In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!

(title comes from Dr. Seuss of course)

While I was attending a journalism class during my Ph.D. years, we had these assignments in which we had to translate scientific research into articles for magazines. It was one of the only classes I actually wanted to take, although the choice is made much easier when you have to choose between journalism and 'ethical questions in your research'.

I had fun, although I doubt my teacher approved of the subjects of my writings. One of the most interesting subjects I chose to write about was a study on the relationship between a parasitic infection (Toxoplasmosis Gondii; TG) and schizophrenia*. To summarize, rats are prone to TG. When infected, they become these kamikaze-creatures with a craving for hugging cats. This is great news for TG, because they can only reproduce in the bowels of cats. To make a long story short, rat eat TG, cat eat rat, cat scratch man or man eats cat (depending on the country you live in), man becomes schizophrenic.You still with me?

Now this is all fine and dandy, but we want scientific proof, right? So enter Professor Jaroslav Flegr, who found significant behavioral changes in humans as a consequence of infection with TG. Apparently, women become polygamous with a craving to spend money, whereas an infection in men leads to an increase in aggressive, jealous behavior. Great combination, which would fit neatly in the kamikaze theory I think. How this would be connected to schizophrenia is not clear though.

More 'clear cut' evidence for a link is the finding that schizophrenic people more often hug with cats compared to non schizophrenic people (54 to 42 percent). Although you could argue that the fondness for cat-hugging resulted in schizophrenia for the cat-hugging people, I could easily counter that by claiming that schizophrenic people might feel a fondness for cats precisely because they can relate to the whimsical (schizophrenic) behavior of their pet-of-choice. It's the ancient question of chicken and egg, converted to cat-hugging and schizophrenia.

A final piece of evidence comes from Dr. Torrey, an American psychiatrist and great supporter of the TG-schizophrenia link. He treated infected rats with two types of medicine: medicine against TG, and anti-schizophrenic medicine. Both treatments seemed to cure the rats from their kamikaze-behavior, but the anti-schizophrenic medicine was more effective.


So although your next step might be to dump your cat, you might want to consider the fact that infection with TG is much more likely when eating rare meat.


To end in style with another quote from Dr. Seuss:
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
(And I am sure you did get the pun of Dr. Seuss? No? The Cat in the Hat? No? Well, then you are beyond my help)

*It maybe of interest to mention that a similar relationship has been claimed between TG and autism.

It's my way or the highway

Kwint:"Grrrrr."
Me: "O really, is that so?"
Kwint: "Dadadadaa."
Me: "Well whaddaya know"
Kwint: "Tata. Bwww."
Just a sample of the conversations I have with my youngest (11 months). But I suspect he's hiding the truth from me: that he can actually say real words. I know it, because of these little amused smiles he gives me when I try to coax the word mama out of him. "Mama! Say ma-ma! You can do it, ma-ma!" But instead, he winks, curls his nose and proudly pronounces me 'Bwwwww'. And when you think you've heard it all, then let me tell you what he does next. He turns his head ever so slightly, clacks his tongue and looks me in the eye expectantly. And what else can I do but clack back?

Although I can't keep up with Lucas' developing language, here are some samples:

"kijk mama, een doggie!"
"I love youuu"
"Dat is mine he?"
"Who's dit?"
"Ik wil jou een hug geven"
"Everybody SIT DOWN." (Now where would that come from?)

And of course, all the words from 'Happy birthday to you'. Although, really, there aren't that many different words in that song.

When we're on the subject of stubborn minds, I might as well talk about a conversation I had with Lucas, aka mister Negotiator. He still has these afternoon naps (of three hours!), and I recently started waking him before the three hours are up. But the little man does not like that. So following a careful wake-up procedure involving hugs, kisses, tickles and whatnot, I have to lure him out of bed.
"Maybe you want to watch a little television?"
Lucas: "Welllllll, no, I don't think so."
"Hmmm." Feverishly looking for alternative bait... "Some crackers?"
Lucas: "Wellllll, no. I don't think so." (a moment of silence). "But I want some cookies."

Mirror mirror...

