexican restaurants in most neighborhoods with reasonable prices.  Most have 1 or 2 amazing dishes - at this restaurant, the speed of service is legendary and the food is wonderful.  Nonetheless, I digress.  So AS goes to a local restaurant.  What's the routine?

I find it very helpful to sit in the same family configuration used when we eat at home.  AS sits to my right, his mother on his right, and our younger, non-AS son on her right/my left.  We try to sit in booths at restaurants, so AS and mom sit in one seat and my younger son and I share the other, but we are in that same pattern.  If we were playing bridge/hearts/spades then the kids would be partners, if that helps visualize.

Mexican places work especially well because they immediately have something to munch on at the table (chips/salsa). AS can't wait when he sits down - it is always time to eat at that very moment.  Generally, we order him something similar to our own food - we purposely avoid getting something childish from the kids' menu, else he would be getting a burger everywhere we go and he'd grow up thinking all restaurants ever serve is burgers (they are all the same).  It also helps him see that he is "a big boy" because he gets the same kind of food as mom and dad and he gets the same-sized fork and spoon as we do.

So what's the struggle, you ask?  Well, I'll say up front that both of our sons are not very picky; they will eat anything we give them at least once - the range is from squid to spaghetti and all items in between.  AS is particularly fond of cherry tomatoes, daikon radish, corn on the cob, red cabbage, and steamed rice (he's half Japanese, after all).  But imagine the woe when what he orders contains something he doesn't want/like; imagine the woe when the food is too hot and he's starving; imagine the woe when AS wants to eat something that the restaurant doesn't serve.  What do you do? What do we do? I'll tell you.

First, because AS has a penchant for forgetting he is indoors and thus begins yelling, I remind him that we are not only not at home, but we are inside somewhere else.  Second, in a very calm tone I deal in small, compartmentalized choices for him that he can understand.  An example chain of this is, "AS, do you want to eat dinner or sit quietly by yourself?" (he always answers "eat").  Next -> "AS, do you want to eat A first, or B first?" sticking to items on his plate. (either answer). Next -> "AS, do you want a spoon or a fork to eat A/B?" and that usually settles it.

I really do recommend using choices with your AS child where possible.  The key, which I think I've said in a previous post, is two-fold:  your tone of voice must be calm, sincere, and gentle.  Don't be fake; don't be angry; don't be wishy-washy - kids are worth more than that.  Just be a parent with a level head at this point.  The second key is to make the choices realistic and obvious.  By obvious I mean give them options for which they understand the meaning - don't be abstract, kids don't know that A means A, B and C until they are older.  If you try this and it doesn't work off the bat, don't give up.  You're actually helping your child's decision-making skills by doing this, and you're helping yourself put a quick end to often difficult situations.  Maybe this is worth a separate post; that'll be the next one perhaps.

Wrapping up, let me hear your feedback. What do you do that works for you? How do you tackle outings at places like restaurants that are bound to fail for some miniscule reason?  What advice can you give to other parents?  The comment lines are now open...

We use a full-scale economy with our two boys - by this, I mean that we have a serious collection of fake money (that we got from the Lakeshore store at Park Meadows) that our boys can earn with their good behavior. By that same token, they can certainly be issued citations and lose money for poor behavior; yes, we actually write citations out (we also got them from Lakeshore) so that we have a written record of why each child lost some of their money. The point is, our children can use their money to buy from our special prize vault.

Things in the prize vault aren't always toys. Think of things that your children like enough that they'd be motivated to earn money for buying them. These could be toys, but they may also be things like a trip to somewhere they like, or it may be some movie they want to see or even small prizes like candy - use your imagination but don't spend a lot of money building up vault.

What I recommend to get something like this up and running are a few things:

1. Buy your prizes in advance.
2. Let your children see what you're buying, and let them know that those things are going in the prize vault. By no means do you let them play with, open, or otherwise get accustomed to what you're buying - that detracts from their motivation to "earn" it.
3. Let your children help place a price on the items you're buying. If you're using currency-style fake money, you may choose to price items at their actual register price; but if you're not spending much, that means they're not earning much to get the things you've bought. In our house, the minimum is 4x cost for anything <$1 when the kids don't place a higher value.
4. Keep the prize vault somewhere that children cannot get to, for obvious reasons.
5. Don't spend a lot of money.

The key to this system being effective is to enforce it. What we have done is made a very short list (our children are very young) of tasks for which money will be lost. My recommendation is 1 list item per year of age, so that the list is easily remembered. This is where your parenting skills are tested -- when it's time to subtract money, don't be rash, upset, scornful, or mean; all you must do is notify them that they're losing money and then show them that you are taking it out of their storage bin. Once your kids begin to realize that they can't buy the things they want, they begin to understand the value of their behavior.

