OCD, Giftedness, and Rapid Effects of Cognitive Therapy

OCD affects 1 in 50 people and associated with high IQ. There are many famous people with OCD, including such diverse individuals as David Beckham, Nikolai Tesla, and Jeff Gomez, creator of the mythic series, Magic: The Gathering.

The current issue (May / June 2008) of 2e Newsletter spotlights issues and resources of interest to parents with a gifted child with OCD (unfortunately articles not free online). We especially liked their resource links like School Accommodations for Children with OCD.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is known to be particularly effective in children and adults with OCD, and a recent study at UCSD and UCLA showed that improvements in PET brain imaging can be seen in as little time as 4 weeks post daily desensitization therapy.



From Dr. Sanjaya Saxena: "First of all, we discovered significant changes in brain activity solely as the result of four weeks of intensive cognitive-behavioral therapy," said Saxena. "Secondly, these changes were different than those seen in past studies after a standard 12-week therapeutic approach using SRI medications or weekly behavioral therapy."

Saxena used exposure and response prevention which desensitizes patients to provoking factors: "It teaches patients to pay attention to their internal experiences and tolerate scary thoughts without having to act on them," said Saxena. "They learn that nothing terrible happens if they refrain from their usual compulsive behaviors."

Rapid brain effects of intensive therapy for obsessive compulsive disorder
Does your child have obsessive compulsive disorder?
Reference for PET image OCD

Memory for Facts and Events Takes Time to Develop

From the Gabrieli lab, declarative memory pathways require the prefrontal cortex, so no surprisingly, declarative memory pathways take time to fully mature. In this new report, fmri changes develop quite late, with even teens not fully developed as subjects in their 20's.

Interestingly though, medial temporal lobe systems (important for both episodic and declarative memory) were fairly mature by the age of 8.

Developmental studies such as this may be helpful in designing the most efficient ways of using children's memory systems (they may also be helpful in deciding reasonable expectations).

Immaturity of the PFC in children was felt to "limit the episodic specificity of memories such that memories are less likely to be subjectively vivid or objectively detailed."

These are very general conclusions, of course. There are many precocious children with prodigious memories for facts and events, and this may help us understand why these children need differentiation in their educational program. Differences in the right vs. left PFC maturation raises interesting questions about optimizing educational approaches for middle and high school students.



Developmental Changes in Declarative Memory pdf

What Works: Dyslexic CEO

Great little story from CNNmoney.com about how a dyslexic CEO was able to build a successful $36 million business despite struggling to read and write.

Highlights:

- Hired a writer, drew ideas for business plans
- Use crayon and pencil to convey with ideas, meet with top executives to explain ideas to their departments
- Phone or personal meetings instead of email
- First names and personality or doodle physical traits to remember
- Tape record notes, tape record phone calls
- Franklin Talking Dictionary


For some middle, high, college, and beyond dyslexics, having a system for improving the efficiency of communication or learning may be more important than remediation.

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Big Picture Thinking, CEO Orfalea...
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Why Dyslexics Make Great Entrepreneurs
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Complex Thinking Styles
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Math Software for Dyslexics in High School, College, Engineering