At only two years of age (ok, technically he turns three in about two weeks), my son is like the enchanted mirror from Snow White. Unfortunately, he doesn't say what you want to hear, but uses your own words against you. Thus, today while he used a reflex hammer to hit his father on the head, he triumphantly stated: "Doesn't hurt!" I wonder what hurt his father more: the reflex hammer or his own words being thrown into his face? Of course my son was a doctor and was in the process of healing daddy. And the fact that that required the use of force was a necessary evil.  But my guess is that the words hurt more. Because my son is an absolute master in using your own words against you, which turns out to be lethal in combination with his ability to sense it when you're lying. But no worries, the lethal moments are nothing compared to the hilarious scenarios it also produces. For instance, just a second ago, he saw me writing on his dad's laptop. His first question was aimed to get his facts checked: "Is dat papa's joeter?" (Is that dad' s computer?") After confirming his suspicions, he swiftly knocked me out with the following statement: "MAG jij op papa's joeter?" (Are you allowed to go on dad's computer?) with emphasis on the word 'mag'. Because he is perfectly aware that he is not allowed to go on dad's computer. Ergo, nobody is allowed to do that. So, apparently, it's not only looking at your mirror image when you see your child. It's like listening to your mirror image as well. Sounds schizophrenic, doesn't it?

Gotta go now...my mirror image is calling me.

Parenting, problems and plumbers

You might think I have all the answers concerning parenting issues, me being a child psychologist (orthopedagoog) and all. At least that's what I hear sometimes. Well... you thought wrong. I wrestle with parenting issues just as much as my plumber does. I think. I'm actually not sure if I have a plumber. And should I have one, I don't know if he has children. But let's say I do and he does, for the sake of argument.
Although my education may have provided me with the theoretical answers to every parenting question in the book -and I sincerely doubt that-, putting the theory to practice is something else altogether. You could argue I got to turn theory into practice during my internship. But they never gave me my kids while I was an intern. It's easy to know what you are supposed to do when it isn't your own child you're talking about. Sleep issues with your baby? Page 25. Eating problems? Page, 30, 56, 89, 110 (a returning issue). Potty training for toddlers? Page 112. Terrible two's? Page 304-506 (a long, long chapter). But there isn't anything in the book about the sleep issues of my little one, potty training my toddler, not to mention the rules and regulations of managing my son's terrible two's. My children don't live by the book, they write the book. With colorful crayons.

Isn't it strange that people tend to think that you're such a great parent based on the notion that you are a child psychologist? You never hear people mention the same thing to surgeons, right? "Oh, isn't that handy being a surgeon. That way, when your child brakes his knee jumping from the swing, you can always operate on him". No, cause they are not allowed to operate on members of their own family, on account of their emotions interfering with their skills. But they don't say anything like that when you get your child psychology degree. So, I would argue that parenting is actually more difficult for me than for my hypothetical plumber. Firstly, he's not bothered by all the theoretical baggage and just tinkers about. Secondly, even if he wouldn't know how to raise his children, he can always rely on his plumbing skills being useful around the house. And last...he doesn't have my children. But I love my children, all their problems and issues included. Because at the end of the day I always get that overwhelming feeling of love when they lie in bed, snuggle up to me and say "mommy, I love you". That or "I did a little fart". Either way, my heart melts.

*disclaimer:
My children are actually not that difficult. They eat reasonably well, they sleep a lot, tantrums consists of mild screaming fits with an occasional foot pounding and potty training was a one-week struggle although we're still working on number 2. That doesn't mean it's easy peasy though.
**disclaimer:

It has to be mentioned that my area of expertise is not in parenting issues, but developmental disorders. So, the point is moot.

A day in L.A.

As I might have mentioned before, I have been planning a trip to L.A. in order to attend a workshop on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). And I have been there! And came back! The summary of my trip? I met a lot of interesting people, I learned a lot, I saw a lot, and waited even more.

For those of you more interested in a more in-depth analysis here it comes:

Interesting people:

There were people from all around, including Japan. This turned out to be very unfortunate since the news of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit us on the second day of the workshop. Although definitely not comparable to the disaster in Japan, the coastal area of California (where we live) also got a warning sign because of the tsunami. But fortunately the effect of the tsunami was negligible in the Bay area.

At the workshop, I've talked to several people, all of whom had interesting stories. Of course most people were working in the field of autism, so it was not difficult to find some common ground. In addition I sorta 'met' two children, who were part of the live demonstration of the ADOS. Isn't it amazing that the kids got up on stage in order to be assessed with the ADOS in front of a hundred people? Even more so when you think that there were quite a few people in the audience who declined the opportunity to talk into the microphone.  Really! I'm not kidding. They were afraid to talk into the microphone to discuss their ideas and passed it to someone next to them who did not show microphonebia.