Granted, AS children don't deal well with failure; they don't deal well with negation and they don't often understand what about their behavior warranted the demerits. That's where the list of bad actions is critical; that's where the tone of your voice is critical; that's where you need to show that you love your children but that you also have to be fair. Sure, there might be some whimpering and some pent-up anger the first few times; in fact, there is likely to be some with any AS child regardless of the failure's severity. Stay the course; this system is working wonderfully.

My favorite book for AS parenting tips is still Brenda Boyd's Parenting a Child with Asperger Syndrome; in this book there is a pretty detailed list of things that one family put in their prize vault - it includes a range of toys, sweets, and special visits/trips like what I described.

What's in our prize vault? Here's my current list. As a side note, we are set up to let our boys earn about $1/day if there are no setbacks; more if they are especially good/helpful. For times when they are well above and beyond their years (I mean 3 and 4), we give them a blindfolded, free pick from the bucket-o-stuff.

toys
8x hotwheels cars @ $5
2x tonka trucks @$15
3x Thomas train cars @$10
4x activity books @$5
1x (grand prize) hot wheels play city @$50

candy
12x charms blow-pops @ $1
dove milk chocolates @ $0.50
m&m fun packs @$0.50
ice cream drumsticks@$2

other
1x trip to chuck-e-cheese's @$25
1x trip to cici's @$20
1x family movie night (at the theater) @$20
1x mystery prize (it's a coloring book) @ $10
2x lunch at papa's office @$10

This is really a great analogy, I'll provide a little bit of context. The average (we'll say "synaptically normal") child has a mind much like a car going from point A to B. There are many possible routes, and various speeds which can be traveled along the way; often a car's driver needn't know where their precise destination is, because they can usually navigate to that point using several previously known points of reference and then using some discovery to get to point B.

AS children are much more like little mental trains. They require a specific route, a specific timetable, and often a specific set of rules for the journey from A to B. Unpredictability is not something that many aspies appreciate - it is widely suggested that the firm, repeatable structure and routine which AS children form in their mind is what makes them secure/comfortable. Interjecting the hand of change for the sake of change is often, as parents have found, a catastrophic event (queue the black hole sounds).

AS children often appear pig-headed, stubborn, down-right rude when they are faced with change. Let's be honest; they don't want to step outside their sandbox. Parents in this situation not only need to understand that their aspie child is routine-based, but they need to proactively predict when their child will require a routine.

What I've found of my own accord that works well with my 4-year old is to pigeonhole his entire day into a set of routines (I'm an IT engineer, so for me this is pretty easy). Not only do we take specific tasks and break them into checkpoints for him, but we take his entire day and break it into small pieces. When we want to introduce something new to him, usually it requires an obscene amount of enthusiasm on our part to get him started and an equally obscene amount of praise required to keep him focused and to allow him to believe he's doing something correct.

So, parents, never forget that your aspie doesn't believe that he/she is doing something wrong by presenting as stubborn towards change. They are merely trying to protect themselves -- and that is not to say that AS children don't find protection in their parents (quite the opposite is true), but merely that they want you to help them feel secure by allowing them to do things in their sturdy, structured way.

We may picture the dissociated complex, with the pressure of an instinct behind it, constantly seeking to evade the censor and return to consciousness, where its wishes can be translated into action; and see how the censor, reinforced by the whole weight of the character, resolutely refuses to permit its escape.

We have seen that the dissociated complex, following the ordinary laws of association, forms alliances with ideas which have a symbolical or fanciful connection with itself. These ideas, not being in themselves objectionable to the character, are permitted by the censor to enter consciousness; then the dissociated complex, taking advantage of its alliance with them, pours its bottled-up emotion along the association channels thus formed, and so obtains an outlet into consciousness, giving rise, however, to very different results from those which were its original intention, and producing those irrational likes, dislikes, and eccentricities which are characteristic of the person whose mind is not working smoothly.

An example of this is shown in the case of a woman who noticed that the brass plates on doctors' doors had a peculiar fascination for her; when inquiry was made into her history, it was found that, in her youth, she had fallen in love with the family physician, who was a married man; feeling this affection to be wrong, she had firmly put it out of her life (i.e., put it into her subconscious). The association between the doctor and the brass plate was obvious enough, but as brass plates were unobjectionable, the censor offered no resistance to them, and the emotion which centered round the doctor whose image was buried in her subconscious was permitted to reach consciousness transferred to the innocent brass plate.

The subconscious makes use of symbolism in precisely the same way that the poet does, but it employs a device which the poet does not, it remembers that a pair of opposites have a connecting-link in their very polarity, and uses a negative to express a positive, if the positive is repugnant to the character. Thus an unmarried woman, whose healthy sex instinct has been denied fulfillment through husband and children, may become morbid, and read literature concerning the repression of the White Slave traffic ad nauseam ; and becoming worse, may develop what is called old maids' insanity, and imagine that perfectly innocent men are pestering her with immoral attentions (which in her heart she secretly desires), and go to the police for protection.

