Playing Poker CAN Promote Better Hearing...

So does Poker really promote better hearing? Well, it really depends on how you look at it. I have never really spent much time playing cards. Oh sure, I played penny poker in high school and a variety of card games over the years. I have also been accused of being a sports fanatic willing to watch anything that shows up on sports stations. In this vein I have watched a few poker tournaments over the years. I never really focused on the details of the game but found myself wishing I had. 

This last weekend I was privileged and proud to be invited to a charity event hosted by the Pros for Africa organization (http://prosforafrica.com) as well as the Starkey hearing foundation (http://www.starkeyhearingfoundation.org). The Pros for Africa organization consists primarily of NFL players that are involved in raising money and becoming involved on a first hand basis drilling wells improving living conditions as well as other humanitarian endeavors on the African continent.  The Starkey Hearing Foundation is one dear to my heart where the gift of hearing is delivered to children around the world by the tens of thousands each year by hearing professionals under the leadership of the Foundation. I have several close friends that regularly travel to distant parts of the world to fit hearing aids on children that may otherwise never hear.  These two charitable organizations decided to put together a charity poker event to bring better hearing to Africa.

The Raise your Hand for Africa charity poker tournament was held this last weekend at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas and as I said earlier I was privileged to be invited to be there and take part in this tournament. It was quite something to see the celebrities and athletes arrive to the throngs of fans behind the security ropes, while photographers snapped away from the press area. Being on the inside things were also chaotic with autograph seekers and photo opportunities. As I watched these athletes, these young men with a social conscience I could not help but be impressed to see that these were blessed and gifted individuals that still had a profound sense of social responsibility. 

I was especially drawn to watch Roy Williams, a hard-hitting free safety and six time NFL pro-bowler. What drew me to him was his natural ability to interact with people to make them feel welcome, to do the little things like sell raffle tickets, but most of all to hear him speak with passion for the cause he was there to support. To be authentic and genuine is something each of us should strive for in our interactions and this young man seemed to have it.

One of my good friends, knowing that this was obviously a famous athlete, came up to Roy Williams and jokingly pronounced “I don’t know who the @#$% you are but can I take my picture with you?" She quickly also added that she was off next week to Kenya on a Starkey foundation mission to fit hearing aids on children. It was at this point that Roy Williams, six time Pro-bowl safety turned to her as said,  “No but can I have my picture taken with you?" Wow, now that is the kind of thing that helps adjust your idea of what is important in life.

(This is the picture that was taken)

Playing poker for a good cause turned out to be a wonderful event. With a little advice from my poker playing friends and a whole lot of luck I was able to survive the cut from 50 tables and several hundred players down to the last 24 players. Beginners luck really does exist.

Events like this continue to remind me that each of us, whether we are football players or Audiologists have a responsibility to give back, especially to those who need it most. The real heroes in life are those that make sacrifices in their lives for others.

http://www.starkeyhearingfoundation.org/

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/10760-raise-your-hand-for-africa-charity-poker-event-takes-place-saturday-at-golden-nugget

http://icydk.com/2011/02/20/celebrities-gather-for-raise-your-hand-for-africa-charity-poker-tournament/

I sure wish I had ADD!

Have any of you heard this one? "Well, your child may be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and here are your medication based options." The implication can sometimes feel like a death sentence. Often the reaction of the parent is severe given the understanding that is prevalent regarding this variation in functionality. I call it a variation because we are all different, we each see the world through our own eyes, hear through or own ears. We can vary in how we approach problem solving, in how we integrate information, in how we learn. The issue is that while we may learn differently one from another, we are all taught the exact same way. We are taught to the middle so to speak. We are taught to the norm. So many brilliant children fall outside of this area. These can be the minds that think faster, that are far more visual and  kinesthetic when it comes to taking in information, these are children that can work at lightning speed, these are the Einsteins of the world the Davincis and  the Edisons. Those that harness this ability rise to the top they become corporate heads, owners of their own companies, emergency room Doctors, elite athletes. There is actually a fair amount of documentation showing these professions to be populated with a a statistaically significant concentration of those with "ADD".  

When you think of it, there is logic to this possibility. Anyone who has visited an Emergency Room can understand that an ER Doctor is functioning at a frenetic pace assessing, concluding making decisions and moving on to do it all over again. The Corporate head will be talking to you while mentally being decisive and moving on to the several other things that need their atention. The elite athlete is an interesting one, this is an individual capable of doing things that only a small percentage of the population can do. Who can process the speed and trajectory of a 90mph fastball while deciding whether it is a ball or a strike and then co-ordinate body movements to intercept the path of the ball with a bat? The Hockey goalie is notoriously ADD, just watch them when the puck is not in their end of the ice, they are in constant motion keeping that synaptic response primed for reflexive movement to the possibility of a puck flying at high speeds from varying angles even with changes in direction involved. The point is that these are special people capable of so much more than the "ordinary" human. How  then do we clasify this exceptionality as a disorder in children when it is more often the system of education that is unable to meet nor understand their learning style rather than them having an inability to learn.

Here is a story I love to tell because it is probably the most vivid reminder to me of how wrong we can be about someone. I had a little girl come to my office for a Central Auditory Processing assessment a number of years ago. This child was 9 years old at the time and could not read, not even a little bit. To make things more complex she was adopted, and at that time her parents new little to nothing of her birth history or of family genetics. As a nine year old, all kinds of possible diagnosis had been sugested by the "professionals", some suggested Autism spectrum disorder, others severe Attention Deficit, Dyslexia, the list went on and on. The school system was not meetig this childs needs and they did not know what to do with her. When I saw her, she was slated to be moved into a "life skills" class which in and of itself was to give up on this child. Finally after much discussion,  her mom blurted out to me, "but she is not dumb!"  