Things I've learned:

I am now familiar with the ADOS. It has to be said that it is an amazing instrument with a lot of potential. But it is also very difficult to score it in a reliable fashion. The ADOS consists of semi-structured tasks that try to provoke a certain type of social or communicative behavior in a semi-natural way. Although it has specific tasks, you don't actually score the actual performance on these tasks, but score the overall behavior you saw during the session. This has many advantages, but it means it's also difficult to asses whether some type of behavior was good enough to give full credit. Since the main difficulty of the instrument lies in its scoring, most of the workshop was dedicated to discussion on the scoring of the live demonstrations. As stated, we had to discuss our findings within the group. Yes, with the microphone. In addition to my new DSM classification of microphonebia, I also found out that people see very different things even when they are looking at the same thing. It wasn't just differences in opinion concerning the label of 'slightly unusual behavior' and 'normal behavior', scoring went from 'normal behavior' to 'downright off-the-wall behavior'. Especially when we got to talking about stereotyped behavior and specific interests, people differed in their observations and interpretations. The interesting thing was, once somebody saw one particular behavior that was considered to be stereotyped, other people joined with other examples and so the list got longer and longer. So the main thing I've learned concerning the ADOS, it requires a lot of practice. Not to administer it, but to score it.

Another important thing I've learned: remember your room number when you stay in a hotel.

Things I saw:

(not uncommon) psychologists playing a game on their iPhone or Smart phone during the workshop. Makes you wonder whether they do the same during a psychological assessment or interview with parents...

L.A. by night on a tour bus. This was a lot of fun, especially since some other people from the workshop also got on the same tour. We've seen it all. Well, ok, technically we mainly saw Hollywood. But that was amazing. Film sets, Universal City, the Chinese theatre (with the hand prints), the place where the Oscars are being held, the walk of fame (with the stars), you name it. Oh and we've seen 'tha ghetto' although that was not in the original itinerary. During our ride back to the hotel, we found ourselves in the midst of a huge traffic accident and we had to find an exit. This exit consisted of our tour bus going from the far left lane to the outer right lane in the midst of all the confusion (yes we had close calls), and exiting straight into the ghetto. Not that we saw scary things or anything.

Things I waited for:

Not for the food. Boy, they serve things quickly around here. But I did wait for airplanes, checks, lectures, breaks, toilet visits (there were about a hundred people visiting a social oriented workshop, you guess which line was longest, the boy's or the girl's...).

Featuring Lucas' talk. He's getting the hang of this English thing, and the translation of it:

Dad (to Kwint): "Nee, dat mag niet."

Lucas: "nee is no he? NO!"

Lucas: "Flyyyyyyy!"

Lucas: "wiels of de bus go wound en wound... up en down"

Lucas: "Mama, kijk! Mommy, look!"

Lucas (hoort een slaapmuziekje op de radio): "Sleep, sleep!"

Mama: "Kijk Lucas, dat zijn twee auto's. Two cars."

Lucas: "Dat is een twocar he?"

And funny Dutch things:

Lucas: "Mama, waar is de radido?"

Lucas: "Ik wil graag naar papa toe."

No biggie

This week's theme of 'no biggie' is brought to you by childhood diseases, cars, flying over to L.A. and tummies. Maybe I should explain myself.
1. Childhood diseases.
After almost three years without any serious childhood diseases, we've finally been struck by one. We found out that Lucas has a certain type of whooping cough. Since the likelihood of us all getting infected was big (and we are in fact ill, just don't know whether this is whooping cough), it was advised that we should all take antibiotics. So we're officially all on antibiotics. By the way, I love this 24-hour economy thing they've got going on. I actually called the advice nurse on Thursday evening (11 pm), who was nice enough to give us advice (probably in her job description, hence the name advice nurse). She also set us up with an appointment for the next morning. I could pick up the meds for Lucas straight after the appointment. Then I actually got a call from the doctor herself on SUNDAY with the results of the lab test and was able to pick up the meds for Kwint and ourselves on Sunday as well. No biggie.
2. Cars.
How come I always find myself in between cars like the one in the picture? And it's not that our car is tiny, it's just that those other cars are huge. No biggie.
3. Flying over to L.A.
Tomorrow I will just happen to catch a flight to L.A. for a couple of days for my ADOS workshop. Pop in and out of the airplane, pop in and out of the Hilton hotel I'll stay in. No biggie.
4. Tummies.
Lucas is having some trouble with his tummy. He is kind of potty trained, but does not want to do a number 2 on the toilet or in his diaper for that matter. He's keeping it all in, which results in huge bellies until he can no longer hold it. Poor little dude. We now started on prunes, since that helped him when he was still a baby. No biggie.

Featuring Lucas' developing English:
"Mommy's coming" (Yes, we're on to sentences now)

Featuring humoristic language by Lucas:
"Wat is dat nou voor onzin?" (This was said when Lucas was reading a book about a little man called onzin. Lucas is currently in a habit to ask 'wat is dat nou voor...' when he sees or hears anything. I guess it's something to do with the why phase, although he doesn't quite grasp the concept of why yet.)