Chapter 19: Fantasies, Dreams, and Delusions

We have already seen that emotion is intimately allied with instinct, and that it is the thrust of the urging instincts that drives us to action, making us seek to appease the needs of our nature and incidentally fulfill certain racial and evolutionary ends.

Our first attempt, urged on by these promptings, is to bring about the realization of our desires in the external world by means of bodily effort; but should this effort fail to achieve its purpose, or should circumstances deny us the opportunity to make this effort with any hope of success, then the mind often falls back upon a secondary achievement, and images its success in the realms of fantasy and make-believe, where there are no laws of cause and effect to check its operations, and Cinderella in her kitchen constructs a fantasy of the Prince's ball. She sees her wish acted out to its fulfillment in the theater of her mind. This factor in our nature influences a large proportion of our mental processes, and is considered to be the chief factor in determining the nature, not only of our dreams, but also of the symptoms of nervous and mental diseases, as will be seen later.

During sleep the avenues of the physical senses, whereby impressions reach the mind, are more or less closed, and the ego, which never ceases its activities, is thrown back upon the resources of its memories. Unguided by the reason and judgment, it reviews these, following along the chains of associated ideas according to the laws of memory, which we considered in an earlier chapter.

These wanderings, however, though carried out with the illogicality which distinguishes the lower levels of our mind, are not entirely purposeless, being determined by various factors. It may be that physical or sensory impressions, dimly discerned during sleep through the partially closed doors of the senses, will give rise to a train of thought, or the matters upon which the mind has been busied during the day may continue to occupy it in an undirected fashion during sleep; but the dream-determining element to which most attention has been directed in modern psychology is the upsurging of the instinctive wishes which have been denied fulfillment in waking life, so that in our dreams we see realized, as in fantasy, the wishes which have failed to gain realization in reality, or may even have failed to gain access to our consciousness owing to the operation of the censor which strives to exclude from consciousness all distressing or repulsive matters; for in sleep all our painfully acquired civilization falls away from us, the higher centers of our being are in abeyance, and our primitive, natural self, controlled but never abolished, expresses its fundamental, untutored desires in their elemental form.

These wishes, however, are seldom expressed directly. So foreign are they to our civilized selves that even in sleep our habits of thinking assert themselves and exercise some check upon what shall be expressed; but they are generally distorted almost beyond recognition by the substitutions of more acceptable ideas for crude images of instinctive needs, and as the subconscious mind links ideas together according to their superficial or accidental associations, it will be seen that strange and tangled dramas will be acted out upon the stage of the mind in an effort to represent the fulfillment of some primitive instinctive wish.

Modern methods of psychological research make much use of dreams in the effort to investigate the levels of the mind to which we have no direct access, and psychotherapy uses the same method in order to trace the disorders of the mind to their cause. For if the train of thought which the mind has followed in its progression from a crude instinctive, often physical, wish to the completed dream-drama be traced back again from the images of the dream to the underlying ideas which gave rise to them, we can lay bare the hidden springs of motive and character; hence the great use that has been made of the method of dream analysis in modern psychotherapy.

It is interesting to note that the delusions of lunatics are constructed upon exactly the same principles as the fantasies of our castles in the air; they also represent the fulfillment of wishes that have been denied their realization, and have achieved their ultimate form through the same primitive methods of thinking that are responsible for our dreams; in fact, they may be looked upon as a fantasy which has progressed a step nearer realization than the day-dream.

The symptoms of the hysteric have a similar origin, but represent the wishes of dissociated complexes instead of the wishes of the whole personality as happens in insanity.

Thus we may see that, should our desires be denied expression in our lives, they will construct dream castles for themselves during sleep in which we may temporarily dwell as monarch of all we survey; and should these desires be very imperative, should a large part of our nature be involved in them, then the dream may overflow into waking consciousness, and we shall live among our own subjective mind pictures, instead of among objective realities, and act out the part we have assigned ourselves in the dream-drama, to the consternation of onlookers who pronounce us insane.

The lunatic, however, is not irrational, he is absolutely rational if once his premises be granted, for he carries the logical deductions from these premises to their ultimate conclusion. And once it be realized that some fundamental and essentially natural wish lies at the root of these fantasies which we see him acting out, then we shall see that the clue to the treatment of insanity lies in these wishes and the region of the mind that gives rise to them.

Chapter 20: Psychotherapy

While many forms of mental disease have a physical origin in the brain, nervous system, and state of the blood, many others are purely mental from beginning to end, although the body may be chosen as the scene of some of their manifestations. Modern medicine is learning to deal with mental diseases by mental methods, and of these the principal types may be of interest. It must be remembered, however, that psychotherapy is the youngest of the sciences, and is still in its experimental stage; and that though magnificent work has been done by the pioneers, they cannot claim to have said the last word upon the structure of the human mind, for even if they knew all that was to be known, leaving nothing to be discovered by future investigation, which they would be the last to claim on their own behalf, though their disciples are not always blessed with the same modesty of genius, evolution is moving on, with the human mind at its apex, so that statements which were true of human nature before the Great War may have to be modified and supplemented when the Great Peace becomes an established fact.

