As everyone knows, true creativity comes from simple formulas and the memorization of data. This chapter focuses on divergent thinking tests, which are still the most common way that creativity is measured. Guilford derived the core ideas behind divergent thinking as well as many popular measures. The people who score the Torrance Tests are specifically trained to distinguish responses that are truly original from those that are just bizarre. There are other tests that measure creativity, but most are either a variation on divergent thinking or use some type of raters. For example, the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPOC) has begun to be used in some studies and may be promising, but is still largely rooted in a mix of divergent thinking scoring and raters. Another test is the Finke Creative Invention Task, which is clever but also requires raters for scoring.

The Big Five, which this chapter discusses in more detail, are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Each of these five factors represents a continuum of behavior, traits, and inclinations. There are some popular personality measures that use different theories, such as Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire, which looks at extraversion and neuroticism as well as psychoticism. The personality factor most associated with creativity is openness to experience. Indeed, one way that researchers study creativity is by giving creative personality tests. Being open to new experiences may also help creative people be more productive. King found that people who were creative and high on openness to experience were more likely to report creative accomplishments. DeYoung and S. B. Kaufman, of course, are not the only people to blend or split different factors of personality to present new models. Fürst, Ghisletta, and Lubart suggest three factors: plasticity, divergence, and convergence.

This chapter explores three ’classic’ studies of creativity and mental illness. The first is Jamison whose focus is on the connection between bipolar disorder and creativity. The second is Andreasen, who used structured interviews to analyze 30 creative writers, 30 matched controls, and first-degree relatives of each group. The writers had a higher rate of mental illness, with a particular tendency toward bipolar and other affective disorders. The third major work is Ludwig, who utilized the historiometric technique. All three studies have come under serious criticism. Many of the studies of Big-C creators are historiometric, akin to Ludwig’s work. Some such studies claim that eminent creators show higher rates of mental illness. A much more common approach is to look at everyday people and give them measures of creativity and mental health. Typically, researchers look at what are called subclinical disorders—in other words, they’re not clinically significant.

One school admissions area that already uses creativity is gifted admissions—which students are chosen to enter gifted classes, programs, or after-school activities. Both education and business play great lip service to creativity. Puccio and Cabra review the literature on creativity and organizations and do a nice job of highlighting how every couple of years, a new report from industry emphasizes the importance of creativity. It is important to note that there is a large inconsistency between gender differences on creativity tests and actual creative accomplishment. Although gender differences on creativity tests are minor or nonexistent, differences in real-world creative accomplishment are large and significant. This chapter shows how creativity can play a role in admissions and hiring. Hiring measures tend to have better validity, even the general mental ability (GMA) measures; even if minorities score lower, the accuracy of prediction is consistent by ethnicity.

Creative people are also often seen as being outsiders and eccentric. Sen and Sharma’s examination of creativity beliefs in India tested beliefs about the Four P’s and found that creativity was more likely to be described as a holistic essence of an individual, and less likely to be focused on the product or process. Romo and Alfonso studied Spanish painters and found that one of the implicit theories that the painters held about creativity involved the role of psychological disorders. Plucker and Dana found that past histories of alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco usage were not correlated with creative achievements; familial drug and alcohol use also was not significantly associated with creative accomplishments or creative personality attributes. Humphrey, McKay, Primi, and Kaufman did find that illegal drug use predicted self-reported creative behaviors even when openness to experience was controlled.

One of the best known psychologists of the 20th century was Jean Piaget. The memory he described was from when he was about 2 years old, a kidnapping attempt in which his nurse tried to protect him. According to the storehouse metaphor, memory is kind of a warehouse. When one remembers an event from one’s life, one looks through this warehouse. Remembering a past event is also a kind of simulation, a simulation of what happened in the past, rather than a veridical reproduction of the past. In fact, our best understanding is that brains are massively parallel simulation devices. Constructive theories deal with filling in gaps at encoding as the event transpires, whereas reconstructive theories deal with filling in gaps at retrieval as one tries to remember the event. When thinking about memory illusions it is important to make a similar distinction.

This chapter focuses on an area that has been at the center of the debate between the approaches: processing ambiguous words and sentences. Interestingly, an important factor for ambiguity resolution appears to be the frequency of the different meanings of the ambiguous words. Subordinate- bias effect is as follows: in a neutral, nonbiasing context, words that are balanced cause longer reading times than words that are either unbalanced or unambiguous. Different languages impose different rules about how grammatical categories may be combined. In the garden path model, sentence processing happens in two stages: an initial structure building stage in which the only information that is used is syntactic, and then a second stage in which the structure is checked against semantic and pragmatic information. Constraint-based models take a very different approach to how sentences are initially parsed and how mistakes are sometimes made.

This chapter shows the importance, for older persons, of support groups. In spite of the changes that have occurred in the American family, and all the negative things that fill the popular press concerning family relationships, the family is still the backbone of support for most older people. To some extent, the type of family support older people obtain depends on whether they are living in the community or in an institutional setting such as a group home, retirement village, or nursing facility. Whether a person is married, has great impact on that person’s support within a family setting including emotional, financial, and physical support, particularly in times of illness or infirmity. The success of a second marriage depends to a considerable extent on the reaction of the adult children of the elderly couple. Older grandparents, no matter how motivated, can find caring for grandchildren to be very tiring.

Delirium, also known as acute confusional state, organic brain syndrome, brain failure, and encephalopathy, is a common occurrence among medical and surgical patients and causes extensive morbidity and mortality. This chapter provides an updated review of delirium, including pathophysiological correlates, clinical features, diagnostic considerations, and contemporary treatment options. The defining features of delirium include an acute change in mental status characterized by altered consciousness, cognition, and fluctuations. The chapter explores the risk factors for delirium. These can be divided into two categories: predisposing factors and precipitating factors. Imbalances in the synthesis, release, and degradation in gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, acetylcholine, and the monoamines have also been hypothesized to have roles in delirium. GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS) and medications such as benzodiazepines and propofol have known actions at GABA receptors and have been associated with delirium.