This emotional outburst led to further discussion and the revelation that this child could go grocery shopping and calculate the contents of the cart, with tax! I was blown away! How could this child possibly be labeled in such a way that she would be categorized as "mentally limited".  We talked a long time and decided on a course of action. The long and short was  that with this exceptionality in mind further appropriate assessment was done and indeed it was found that when it came to language bases learning she was severely remedial but when it came to logical mathematical thinking she was off the charts brilliant.  The problem had been that she couldn't read the math problems to do them. The school system did not know what to think, what box did she fit in? Simply put and in the terms that were obvious, was this child smart or dumb ? Well, of course, she was brilliant. This exceptionality demanded that this child needed one on one attention emphasizing her strengths while strengthening her weaknesses. Long term she became a brilliant math student winning provincial math competitions annually.   In high school, she was taking University math courses. This young lady was one of the brightest and the best but remained a lousy reader. 

I happen to have a wife blessed with ADD.   This woman is capable of organizing events and people  at a blurring pace. I can watch with amazement the chaotic come together with purpose. I am sometimes woken in the middle of the night to hear of the racing of her mind creating  undertakings that the "mere mortal" would never consider possible. I recognize that my slow functioning mind is limited while hers is like a very fast sports car zipping around.  How can this be a "disorder"?  

My thinking is that we are all different with varying capabilities and strengths. The categorization of disorder is a necessity precipitated by a system of learning that is incapable of appropriately accommodating for variance amongst us. There is nothing "wrong" with the ADD child in a pathologic sense but we have to categorize this way due to our inability to adapt to their style of function. We reference "the box," some being in the box learners and some out of the box learners and thinkers. More and more, I am wishing to be capable of out of the box thinking because there is were excellence lies, there is where people stand out in society, these are the leaders in industry, the in the box thinkers remain ordinary. So yes "I wish I had ADD"!

What's the Hurry?

I have been blogging for a bit now and thought it was time to tackle a subject that is pertinent to me as a parent as well as a professional. As an Audiologist I do a test called a Central Auditory Processing evaluation. This test is simply put a listening test rather than a hearing test. I tell the kids that we adults like to use big words to say simple things sometimes. Typically children are sent to me by pediatricians or teachers when they are concerned with staying on task, task initiation and  task completion. Often language based learning dificulties aslo are reported. We do the Central Auditory Evaluation (CAP) to either rule out this possibility or include it as an element of the difficulty that the child is encountering. While I could go on and speak about CAP I would actually like to speak to a consistency that I have seen on an everyday basis.

Out of the thousands of children I have seen over the years for this assesment the vast majority ( perhaps as much as 85%) of these children are born in the last quarter of the year. These are the children having a difficult time with staying on task, task initiation, task completion, and in general, language based learning. More specifically of this 85 % a majority of these children are boys. Should we be shocked? What do we expect in a province that change the kindergarten curriculum to include learning phonetics in Junior Kindergarten and expect early reading in senior Kindergarten. These children are starting school as three year olds and being expected to differentiate sounds phonetically. My Speech Pathologist friends have a lot to say about neuromaturation being insufficient at this point to make this expectation one that is reasonable for all. As a father of six boys I can definitely tell you that many a child is barely independent enough to be in school at three, some are barely potty trained, yet we expect them to learn phonetics and other basic skills that they are not ready for. What ever happened to Kindergarten being a time for social interaction and development , learning to share, learing the posturing that is required for the expectations of grade one.

As parents we are led to believe that the world is such a competitive place that our child needs every oportunity to step over  or on the competition to find the ability to stand out. We have learned to demand so much of our children and expect so much so early. The complication is that for those children that are not ready to integrate this learning, they simply miss it and are left with many blanks in the learning continuum. This point has been so obvious to me that when it came time for my child born in November to enroll for JK  I went to the principal and educated him as to why we were waiting till the next year to enoll our child in JK. Interestingly this was a point of discussion that was new to the principal. As might be expected those in the educational institutions take for granted that the curriculum development and age of entry requirements are well considered by those designing the educational process. In reality my wife and I were more concerned about social readiness as oposed to our childs ability to do the work required. We felt that from a confidence standpoint we would rather have our child feel like they were leading the pack rather than chasing it.

I can tell you that in this case our age of entry and understanding of neuromaturation is incongruous with the learning requirements of early education. It only makes sense that a child born in December for example is going to be at a very different stage of development than the child born in January. In junior Kindergarten this year of difference represents a significant percentage of the childs life. In the book "Freakanomics" an interesting anomaly was noted in terms that make this age predjudice understandable on a real practical level. The stat that I reference is one that found the NHL to be made up of players born primarily in the first few months of the year. Recently it was specified that 33% of all NHL players were born in the month of February. These stats point to the fact that maturationally these were kids that were bigger more co-ordinated and stood out in the tryout process as compared to those that were born later in the year. What it does not mean is that these were the more inherently talented kids. This parallels developmental readiness versus intellect.

The bottom line is that we as a society seem to be in such a hurry to get our children into school so that they can attain the educational goals set forth as they move towards excellence. Perhaps we need to slow down a little and not be in such a hurry to rush our children towards goals of success at the risk of frustrating them and destroying the self confidence of otherwise capable minds.