Our knowledge of the mind, its diseases and therapy, is far from complete. The investigation of each human mind is in the nature of a voyage of discovery; though the coastline of the mental landscape may be known to us, the hinterland is unmapped. We do not know what lies behind the human personality; we are equally ignorant of the exact nature of its relations with its environment, and while our knowledge is in this state we cannot speak upon any point with finality.

Chapter 21: Psychoanalysis

The foundations of this method and theory were laid by Sigmund Freud of Vienna, and set forth by him in his epoch-making book, The Interpretation of Dreams , published in 1900. Two schools of psychoanalysis exist at the present time: the Vienna school, which adheres strictly to the doctrines of Freud; and the Zürich school, which subscribes to a modification of these doctrines as taught by Dr. Jung. While both schools agree upon general principles as to the anatomy of the mind, they differ in their teaching as to the modus operandi of mental disease. Freud holds that functional nervous disorders are due to the retention by the subconscious mind of an infantile attitude towards life, and especially towards sex, and that this attitude, which should have been outgrown and left behind, sets up stresses and strains in the mind which lead to the manifestations of mental disease. He gives us the concept of the accumulation of emotion in this wound in the mind, just as pus accumulates in an abscess, giving rise to tenderness and pain. He conceives the function of the psychoanalyst to be to lance this abscess by bringing the subject of distress into consciousness, whereby the repressed emotion is realized and fully experienced, and thereby got rid of. This process is technically known as ABREACTION.

The psychologist who conducts the analysis is very likely to be the recipient of this repressed emotion because, at the moment of its arrival in consciousness, he is apt to be standing in the line of fire. This acceptance of the repressed emotion by the operator is conceived to be a most important phase of the cure, and is known as the TRANSFERENCE.

That this factor of the transference opens a door to most serious difficulties and dangers cannot be denied. The via media between undue influence and callous indifference is hard to find. It is maintained that more analysis will work off the emotion which much analysis has succeeded in lying bare, but in actual practice the process is not so simple and often leads to complications.

This transference of emotion to the analyst, together with the deleterious effects of continual and prolonged dwelling upon the unsavory aspects of life which takes place in a psychoanalysis, constitute serious objections to this method of therapy.

Jung holds that mental disease is due to a failure of adaptation in the present, leading to regression to an infantile mode of thinking. It will thus be seen that the two theories, while based upon the same data, are fundamentally different, and must lead to differences in practical application.

Both schools explore the subconscious mind by means of dream analysis, and to this method the Zürich school also adds the method known as word reaction. The process of dream analysis is extremely complicated. Briefly, the patient is instructed to recount a dream, and this dream is then taken point by point, and the "free associations" traced out in the following manner. He is instructed to take an image in his dream as a starting-point, turn his mind loose, and watch where it goes, the theory being that it will retrace the association train of ideas by which the dream image was derived from the underlying wish. An elaborate technique exists for interpreting these dream images; so elaborate as to be beyond the scope of the present volume. How much of this technique is sound and how much is arbitrary is still a matter of opinion among psychologists; we have little data as yet as to the part played by unintentional suggestion on the part of the psychoanalyst, no doubt a considerable factor in some cases, and an exceedingly falsifying and misleading one.

The word association method of Jung is less open to objection on the ground of arbitrariness, and its operation is simpler. A list of anything from a dozen to a hundred or more words is made out. The first half-dozen words have usually no particular significance, but then follow a series of words believed to be specially associated with the different types of complex which may become split off from consciousness; lists of these have been worked out by different students of this school, but although one of these lists is usually used as a basis, the analyst generally inserts words which he believes will especially bear upon the patient's particular problems. These words are called out to the patient, one at a time, and he is instructed to utter the first word that comes into his head in connection with each. The time he takes to do this is taken by a stop-watch usually working to one-fifth of a second. The first half-dozen of unimportant words will show the patient's average reaction time, but if any words among the subsequent ones have special significance for him, there will be a perceptible lengthening of the time he takes to reply; moreover the replies may be curious, and either show special bearing upon his problems, or, by their irrelevancy, show that the original idea was discarded as unspeakable and a substitute hastily extemporized. If the list be read over again it will be found that, whereas those words which have no special significance are usually responded to by the same reaction word, those which bear upon the patient's emotions produce a change in the reaction word. Free association is then resorted to, as in the case of dream symbols, to discover the underlying train of ideas and the factors in the subconscious from which they derive their emotion.