This chapter shows how the United States and the world are experiencing an aging evolution we are growing older. America is going through a revolution. As a whole, Americans are becoming older, and there are many more older people among people than ever before in our history. Obviously all cohorts of the population youth, young adults, middle-aged, young-old, oldest-old are heterogeneous. When some people think about the elderly as a whole, they picture frail, weak, dependent persons, some in nursing homes and many confined to their homes. The chapter demonstrates the differences the various age categories have in relation to selected chronic health conditions that cause limitations of activity. Widowhood is much more common for elderly American women than for older men. The aging of Baby Boomers will solidify the shift America is experiencing with the aging of its population. Centenarians make up a small percentage of the total U.S. population.

The researchers were specifically interested in whether they would get more incorrect responses depending on the type of sentence. From a certain perspective, passive sentences are more complicated than active sentences and so perhaps it is the case that passives are more difficult simply because they are more complicated. It appears that the important difference between subject cleft and actives on one hand, and passives on the other, is that the order of the roles is reversed between them: in active sentences, the agent comes first. Indeed, there is a growing body of evidence that languages allow English speakers to structure their utterances in a way that can flag certain parts of the sentence as particularly important or worthy of special attention. Recently, psycholinguists have been interested, too, in how information structure influences language processing.

The study of the properties of language can be divided up into roughly five, somewhat overlapping categories: sound system, word structure, sentence structure, meaning, and real-world use. In spoken languages, segments are sounds—each language has a set of sounds that are produced by changing the positions of various parts of the vocal tract. The sound system of language is actually studied in two main parts: phonetics, phonology. Phonemes can be combined to make words, and words themselves have an internal structure and can even be ambiguous based on this structure. Syntax is the study of how sentences are formed. There are two noun phrases (NPs) in the sentence—the artist and a paintbrush. The field of semantics is concerned with meaning in language and can be divided into two major parts: lexical and propositional.

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is the term applied to a clinical syndrome characterized by insidious progressive language impairment that is initially unaccompanied by other cognitive deficits. This chapter describes several variants of PPA and more than one etiology. It explains three main variants of PPA, namely, semantic Variant of PPA (svPPA), nonfluent/agrammatic variant of PPA (nfvPPA) and logopenic variant of PPA (lvPPA), and also describes criteria for their diagnoses. The defining symptom of PPA is the presence of a language impairment for at least 2 years in the absence of any other significant cognitive problem. Assessment of other cognitive domains is challenging because many tests of memory, attention, executive functioning, and visual-spatial skills rely on language processes in some manner. There are no drug therapies proven to arrest progression of signs and symptoms of PPA due to frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTLD) or Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathologies.

The idea of the mad genius persisted all the way to modern times and was even promulgated in scientific circles. Not only was genius mad, but it was associated with criminality and genetic degeneration. The empirical research relevant to the mad-genius issue uses three major methods: the historiometric, the psychometric and the psychiatric. The historical record is replete with putative exemplars of mad genius. The mental illness adopts a more subtle but still pernicious guise-alcoholism. In fact, it sometimes appears that alcoholism is one of the necessities of literary genius. Psychopathology can be found in other forms of genius besides creative genius. Of the available pathologies, depression seems to be the most frequent, along with its correlates of suicide and alcoholism or drug abuse. Family lineages that have higher than average rates of psychopathology will also feature higher than average rates of genius.

This chapter talks about questions related to how speakers and hearers influence each other. It looks at research on dialogue, and especially how a dialogue context influences speakers. Speakers have an impact on their listeners. The goal of a dialogue is successful communication and so it would make sense that a speaker would pay careful attention to the needs of a listener and do things like avoid ambiguity and package information in a way that flags particular information as important or new to the listener. Ambiguity may be avoided depending on the speaker’s choice of words and so a natural question is whether, and when, speakers appear to avoid ambiguous language. In terms of pronunciation, speakers reduce articulation and intelligibility over the course of a dialogue. There are some constraints and preferences on how to interpret pronouns and other coreferring expressions that appear to be structural or syntactic in nature.

Dementia is an umbrella term for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), vascular dementia (VaD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Under that umbrella, FTD, also known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), can be further categorized to define a group of neurodegenerative disorders resulting from a progressive deterioration of the cells in the anterior temporal and/or frontal lobes of the brain. More specifically, ventromedial-frontopolar cortex is identified with metabolic impairment in FTD. This chapter elaborates on the history, epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical features, treatment, and outcomes of FTD. The history and background section of each of the FTD categories highlights the evolution of the disease conceptualization. The FTD subtypes are conceptualized in three categories: neurobehavioral variant, motor variant, and language variant. The chapter illustrates the features of all three categories of FTD.

The concept of Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) makes a lot of sense in that individuals are typically not “normal” one day and “demented” the next. In theory, especially for progressive neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the development of dementia may take months or years. The clinical syndrome of MCI due to AD can be identified via a neuropsychological evaluation or less-sensitive cognitive screening measures. Much of what we are learning about MCI, and therefore refining its diagnostic criteria, is coming from two large-scale studies of cognition and aging: Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) and Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL). According to the most recent research diagnostic criteria for MCI due to AD, evidence of beta-amyloid deposition, neuronal injury, and/or other biochemical changes needs to be seen to increase confidence of the etiology of MCI. Cholinesterase inhibitors remain the primary pharmacological treatment for AD.

