Unintended Consequences: Autism, ADHD and Early Diagnosis

June 21, 2014—Raising happy, healthy, secure, responsible children is a formidable task at the best of times. To add to the challenge, parents today increasingly face the possibility that their offspring will be diagnosed—or misdiagnosed—with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder or autism spectrum disorder. A positive diagnosis is often traumatic and life-changing for the entire family; but the results of a misdiagnosis are no less devastating. Enrico Gnaulati explains in this interview with Gina Stepp
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TLC for Education: Tribal Learning in the Classroom

 

An Interview with Louis Cozolino

June 12, 2013—In a recent interview with psychologist and neuropsychotherapist Louis Cozolino, Gina Stepp explores the concepts behind his 2013 book, The Social Neuroscience of Education. The human brain is a social organ, Cozolino points out. Its natural habitat for growing is in the context of secure attachment bonds and nurturing relationships.

How can we apply this understanding to reimagining the educational system? The approach Cozolino offers isn't a quick or easy fix, but it is fairly simple in principle: create classroom situations that come as close as possible to the early tribal social environments in which the human brain first learned to learn.
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In-Laws: A Gift or a Curse?

Ruth Nemzoff is resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. Formerly the assistant minority leader of the New Hampshire Legislature and the first female deputy commissioner of health and welfare in that state, Nemzoff has also served on a variety of boards and commissions including United Way, the New Hampshire governor’s Commission on the Status of Women and Commission for the Handicapped, and Boston’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services. In their second interview since 2008, Gina Stepp spoke with her about her latest book, Don’t Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws Into Family (September 2012).
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Beyond the Nuclear Family

Bella DePaulo is a visiting professor at the University of California–Santa Barbara. As a social scientist, she has focused on friendship and single life as well as on interpersonal deception. Among her published books are three related to the role of singles in society, including Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After.

Robert M. Milardo is a professor of family relations at the University of Maine, whose research focus includes family relationships, marital relationships, kinship, friendship, and aunts and uncles. The latter is the topic of his latest book, The Forgotten Kin: Aunts and Uncles.

In a recent interview with Gina Stepp, these two experts came together for a discussion about “collateral” kin and the important contributions they make to healthy families and strong communities.
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Communicating With Style

Deborah Tannen holds the esteemed rank of University Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. A respected linguistics scholar who has written extensively within the scholarly community, she is also author of six books for popular audiences, two of which have been on the New York Times best-seller list—You Just Don’t Understand for nearly four years, and her most recent, You’re Wearing That? for 10 weeks. Tannen earned a doctorate at the University of California–Berkeley in 1979 and has received five honorary doctorates. Her research, including meticulous analysis of actual conversations, has led to significant contributions to linguistics theory, especially in the area of conversational strategy and style.

Gina Stepp talked with Tannen about some common misperceptions that can get in the way of effective communication. (Full story . . . )

Parent Talk

Ruth Nemzoff, a mother of four and grandmother of six, is a researcher and resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. Her primary field of interest is interpersonal communication, with her most recent book addressing the role of communication in the relationship between parents and their grown children.

At the heart of Nemzoff’s research and writing is the fact that we are all flawed human beings, and that the task of building relationships requires forgiving each other for our humanness—that is, our flaws. To do this, we in turn need to forgive our own parents.

In this interview with Gina Stepp, she discusses some of the themes of her book. (Full story . . . )

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