Many Freudians make use of this method also, and indeed the two methods of dream analysis and word association are generally regarded as supplementary. The chief value of the latter lies in the fact that it can be used in cases where the patient is either unable or reluctant to cooperate. The difference in the view-point of the two schools of psychoanalysis leads to a difference in the method of handling the patient; the Freudian who believes that all nerve trouble is due to the retention of infantile habits of thinking, confines himself to analysis and nothing but analysis, offering the patient little or nothing in the way of explanation or instruction, but simply aiding him to lay bare the depths of his subconscious mind, believing that by so doing pent-up emotions will be worked off and split-off complexes re-associated to the personality. The disciple of Jung, on the other hand, believing that the trouble is due to a present failure of adaptation, though using the psychoanalytic method to reveal and bring into consciousness the dissociated complexes, uses a considerable amount of teaching and explanation in an endeavor to enable the patient to assimilate the fruits of experience and adapt himself to his environment. The Freudian complains that the follower of Jung beclouds the issue by unintentional suggestion, and the latter accuses the former of unnecessarily prolonging the process by leaving the patient to find his own way unaided by a wider experience.

The teaching and explanatory method, generally known as re-education, is chiefly associated with the name of du Bois, who was its original exponent, but as, in his day, the psychoanalytic method of investigating the causes of mental disease was unknown, he was often groping in the dark, and dealing with secondary symptoms and effects, so that his method fell into disrepute in the eyes of the new school; but that this method, wisely handled, can be of great benefit in expediting a cure and lessening the painfulness of the process is beyond gainsay.

Chapter 22: Hypnosis, Suggestion, and Autosuggestion

Much popular misapprehension exists with regard to the phenomenon known as hypnosis. It may briefly be described as a condition in which the reason and judgment of the subject are in temporary abeyance, and any idea presented to him will be accepted without reflection, and take so strong a hold upon the mind that it will act itself out almost automatically. This condition of passive receptivity graduates from slight abstraction, almost indistinguishable from normal consciousness, to a condition resembling sleep, or the cataleptic rigidity of deep trance. Its manifestations and characteristics are manifold and most curious and instructive, but beyond the scope of the present work.

Different hypnotists use different methods of inducing this condition, but the main factor in all of them is the fixation and arrestation of the attention and the use of suggestion. It is generally held that it is autosuggestion on the part of the subject, induced by the hypnotist, that is the crux of the whole problem, and that without this internal cooperation, which is often of an unconscious and involuntary nature, the work of the operator would be unavailing.

Hypnosis is the oldest known method of psychotherapy, and, in conjunction with psychoanalysis, is coming to the front again in the treatment of nervous cases and especially of shell shock. The term suggestion is apt to be used somewhat loosely to denote any concept offered by one person to another, but in its psychological sense it is used to denote those ideas which are slipped into the mind of a person without being submitted to his judgment; in its psychotherapeutic sense, however, it is reserved for the process of inserting ideas in the mind while the patient is in a state of artificially induced drowsiness, but not unconscious under deep hypnosis. Autosuggestion, or the insertion of ideas in the subconscious by the conscious mind of the person concerned, has been reduced to a therapeutic system by the New Nancy School of psychology, and is associated with the name of Emile Coué. It is held by this school that suggestibility, or the faculty of permitting ideas to so possess the mind that they express themselves in action, is a normal human faculty; and although it is the cause of many, or even most of the ills that both mind and body are heir to, it is not in itself a morbid condition, but is a necessary factor in educability, evil only arising when wrong ideas exploit this faculty. We can, however, equally well make use of it for the expression of good ideas, with great benefit to our character and health. Suggestion, and, in intractable cases, hypnosis is made use of by the New Nancy School, not as a direct remedial method, but to teach the use of autosuggestion whereby the patient cures himself and is able to prevent any recrudescence of his malady. It is claimed that this method increases a person's self-reliance instead of undermining it, and is of the greatest value, not only as a therapeutic agent, but as an educational method, and its use in this aspect is urged. But although it is of acknowledged value in the cure of disease, it is questionable whether it might not lead to artificiality and warping of the nature if applied to the growing mind that was developing along normal lines. Only the most judicious guidance could avoid this pitfall.

It is impossible in a book of this nature to give a knowledge of the psychotherapeutic methods that can be of any practical use; the reader must refer to the many text-books upon the subject if such is desired. It must, however, be realized that the modern methods of dealing with the mind are extremely potent, and that it is possible to completely wreck a nature by their injudicious use. A knowledge, however, of the principles of mental hygiene can be nothing but beneficial, though the actual treatment of mental or nervous disease should be avoided by the amateur, for, whatever his theoretical knowledge, the practical experience of hospital and asylum work can alone give accuracy of diagnosis. The beginnings of certain forms of insanity are very hard to distinguish from nerve trouble, even by the expert, and the amateur who tries his prentice hand upon such a case by mistake is likely to have his error painfully and forcibly impressed upon his mind. Psychotherapy is the youngest of the sciences and in a state of vigorous and healthy growth, but there is as yet no orthodox body of doctrine which is regarded as being thoroughly established and accepted by all schools of thought. The lay reader, for whom this book is designed, would do well to be on his guard against dogmatic expressions of opinion which may be presented to him, either in lecture or in print, for our knowledge is not in a state to warrant them. We have learned much, but we do not know all, and until we know much more than we do now, we must keep an open mind and judge tentatively. The popular vogue of applied psychology among those who are not in a position to form firsthand opinions makes this warning necessary. There is no "truth once and for all delivered" by a prophet on a mountain, but an earnest band of men and women adding stone by stone to the temple of human knowledge.