This chapter suggests that the dysexecutive syndrome associated with vascular dementia (VaD) is caused by impairment in separate but related cognitive concepts; that is, pathological inertia, mental bradyphrenia, disengagement, and temporal reordering. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, cerebrovascular dementia was a well-established clinical syndrome. Multi-infarct dementia (MID) generally became associated with all types of vascular syndromes. Recent research suggests the presence of considerable overlap between the neuropathology underlying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and VaD. Patients diagnosed with VaD tend to produce hyperkinetic/interminable perseverations, suggesting an inability to appropriately terminate a motor response. Other aspects of the dysexecutive syndrome associated with VaD revolve around constructs related to interference inhibition, flexibility of response selection, and sustained attention. From the view point of diagnosis, the neuropathology of VaD often differentially impacts the frontal lobes, whereas the neuropathology associated with AD revolves more around circumscribed temporal lobe involvement.

Dementia pugilistica (DP) is a form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that involves gross impairment of cognitive and motor functioning due to repetitive blows to the head from boxing. Rapidly increasing in popularity among fight fans and fighters is mixed martial arts (MMA). In the area of sport-related concussion, there are two other frequently used terms that are necessary to distinguish from DP and CTE: postconcussion syndrome (PCS) and second impact syndrome (SIS). The classical clinical signs and symptoms of DP include combinations of dysarthria, incoordination, gait disturbance, pyramidal and extrapyramidal dysfunction, and cognitive impairment. Some media reports about concussion and the potential link between repetitive concussions and long-term problems include eye-catching and emotionally provocative titles. This chapter has provided an overview of the many complex issues surrounding the effects of repeat concussive trauma, particularly in sports.

This chapter differentiates intelligence and related constructs such as creativity and intellectual giftedness, which helps people to better understand each construct. Sternberg proposed a way to classify the various approaches to studying the intelligence-creativity relationship. Guilford’s Structure of the Intellect (SOI) model is probably the most explicit, with divergent thinking specifically identified as one of his five cognitive operations. The relationship between intelligence and giftedness has also received substantial attention. Every gifted education program has a formal assessment procedure to identify potential participants, and creativity assessments are often included in the battery of measures in these identification systems. The Marland Definition suggests that giftedness and talent are manifest in six areas: general intellectual ability, specific academic aptitude, creative or productive thinking, leadership ability, visual and performing arts, and psychomotor ability. It has been extremely influential and is still used by many school districts in their identification of talented students.

This chapter shows an overview of the techniques that are used to measure language processing. It shows at the things psycholinguists do when designing experiments in order to ensure that their results are valid. Online measures include any measure considered to give information about language processing as it happens. The prototypical off-line measure is the questionnaire—literally asking people for their judgments about what they’ve just encountered. In fact, all kinds of data can be collected from questionnaire studies. The button press task is perhaps the most versatile of all the things that people can do to collect data involving response times. The conscious responses discussed about here are vocal response. Like eye-tracking, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) help to understand the technique if people know a bit about the response measured—in this case, the brain. In many ways, functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) can be considered the complement to ERPs.

So here the authors are, caught between two worldviews. In one camp, they have educators and academics, attempting to overthrow the “old guard”—those of them who define giftedness through the narrow lens of IQ tests. They are hoping to establish a raison d’etre for gifted education—a field with a wobbly foundation. In the other camp, the authors have parents and the psychologists who specialize in working with the gifted, railing against the externalizing of giftedness. They want the inner world of the gifted to be recognized and appreciated. Controversy has dogged the study of giftedness since its inception, and is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. Multiple views will somehow have to learn to coexist. The psychology of giftedness is a fledgling. An impressive number of people think they know more about the gifted than one does and they are delighted to share their opinions.

The Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) form a group of illnesses, characterized by a pathological form of the native prion protein, which results in a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative illness. They also are responsible for Gerstmann-Strâussler-Scheinker (GSS) syndrome and fatal familial insomnia (FFI), and they have been produced experimentally in several other animals. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is the most common TSE in humans. Human prion diseases have three etiologies: (a) sporadic, (b) genetic, and (c) acquired. Human prion diseases are important to understand because of their underlying pathophysiology, public health implications, and clinical features that often result in misdiagnosis. This chapter reviews the historical discovery of prion diseases and the formulation of the prion hypothesis. It explores prion hypothesis and the neuropathogenesis of prion diseases. The chapter ends with a description of the diagnosis, prognosis, and experimental treatment of human prion diseases.

Psycholinguist is someone who studies phenomena in the intersection of linguistics and psychology. The whole endeavor of psycholinguistics often finds a home in the broader research field of cognitive science—an interdisciplinary field that addresses the difficult question of how animals, people, and even computers think. The centrality of language in the daily lives means that any disruption to the ability to use it may be keenly felt—the worse the disruption, the more devastating the impact. From the beginning of psychology, there has been an interest in language. In psychology, behaviorism was a movement in which the study of mental states was more or less rejected, and the idea that one could account for human behavior in terms of mental states or representation was discounted. This book covers a number of topics that are very much relevant in current psycholinguistics, including child language acquisition, sign language, language perception, and grammatical structure.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a clinical syndrome characterized by progressive dementia, cognitive fluctuations, visual hallucinations (VH), and parkinsonism. In 1961, Okazaki, Lipkin, and Aronson reported two patients with dementia and parkinsonism with cortical neuronal inclusions similar to the brain-stem Lewy bodies (LB) seen in Parkinson’s disease (PD). LBs are intra-cytoplasmic neuronal inclusions containing α-synuclein and ubiquitin. There are other associated pathological features in DLB such as spongiform change neuronal loss, and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology includes amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). DLB and other entities such as PD and multiple system atrophy (MSA) have been grouped under the term synucleinopathies due to the existence of &#945-synuclein inclusions in the brain. The central feature required for a diagnosis of DLB is the presence of dementia: a progressive cognitive decline of sufficient magnitude to interfere with normal social or occupational function.

