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Re: functional cognitive disabilities

for

From: Paul R. Bohman
Date: Nov 1, 2006 8:20AM

On 11/1/06, Owens, Parker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> I thought I might mention there are a couple of groups that don't fit
> neatly into your classifications: Youth,


By "youth" do you mean children who may not have the necessary neurological
development, life experiences, or background knowledge to understand the
context or content matter? Or are you referring to something else?

I wouldn't classify youth or childhood as a disability, even though there
are obvious developmental immaturities in children. What I'm trying to do is
describe in functional terms what those immaturities and deficiencies are,
rather than just point to a segment of the population that has them.

and folks trying to understand
> symbols and language when the language used is not their primary
> language. For instance, Japanese trying to understand symbols on an
> English page.


Cross-cultural communication is indeed an important issue. I wouldn't
classify it as a disability though. I don't feel disabled by my inability to
understand Japanese symbols or their cultural context. I simply feel
foreign. I know that this type of situation "simulates" cognitive
disabilities in some ways, and there are things we can learn from these
scenarios, but still they are not disabilities. I wonder if your example
might fit into my proposed categories of:
- "text and language processing" (if you are referring to the symbols used
in the alphabet), or
- "contextual awareness" (if you are referring to icons, graphics,
illustrations, or other similar symbols that are dependent upon relevant
background knowledge, including cultural context), or
- "abstraction, inference, and deduction logic" (if you are referring to the
ability to figure out what a symbol means, in the sense that a symbol can be
used as a metaphor or as an abstract non-representational replacement for a
concept)

I've got a pdf on readability, and a ppt on cognitive difficulties I'm
> working on if anyone is interested.


They sound relevant to the conversation, so I'd be interested in reading
what you have.


--
Paul R. Bohman
Administrative Faculty, College of Education & Human Development
Lead Architect of Web Services, Office of Technology Support
Technology Coordinator, Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities
George Mason University