The various methods of psychotherapy outlined here have each and all their value, but no one of them is a panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to; the science is in its infancy, and the percentage of cure is by no means satisfactory. There is no standard of training for either medical men or lay analysts and owing to the great emphasis laid upon sex by the modern schools, the method is open to grave abuses in inexpert or unclean hands.

Chapter 23: The Practical Application of Psychology

Those who have read the foregoing pages will see that there are certain broad divisions into which they fall. Let us now review these divisions in their relation to the practical art of living.

The first great division we studied was concerned with the levels into which the mind was divided and the types of thinking which were carried on in each of them. The problems of memory and concentration are closely concerned with these levels and the interrelations between them. If an idea, after entering the mind, disappears into the subconscious, we say it is forgotten and regard it as lost. This, we have seen, is not the case, however. It is stored in the subconscious, and we can make use of it even if we cannot gain direct access to it. There is an old story concerning the advice that was given to a judge newly raised to the bench, "Give your decision, it is probably right; but do not give your reasons, they are very likely to be wrong." Which is merely a pithy way of saying: "Let your subconscious work out your decision in the light of the enormous masses of data it possesses, including the exact reproduction of every law-book you have ever read, every remark, however casual, you have ever heard, together with the accumulated experience of your race, all of which you are heir to, and it will probably be right; but if you try to rationalize this decision, to explain it in terms of your conscious knowledge, you may make mistakes, because your conscious mind does not know nearly as much as your subconscious." If we would learn to trust our subconscious methods of thinking, we should be astonished to find what they are capable of. Genius might be defined as the power of utilizing the subconscious mind, and inspiration as a subliminal uprush.

Memory also can be greatly improved by taking advantage of the faculty of association of ideas, a faculty upon which the different memory systems are founded. If we take any idea we wish to remember and clearly image it in association with some idea of the same class that is so familiar to us that it is a permanent part of our mental furniture, then the two concepts will get stuck together, and we can always use the second to summon the first.

The instincts and their development and method of functioning form a second great division of our subject. It will be seen that we must view our life in relation to the instincts and not to the reason, but it must not be forgotten that the instincts themselves are evolving or rather perhaps becoming modified in their expressions by the pressure of new conditions, and in the course of their evolution are being steadily socialized and civilized, so although we must realize that, in their primitive form, they lie at the base of our being, yet in their evolved form they also function at its apex, and that if we are to live well, we must harmonize their manifestation upon every level of our being. The third and most important division, from the standpoint of practical living, is that which deals with the mechanisms by means of which the mind adapts itself to its environment. We should make it our aim to achieve adaptation in the conscious mind by absorbing and assimilating all experience, realizing that we can learn our lessons from that which is evil as well as from that which is good, and that any experience, however evil, from which we learn a lesson is converted from poison into food.

While it is necessary that certain types of ideas should be repressed lest they should translate themselves into action, let us never forget that repression need not necessarily imply dissociation, which is an unmixed evil. Dissociation would never occur if we were honest with ourselves. When we refuse to admit, even to ourselves, that our nature possesses certain primitive aspects, we prevent the ideas connected with these aspects from being affiliated to our personality and taking their place in our mental life; they therefore become foreign bodies in the mind, technically termed dissociated complexes, which function independently of the main ego complex.

Instead of taking this attitude, let us recognize the existence of these primitive impulses in ourselves; and when we find their manifestations obtruding themselves, let us gently but firmly put them in their place, and see to it that they do not obtain the upper hand.

Let us never forget the enormous power of autosuggestion, for the subconscious mind will tend to translate into action any image that is presented to it sufficiently vividly, especially if that image be charged with emotion. Let us therefore be very careful what mental pictures we permit ourselves to dwell upon persistently, whether with fear or desire, for they will mold our lives and even our circumstances to an extent we little realize.

Our whole aim should be to maintain the integrity of the personality, to prevent any splitting off of complexes of ideas, and to see that the instincts, welling up in the deeper levels of our nature, should find their channels clear and unobstructed, so that they may flow out into action on the higher levels of our life.

Chapter 24: Conclusion

It has been said that there is no scrap of knowledge concerning the remotest star which will not, sooner or later, be found to have its bearing upon the problems of human life, and we may well ask what the science of human nature itself has to contribute to the solution of our daily problems.