To truly understand how important and central memory is to us, it is important to understand what life is like for people who experience memory loss, or amnesia. This chapter examines the amnestic syndrome, which has been widely studied and the knowledge of which has significantly influenced theories of memory. The abilities and nonabilities of those with amnestic syndrome demonstrate that there are multiple independent systems of memory. The chapter also examines two controversial diagnoses, the main feature of which is memory loss dissociative identity disorder (DID) and psychogenic or dissociative amnesia. It discusses a form of memory loss that does not fit the technical definition of amnesia because it eventually affects not just memory but all cognition: Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is common among older adults and demonstrates how a worsening loss of memory and cognition can lead to a complete disruption of everyday life.

This chapter describes an overview of the procedures that a neuropsychologist may apply to a range of similar referrals in the area of civil capacities. It explores the presentation of a framework developed by the American Bar Association/American Psychological Association (ABA/APA) working group on capacity issues and provides more specific guidance regarding assessment tools. Decision making is a complex cognitive process that involves multiple brain regions and brain systems. Injuries to the prefrontal cortex are common in dementia and are often linked to changes in decision-making abilities. Key differences between clinical assessments and those for capacity evaluations include knowledge of relevant legal and ethical issues, a functional assessment, and an ability to present neuropsychological data to lay readers. Research on medical consent capacity and financial capacity highlight the importance of the assessment of calculation, executive function, and verbal memory as part of any test battery.

In our success-oriented culture, optimal development of giftedness often is construed as fulfilling one’s potential for greatness. In humanistic psychology, optimal development has been conceptualized differently. Self-realization can be understood in terms of Maslow’s self-actualization, Dabrowski’s secondary integration, Jung’s individuation, or other theoretical perspectives of human development. The goals of inner development involve deepening the personality, overcoming conflicts, and actualizing one’s potential for becoming one’s best self. Many parents of the gifted complain that their children are the ones exerting the pressure. Their speed of learning and quest for knowledge often exceed their parents’ comfort level. The purpose of parent guidance is to foster “optimal development” through early intervention and prevention of social and emotional problems. Assessment can act as a prelude to family therapy. Family therapy usually involves a commitment to several successive sessions to deal with family interactions.

Chronic alcohol use has been related to various linked disorders when used in excess, particularly when this excessive use becomes chronic. It is important for clinicians to clarify the amount and type of alcohol being consumed and the frequency of this consumption when considering its potential role in any neuropsychological profile. The most commonly reported terms found in the literature include alcohol-induced persisting dementia (APA), alcohol-related dementia, and Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS). This chapter provides some synthesis of this literature to offer some clarity on cognitive dysfunction as it relates to alcohol and the manifestation of dementia as a result of chronic use, including discussion of the classic KS and related presentations. Alcohol dependency is commonly associated with a number of neurological impairments including deficits in abstract problem solving, visuospatial and verbal learning, memory function, perceptual-motor skills, and even motor function.

Intelligence is a hypothesized quality whose ontology, etiology, and scale must be inferred through indirect means. Personal definitions of intelligence are not the same as constructs of intelligence. Psychological constructs are highly technical, painstakingly crafted, and subjected to rigorous theoretical examination and empirical testing. Intellectual abilities are organized at a general level into two general intelligences, viz., fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Intelligence is the sum total of all cognitive processes. It entails planning, coding of information and attention, as well as arousal. Given his personal history and society’s attitudes toward heredity, that Galton concluded that the development of genius, must be understood in terms of hereditary processes. The chapter concludes with two tables presenting definitions of intelligence provided by several prominent historical and living intelligence theorists. They convince readers that human intelligence is a fascinating and complex subject, and to provide a foreshadowing of many of the essential issues.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the third leading cause of dementia in large pathological series but tends to have an earlier age of onset than Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Lewy body dementia, the most frequent and second most frequent forms of dementia. Semantic dementia (SD) includes impairment in the understanding of the meanings of words and difficulty in identifying objects. Semantic primary progressive aphasia, also known as SD, includes difficulties with naming and single-word comprehension although grammar and fluency are often spared. SD is a disorder that involves loss of semantic memory, anomia, receptive aphasia, and an actual loss of word meaning. The chapter presents some assessment tools that are those conducted by a psychologist or a neuropsychologist. Such an evaluation should include a clinical interview and neuropsychological examination. SD has been associated with ubiquitin-positive, TAR-DNA-binding protein-43 (TDP-43)-positive, tau-negative inclusions.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related cortical dementias are a major health problem. Patients with AD and related dementia have more hospital stays, have more skilled nursing home stays, and utilize more home health care visits compared to older adults without dementia. This chapter discusses the role of family caregivers and how they interact with in-home assistance, day care, assisted living, and nursing homes in the care of an individual with dementia. It also discuss important transitions in the trajectory of dementia care, including diagnosis, treatment decision making, home and day care issues, long-term care placement, and death. It highlights the importance of caregiver assessment, education, and intervention as part of the care process. Dementia caregivers are at risk of a variety of negative mental health consequences. Another important moderating variable for dementia caregiver distress is self-efficacy.

In theory, the construction of an autobiographical memory begins with a retrieval model being generated in the brain. This retrieval model activates general knowledge about the self, which is used to retrieve episodic memory details consistent with the desired memory. Autobiographical memory is a complicated skill that results from the union of episodic memory and an abstract concept of self laid out over time. This transformation of episodic into autobiographical memories results in forgetting of some incidents, and mashups the details from two or more separate incidents into a single memory that feels like it happened to the self at a particular point in time. Autobiographical memory is said to serve at least three important functions: identity, directive, and social. Autobiographical memories also serve as guides for future behavior. A function of autobiographical memory is to create and strengthen bonds between people.