The practical application of psychology has certain well-defined spheres. Its bearing upon education has long been recognized, and much valuable work done in relation to the study of the child mind. The psychology of fatigue, in relation to industrial efficiency, has also found recognition as a branch of applied science not without its practical value. The field of social problems is still largely awaiting exploration, and there can be little doubt that the study of the psychology of the criminal and unemployable would yield results of the greatest social value. At the present moment, it is the field of abnormal psychology that holds the focus of attention. That inestimably valuable results are being obtained in this field of study no one can dispute, but its value is not confined to the relief of disease alone, but, as the research is progressing deeper, to the revelation of the conditions that give rise to disease. Just as the study of pathology gave us the science of hygiene, so the study of mental diseases is showing us the way to healthier thinking. It is teaching us that any abnormal attitude towards life will produce mental discomfort, if not actual disease, and it is showing us, just as physiological hygiene has shown us, that if the developing intelligence of man leads him to depart from primitive conditions wherein the instincts are sufficient guides, then he must also apply his reason to the new problems to which the new conditions give rise, and not leave the solution of these to instincts which are only fitted for the simplest form of functioning. The instinct of combativeness, or the instinct of flight, will not conduct the evolutions of a modern army, and neither will the primitive impulses enable man to live well and happily in conditions which elaborate mental processes have built up—as witness the terrible prevalence of unsolved sex problems beneath the fair show of our civilization. Two-thirds, if not more, of nerve trouble have their origin in the efforts of a primitive instinct to function under civilized conditions and its failure to make the adaptation. We need to take our instincts out of the region of the subconscious and apply our reason to them if we are to solve the problems that press upon us.

Throughout this book it will have been seen that stress has been laid upon the functioning and activity of those levels of the mind that are below the threshold of consciousness, and that it has been pointed out that the instincts, and not the reason, are the key to the human mind. But it has also been shown that the mind is in a state of evolution, and that reason, as its latest development, has an equal biological significance with the instincts of sex and self-preservation, and that we can no more afford to ignore the higher attributes of the human mind than we can afford to deny their true place to the primitive.

Briefly, the primitive man lies at the base of our being, but the divine man stands at its apex, and we, in our ascent, are in a transition stage, with subconscious and superconscious not yet correlated in the conscious mind. We do not see our past and future save in the dim pictures of dream and vision, by the uncertain gleam of intuition rather than the clear light of reason, and no solution of any human problem, either social or psychological, can be valid which does not look to the future as well as the past. Hitherto psychology has sought its standards of normality in the primitive and subhuman, forgetting that the flower of humanity is a natural product as well as its weeds; that religion, charity and idealism are as much a part of human nature as those primitive instincts which give rise to unnameable crimes. A psychology which looks to the past can show us causes, but it is only a psychology which looks to the future which can find us cures. Evolution did not cease its progress when it produced the cave man guarding his family, but evolved the "Save the Children Fund," which before the echoes of the last shot had died away was sending succor to the helpless young of an enemy herd.

A psychology which bases its philosophy upon a return to the primitive, especially if that psychology undertakes the solution of human problems, individual or collective, is ignoring the data of evolution. We know that all life originated in the sea, and that the young of many species still pass the first phase of their life in the water. When, however, they have come ashore, and the gills have given place to lungs, they cease to be water creatures, and the structural traces of their origin are vestigial and not functional, and a frog can be drowned as easily as any other air-breathing creature, despite his tadpole past. So it is with the human psyche, unquestionably it has passed through a primitive phase in the course of its development, but if, in an effort to remedy some faulty development, it be thrust back to that phase after evolving to a higher one, it will perish as surely as the frog thrust under water. It should be the aim of psychotherapy, not to reduce the mind to its primitive elements and point of view, but rather to help humanity to make that transition from the lower to the higher which evolution is forcing upon us, whether we will or no. Adaptation to environment is the key to life, and the environment to which an individual must be aided to adjust himself, if such aid be sought, is not that environment which, generation by generation, is receding further into the past, but that future which hour by hour is becoming the present, and from which there is no escape.

It should be the aim of psychotherapy to work out the arc which evolution is describing, and to set the feet of racial wanderers upon its path. It is a futile and dangerous philosophy which proposes a return to the past as an escape from the present.

Geology, zoology, sociology, and comparative psychology, all show us the evolution of that which is simple into that which is complex, from the cave man, with his few needs and problems, to the complications of a modern industrial society. And we see in the little segment of the evolutionary arc with which we are most closely concerned that the chief factor is the herd instinct which is pressing us all the time towards a more complete socialization of humanity, and that any adaptation which an individual makes must be in relation to his integration as a social unit and not to his needs as a solitary individual.

Diagnostic and descriptive psychology must be distinguished from remedial psychology of which we have had all too little. Research on the abnormal mind alone will not give us the key to a healthy life, we must study social psychology as well as individual psychology, because man is a social animal, and his mental processes are determined by this fact; any adaptation he makes, and adaptation is the basis of psychotherapy, must be in relation to his social group as well as to his own subconscious wishes; it is not enough to bring these wishes into the light of consciousness, they must be synthesized with the rest of the personality, to the social organization of which that personality is a unit, and to the great evolutionary drift of which even the race itself is but a partial expression. Psychotherapy may begin with the primitive, but it must end with the divine, for both are integral factors in the human mind.

finis

Last year, he was seemingly shy and a little bit detached from the rest of the class.  Everyone thought that was just him exhibiting some shyness and some discomfort with being away from home and from his mother because it was truly his first time outside the care of a parent.  This year, after spending a summer of growth in Japan, he is incessantly talkative and is actually communicating with the other students, albeit he often tries to talk to them in Japanese and they have no idea what he's saying.