Vascular dementia (VaD) is an umbrella term representing a clinical grouping with inherent heterogeneity in its clinical manifestations reflecting a variability in its underlying etiology. This chapter discusses specific presentations that can fall under the VaD heading. It includes discussion of multi-infarct dementia (MID) and dementia associated with lacunar states (LSs), as well as Binswanger’s disease (BD), which remains embroiled in controversy. The chapter discusses cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) and moyomoya disease due to their clinical overlap. The etiology of MID is in many ways the same as the etiology of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) in general and even late-life dementia. The term MID itself is used to describe a disorder characterized by a stepwise deterioration of cognitive functioning associated with strokes or accumulated transient ischemic attacks (TIAs).

The ideas of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato all contribute to the foundation of our understanding of the nature of human intelligence. Their ideas on topics as diverse as the origin of ability, the mind-body relationship, and general inquiry methods continued to inspire thinkers centuries later and influenced those who shaped modern psychology and intelligence theory. This chapter provides an overview of recent research on how people’s beliefs about intelligence impact their behaviors, a body of research that has significant implications for education. The emergence of reliable genetic and neurological research methodologies is creating a new area of study in which environmental, biological, and psychological facets of intelligence are studied simultaneously. Structure of Intellect (SOI) model represents a very different approach to theories of intelligence. Recent technological advances have encouraged explorations into the relationship between brain function and specific types of cognitive functioning.

This chapter talks about the representation of language in the brain— including what parts of the brain are known to be involved in language. It talks about how multiple languages are represented and interact in bilingual speakers. The most important lobes for language are the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe. In terms of language, in right-handed people it is the left hemisphere that supports the majority of language function. There are two areas in particular that appear to be especially important for language: an area toward the front of the brain in the frontal lobe that includes Broca’s area and an area more or less beneath and behind the ear toward the back of the temporal lobe called Wernicke’s area. Broca’s aphasia is characterized by difficulty with language production—with effortful, slow speech, and the striking absence of function words like prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, and grammatical inflections.

Research on both sign language and how it is processed has been growing quickly over the last decade, with researchers from a number of different fields increasingly interested in it. This chapter addresses two common misconceptions about sign language to understand exactly what sign language is. French sign language is just a version of spoken French, British Sign Language (BSL) is just a version of English, and so on. Variations in hand shape and other differences can differentiate dialects of sign language. Sound symbolism shows that there are cases in spoken language when sounds are linked in a nonarbitrary way to meaning. Further, there are phonotactic rules that differ from language to language about how signs may be formed. Speech errors are mistakes that speakers make when they intend to say one thing but something else comes out instead.

The term genius is peculiar. It can be applied to a diversity of phenomena or confined to just one or two. The tremendous range in usage reflects the fact that genius is both a humanistic concept with a long history and a scientific concept with a much shorter history. The word genius goes way, way back to the time of the ancient Romans. Roman mythology included the idea of a guardian spirit or tutelary deity. This spiritual entity was assigned to a particular person or place. Expressed differently, geniuses exert influence over others. They have an impact on both contemporaries and posterity. The exemplars of intelligence have a feature in common: They are called as exceptional creators. The favored definition is that creativity satisfies few separate requirements. First, to be creative is to be original. In main, genius in the leadership domain of achievement appears to fall into several groups.

Creativity and intelligence, like bacon and eggs, certainly seem like they should go together. But exactly how they do, or whether intelligence is part of creativity or creativity is part of intelligence, is still debated. At one point in time, a ‘threshold’ theory was popular, which argued that creativity and intelligence are positively related up until an IQ of approximately 120. Some studies have found that although creativity does predict GPA, other variables do it better or more directly, such as cognitive style, mental speed and short-term memory, or reasoning ability. An additional way of considering how creativity relates to intellectual abilities is to consider how creativity is connected to learning disabilities (LD). Another learning disability with a relationship to creativity is Williams syndrome. Healey and Rucklidge found that although 40” of a creative group showed symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), none met the level for actual diagnosis.

Throughout history, creators have used their skills in ways that have led to tremendous negative impact. Clark and James describe ’negative creativity’ as something that ends with a bad outcome even without a bad intention. If negative creativity is someone taking office supplies without wanting to hurt the company, then malevolent creativity is someone stealing essential company secrets to sell to its competitors with the specific desire to do harm. Malevolent creativity can be seen in terrorism and criminal behavior. Creativity is a tool that can be used for good or bad purposes. The flip side of the coin is that there are arrays of studies that show the healing powers of expressive forms of creativity. Indeed, if there is a genuine connection between creative genius and mental illness, it could easily be the creativity in their lives that kept some of the geniuses afloat and as healthy as possible.

This chapter addresses how creativity operates on individual and social/environmental levels, and the effects and outcomes of the creative mind. Within creativity, however, there are four P’s, person, process, product, press or place, that are used to help shape how we conceptualize this broad concept. Another way of conceptualizing how to approach creativity is the idea of C’s. A core distinction is made between little-c and Big-C. Big-C is the kind of creativity that will last for generations; it may be remembered, used, or enjoyed a hundred years. In contrast, little-c is everyday creativity. Beghetto and Kaufman proposed mini-c and Pro-c. In mini-c, the initial spark of creativity does not have to be held up to the same standards that we use for typical everyday creativity. An interesting aside is that an implication of the model is that a Pro-c creator should be able to make money with his/her creativity.

One way of thinking about the question of creativity and domains is to ponder the lack of renaissance men and women—people who are truly creative in multiple arenas. It is important to note that both a domain-general and domain-specific point of view would allow for polymaths—a domain-generalist would say that these polymaths are using the same creative processes to paint and sculpt and be an accountant, whereas a domain-specificist would argue that they use different processes. Within creativity research, many studies have categorized creative domains. One key work is that of Carson, Peterson, and Higgins, who devised the creativity achievement questionnaire (CAQ) to assess 10 domains. They broke the domains down into two larger factors: the Arts and Science. A recent study by S. B. Kaufman did find cognitive differences by domain; general cognitive ability was a stronger predictor of creative achievement in the sciences than in the arts.