The way Asperger's manifests itself in our son is that he is generally unaware of situational context.  Now, a lot of 4-year olds are the same way to a degree, but with him it is a constant struggle for him to do such simple things as lower his voice, stop talking, stop playing when it's time to be serious, or even listen when he's being told what to do.  It's one of those things that is starting to wear thin at the preschool, where he is starting to develop a less-than-ideal pattern of behavior in class.  So, we've gone from this bashful, quiet yet slightly inattentive 3-year old child to this rambunctious, randomly loud, excitable 4-year old with a penchant for blowing raspberries at the other kids when he either doesn't know what to say (in English) or doesn't like what they're doing.  And if someone tells him to stop what he's doing too many times or in a too-strong voice, you might as well have just fried the side of his head on a griddle.

Here in the Denver area, there's outreach available.  We're fortunate to have a school district (Littleton Public Schools) that provides developmental screenings for *free* and then they provide guidance, coaching and referrals to appropriate counseling and developmental psychology folks as well as classes for the parents to learn how to cope/handle/deal/manage/remain sane with an especially young Aspie.

So, Aspie parents, have you had the school battles?  And what are you finding is effective to curb behavior which you want to reserve for at home or completely eliminate?  You're welcome to submit via the contact form below and I will post your submission once I moderate it.

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WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT  PLAGIARISM AND TURNITIN.COM

(Reproduced from an article in the McGill Daily by Adrienne Klasa, October 15, 2007 entitled "University can submit essays to turnitin.com without student consent")

If a McGill disciplinary officer believes you’ve copied someone else, the officer can submit your school work to anti-plagiarism service Turnitin.com without your consent. The results can be used as evidence to corroborate or investigate a charge on plagiarism. The policy is silent as to whether the student must be informed in advance. Turnitin.com is a text-matching anti-plagiarism web site that universities and other institutions use to determine the originality of submitted work. A paper submitted to Turnitin.com gets scanned into the company’s database, compared with other documents, and then returned with a report to the instructor evaluating the paper’s originality. “Results are based on exhaustive searches of billions of pages from both current and archived instances off the internet, millions of student papers previously submitted to Turnitin, and commercial databases of journal articles and periodicals,” according to the Turnitin.com web site. Students protested the use of Turnitin.com when it was first introduced to McGill for a trial run in 2003. Jesse Rosenfeld and Denise Brunsdson, now both McGill alumni and former Daily staff members, refused to submit their work for screening on ideological grounds, and both initially faced failing grades when their professors refused to mark their work. “I presented several arguments for my case,” said Brundson. “I didn’t like the presumption of guilt…but I also just felt like, ‘What is the world coming to?’” Rosenfeld’s case was particularly high-profile, garnering national mainstream media attention. Since then, amendments to McGill’s policy on text-matching software now allow students to opt out of having their work submitted to Turnitin.com. Approved by both the Senate and Board of Governors in December 2004, the opt-out system is supposed to prevent objecting students from being penalized. Students opting not to use the web site must provide two alternative proofs of authenticity that, according to the policy, “are not unduly onerous and that are appropriate for the type of written work.” Alternatives include submitting multiple drafts, annotated bibliographies, photocopies of sources, or taking an oral or written quiz designed to attest to originality. However, even students who opt out of the service may have their work submitted to Turnitin.com. SSMU VP University Affairs Adrian Angus said that he has asked the Senate to produce statistics about the use of Turnitin.com for disciplinary measures. “We want to know how many students opt out, are subsequently accused of plagiarism, and then are forced to use the program,” he said. “I don’t see the University’s arguments in this case.” Angus added that SSMU has had a long history of battling test-matching software, claiming that he is the fifth VP University Affairs to be involved in this issue attests to its urgency. Turnitin.com does have its supporters on campus. Many believe that plagiarism must be combated at all costs if McGill is to maintain its academic integrity. “Turnitin.com essentially does what is done by Google…but in a more organized fashion,” said Chemistry professor David Harpp. Further, Law professor David Lambetti believes that student fears about copyright and intellectual property rights violations are ungrounded. “What Turnitin.com is doing passes muster under Canadian law,” he asserted. “Catching plagiarism is a concern we all share…because otherwise degrees become useless.” The lawyers for iParadigms, Turnitin.com’s parent company, base their legal claim on the contractual relationship that exists between student and institution to justify the use of the services the company provides. Other Canadian postsecondary institutions with contracts with Turnitin.com include the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and the University of Victoria. We do not condone plagiarism. Contact us now at researchwritingservice@gmail.com to place your order for a custom written document.