This chapter focuses on a key issue, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and their relationship to creativity. Learning goals are associated with intrinsic motivation. Performance goals are associated with extrinsic motivation. One way to think about the link between intrinsic motivation and creativity is in Csikszentmihalyi’s conception of Flow, or optimal experience. Flow represents the sensations and feelings that come when someone is actively engaged in an intense, favorite pursuit. Controlling evaluation emphasizes the specific task performance, triggering extrinsic motivation. Informational evaluation is more concerned with feedback and the chance to learn, and thus increases intrinsic motivation. It is found that informational evaluation led to more creative ideas than did controlling evaluation. The two self-oriented motivations are in essence intrinsic and extrinsic; growth is the personal enjoyment of the creative process, and gain is being driven by traditional rewards.

Most creativity researchers consistently focus on two key determinants. First, creativity must represent something different, new, or innovative. It is not enough to just be different-creativity must also be appropriate to the task at hand. Kharkhurin’s Four-Criterion Construct of Creativity attempts to integrate both Western and Eastern conceptions of creativity. In addition to the basic two constructs, novelty and utility, Kharkhurin proposes the more Eastern-related ideas of aesthetics and authenticity as being part of the creativity equation. The word innovation is sometimes used interchangeably with creativity, but usually conveys a greater emphasis on application and is more associated with the worlds of business, management, engineering, and industrial/organizational psychology. One distinction between creativity and innovation that has been proposed is that creativity is thinking of new ideas and deciding on which ones are best, whereas innovation also entails implementing these ideas.

At a very basic level, communication involves passing an information-containing signal from a sender to a receiver. Though we tend to think of communication as a sophisticated, highly complex process, a great deal of human and nonhuman communication occurs without a hint of cognitive effort. This chapter revolves around these kinds of honest signals—ones that provide true information—being communicated between or within species. It opens with a few of favorite examples of how animals use communication to deceive one another. There are two major communication features (referential signaling and syntax) that are indicative of higher cognitive abilities rather than simply physiology, reflexes, or basic conditioning. Referential signaling is extremely important when studying complex communication systems. Once referential abilities are established, some species are able to use syntax to change the meaning of a message by manipulating the order of the vocalizations or gestures in the signal they are communicating.

For centuries, philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, and many others have attempted to define consciousness in humans. Depending upon who you are, what your agenda is, and how you were trained, definitions for consciousness will vary. This chapter jumps right into the hotly debated area of animal consciousness. It takes an in-depth look at how philosophers and scientists have defined consciousness, specific cognitive abilities that might signal consciousness, and which animals can be said to have them, or a version of them. The main topics covered include theory of mind, self-awareness, and emotions. Happy, the first elephant documented to behave as if she recognized herself in a mirror, as well as the important implications of this finding, is the subject of the animal spotlight. The human application section walks through how theory of mind develops in children and the ways developmental psychologists can determine whether a child has mastered it.

This chapter addresses the overall flexibility of the animal mind. It discusses about instincts; planning and forethought. The cognitive processes necessary to project into the future epitomize a highly flexible mind. Nonetheless, evolutionarily speaking, mental time travel may not be useful for all animals. Following this, the chapter discusses problem solving; play behavior; and innovation. For centuries, there have been those who believe animals are mindless behaving machines. One probably does not think that, or one would not be reading, but where is the line between instinct and cognitive behavior? Do animals plan out their actions in advance, play, and create? One creative crow, and her remarkable ability to problem solve and use tools, are featured in the animal spotlight. In human application, it discusses the difficult question of how to measure creativity in humans and tips for how can find and increase creativity and innovation in one’s own life.

While animal cognition researchers may look strange at playing parrot vocalizations on loud speakers in the jungle or presenting gorillas with trays of colored shapes, there very much is a method to our madness. That method is the scientific method whose steps are to develop a research question, design appropriate methodologies, collect and analyze data, then share the findings with the scientific community. This chapter presents some considerations and methods for studying animal cognition with the hope that, the reader will use some of them in their future observations of animal behavior—both human and nonhuman. Animal cognition is a branch of psychology, the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Some of the most famous and informative studies of animal cognition have been through the case study method. Most animal cognition research is conducted by scientists who are affiliated with colleges and universities.

Within the animal kingdom, sociality is on a giant continuum, with a large degree of diversity in how social, with whom, and how complex those interactions are among conspecifics. This chapter explores in greater depth some of the advanced ways that animals engage with one another. As reader sees, there appears to be a correlation between sociality and cognition. Knowing something about the depth (or lack thereof) of a species’ social behavior allows researchers to contextualize and better understand cognitive abilities such as theory of mind, problem solving, and referential signaling in communication. By learning from others, one can effectively and efficiently interact with the environment. One very special way humans and animals also use social cues are called social referencing, which involves learning from others’ emotional responses. These responses, like a grimace after the first bite of a disgusting meal, act as signals that communicate information to social partners.

Perhaps end-of-life considerations for homeless elderly could be considered a topic of fictional creation, a sociomedical unicorn. Because, depending on one’s perspective, the curse or blessing of homelessness is the failure to even reach an age that is generally acknowledged as “geriatric”. Advance care planning is the process by which one decides what types of treatment one prefers at the end of life, but also who can speak on his or her behalf should the person become unable to speak for himself or herself. This chapter discusses advance care planning with aging homeless at end of life. It provides brief description on challenges in accessing healthcare for homeless aging, perceptions of dying of the aging homeless, and spiritual and religious consideration at end of life. The chapter then discusses palliative and hospice care delivery for the geriatric homeless. It also discusses innovative palliative care delivery models.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in older homeless people. Traditional CV risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and hyperlipidemia, and nontraditional CV risk factors, such as substance abuse, psychological stress, and lack of diagnostic and preventative medical care, contribute to CVD in this population. Barriers to CV prevention and treatment in homeless individuals include their environment, lack of access to care, substance dependence, mental illness, food insecurity, and medication non-adherence. Healthcare models that provide Housing First and just-in-time care by non-judgmental multidisciplinary teams have been shown to improve the CV health of people who are homeless. CV health requires prevention, as well as prompt intervention, and close follow-up. CV healthcare practice adaptations for homeless clients include ascertaining living conditions, improvising the physical exam, scheduling longer clinic appointments with frequent follow-up, prioritization of the plan of care, and simplification of the medication regimen.

Homelessness is a rising healthcare problem. Secondary to poor living situations and limited access to healthcare services, homeless people are at increased risk for exposure to various communicable diseases, including viral and bacterial infections, tuberculosis, and arthropod carried diseases. This chapter briefly discusses infectious diseases such as bacterial infections, tuberculosis, and arthropods infestation in homeless geriatrics population. The bacterial infections covered in the chapter are urinary tract infections, bacterial pneumonia, and foot infections. The arthropods infestations include lice, scabies mites, bed bugs, delusional parasitosis. There are other causes of bites and lesions aside from lice, scabies mites, and bed bugs. Spiders, mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and ants also pose risks for homeless people, particularly those who live outdoors. Homeless people can have a difficult time avoiding bites from mosquitoes and ticks, which can carry diseases.

Homelessness is a rising healthcare problem. Secondary to poor living situations and limited access to healthcare services, homeless people are at increased risk for exposure to various communicable diseases. The diseases found in the homeless population include viral infections, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, and influenza. Homelessness, on one hand, increases the prevalence of infectious diseases, and aging, on the other hand, makes the elderly more vulnerable to infections. Homelessness is associated with numerous behavioral, social, and environmental risks that expose persons to many communicable diseases, including viral infections, which may spread among the homeless, and aside from posing a threat to individuals’ health can lead to outbreaks that can become serious public health concerns. Homeless populations may be at higher risk for West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases due to their increased exposure to the outdoors and their limited access to preventive measures.

Geriatric homelessness (GH) is a significant and growing social, political, economic, and humanistic issue throughout the United States. This chapter presents case studies that will highlight the GH in four urban areas and among veterans. It defines geriatric homelessness, outlines its general dimensions, explicates its two primary etiologies (loss of employment and the lack of affordable housing in the areas where most homeless persons are located), and gives examples of the diversity of the problem and attempts at solutions in four cities and among veterans. The case examples show that the solution to the medical and psychological issues in the GHP involves much more than traditional medical practices and therapies. The solutions, involving among others politics, economics, and housing, are those of communities and localities acting to positively affect the lives of individuals and families of all ages, particularly the growing population of GHPs in the United States.

Skin problems are one of the most common presenting complaints of homeless persons to emergency departments and community clinics, estimated at 20% of such visits. Adult homeless suffer the usual skin diseases common to nonhomeless adults, but in addition can suffer more frequent infections, dermatitis, and wounds related to their compromised living status. This chapter focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and triage of common skin complaints in homeless adults. Hospital admission should be considered whenever fever, chills, tachycardia, hypotension, or severe or rapidly progressing infection or other admission criteria are present. Additionally, if outpatient treatment is unrealistic given limited social or logistical challenges, admission may be appropriate even without the aforementioned standards, in order to ensure appropriate critical treatments and resolution. The chapter provides case example for infestations, bites and infections, wounds, neoplasms, and rashes.

Resource Wand is an intervention that is designed to give added support to a child during the reprocessing of a memory that has the potential for overwhelming or flooding. It is used to manage levels of arousal and affect in Phase 4 of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): Desensitization. A resource wand is a play-based item such as a magic wand or stick that has a picture (real or drawn) of a support person, animal, or object on it. During eye movements, the child follows the wand with the picture while processing the target. During history taking and the preparation phase, the therapist and child should identify the supports that exist in the child's life. Resource Wand is an intervention that is playful to make and use during the reprocessing of a memory. It offers any child an opportunity to feel safe during the desensitization phase.

The ethical and legal issues that arise in the care of the geriatric homeless population are complex not only because they involve nuances unique to either population, but because the combination of being undomiciled and aged leads to significant unique vulnerability. The usual dilemmas in geriatrics of creating an acceptable process for informed consent, judging adequate decision-making capacity for treatment acceptance and refusal, determining appropriate substitute decision makers, preserving privacy and confidentiality, promoting advance care planning, and allocating healthcare resources are made more challenging in the homeless. Complicating factors include ongoing psychiatric comorbidities and serious medical illnesses, which change a patient’s mentation and cognitive capacities. Therefore, appropriate assessment and treatment in these complex cases no doubt requires input from an interprofessional team. This chapter presents a case with changing psychiatric, ethical, and legal issues to illustrate how such complex tensions arise and may be resolved in a homeless geriatric patient.

Finding ways to complete Phase 1 of the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing protocol, history and treatment planning, presents unique challenges when working with children. The therapist often has many other sources of information about the child's trauma history; still, developing a shared understanding of the trauma and the impact of trauma is just as important in child therapy as it is in the adult protocol. This chapter presents an option for using storytelling, props, and metaphor to elicit trauma history from a child in a way that is sensitive to their age and their window of tolerance for distress. Gathering trauma history from the child early on in treatment in a play-based and developmentally informed way creates an opportunity to obtain some of the painful information while keeping the child feeling emotionally grounded and safe.

TraumaPlay is a flexible, sequential, play therapy model designed for treating traumatized and attachment-disturbed children and teens. An integration of TraumaPlay and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) functions as a one–two power punch combination as the power of play is recognized as the child's most natural form of adaptive information processing and encourages the full-body somatic experiencing of new neurophysiological states while desensitizing and reprocessing hard things. The overarching goals of TraumaPlay include leaching the emotional toxicity out of clients' traumatic experiences, creating a more coherent narrative of these life events, and deepening relational resources. Getting through the child client's layers of protection requires developmental sensitivity, titration, and creativity. Unlocking a traumatized child's healing may take more than one key, so pairing TraumaPlay and EMDR together can maximize the effectiveness of each. TraumaPlay therapists enhance safety and security through both nondirective play therapy methods and directive play therapy interventions.

The utilization of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy alone, as Francine Shapiro has discussed, presents challenges when working with children, particularly with complex relational trauma. Limits for the effectiveness of EMDR include the developmental immaturity of the child and missing adaptive information, the impact of trauma on skill development, and lack of trust due to the impact of relational trauma. This chapter explores how creative arts therapy holds the potential as a special form of mentalization therapy that can support and strengthen the skills required for success in EMDR in Phase 4 processing. This approach emphasizes how the expressive arts, when used strategically, can extend the reach of EMDR by utilizing the indirect dyadic process of art making within a therapeutic relationship increasing trust, building metacognitive functioning, elevating concrete thinking through experiential learning, and taking a curious, open, and playful stance that helps grow self-reflective capacity.

This chapter provides brief description on malnutrition and aging, and nutrition and homelessness. It discusses nutritional impact of substance abuse, and nutrition assessment and intervention. The chapter explores the impact that homelessness and food insecurity has on the nutritional status of older adults. Interventions must be tailored to accommodate the patient’s financial resources, medical conditions, and ultimately his or her own personal goals in order to be effective. Patients may be completely disengaged from nutrition education and focused on other priorities, which are essential for survival, that is, shelter and safety, thus making nutrition education the least effective intervention for that patient at that moment in time. Ideally, the homeless geriatric person would be monitored and re-evaluated; however, follow-up may be unrealistic. What does nutrition assessment look like in action? The chapter provides a case study to describe this question.

In the three decades since Francine Shapiro introduced the model, adaptive information processing (AIP) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) have provided mental health clinicians with a method for conceptualizing clients' responses to traumas as adaptive and protective without diminishing the pain that comes from holding stored trauma. For those working with child clients, the goal of healing emotional and relational wounds becomes substantially more attainable when caregivers also come to view children's trauma responses as adaptive and protective, all the while developing increasing capacity for being with their children's woundedness. EMDR therapists who provide family-based play therapy need ways to establish and monitor safety within family systems in order for the integration of these modalities to offer their full power. This chapter aims to offer sandtray as a modality that allows for this integration. Sandtray offers a common language for all who engage.

Medication therapy management (MTM) remains a challenging endeavor to optimally implement in the homeless population. Working in various settings in collaboration with other health professionals, pharmacists are spearheading patient-centered efforts to optimize MTM and assist the homeless with attaining health insurance and continuity of care. In the case of MTM, homeless persons may face significant hardship in not only procuring and using effective drug therapy, but also in following-up with their providers and establishing provider–patient relationships that will help them to meet their target therapeutic goals. This chapter enumerates a review of the more common barriers to MTM in the homeless population, followed by a number of practical applications of MTM in optimizing the health of the homeless. In order to appreciate the value and role that stable MTM can offer the homeless, the chapter briefly discusses perspectives on homeless health and the concept of MTM.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most common chronic conditions in older, homeless adults. This chapter provides brief description on DM and prediabetes, and discusses post-hospital admission and clinical manifestations of DM. Careful and deliberate data gathering must take place to understand current health behaviors. Importantly, the patient’s health literacy, memory, and performance of activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living will help assess functional status. The chapter covers topics such as nutrition status and food security, fall risk assessment, depression, cognitive impairment, vision, social history, and polypharmacy. It discusses physical exam, diagnostic tests, further work-up, patient education and self-management, prevention, and treatment of DM. The chapter finally provides description on noninsulin versus insulin and oral versus injection, oral noninsulin medications, and strategies to reduce common diabetic complications.

Neurocognitive disorders are life-disrupting disorders that complicate the lives of those who have them, as well as those who care for them. Speaking about neurocognitive disorders among the geriatric homeless populations is further complicated by the fact that not only is the existing research inconsistent, research on this topic in general is relatively sparse. Much of the research that exists in this area examines homeless populations in general, rather than geriatric homeless populations specifically, but examining this research is still useful for the purposes of better understanding this issue within the geriatric homeless population. This chapter endeavors to do so in order to highlight relevant research and clinical issues. It provides case example illustrating the complex nature of caring for an older homeless adult with probable cognitive deficits, the barriers to fully assessing neurocognitive deficits, and the difficult interactions this can create for staff.

This chapter revisits the issues constituting the main causes of homelessness among the geriatric population, with special attention to people who became homeless due to economic factors, substance abuse, mental illness, or all of these reasons. It begins with a description of a general distinction within the geriatric homeless population followed by an overview of housing, shelter, and community programs that are available in most major cities. Not every region or city will have all cited resources available, and some might be called a different name. The chapter ends with a series of case studies. Each one demonstrates a different social issue facing a geriatric homeless person and how it impacts an older adult in locating housing and/or social services. During the discussion, examples of services and cases from several cities are cited.

When children are exposed to toxic environments for many years of their childhood, they may have a difficult time even imagining a calm or safe place. Fort Tent has been adapted from Francine Shapiro's Calm Place exercise. This adaptation is designed to better suit children's needs. Abused and neglected children have very few internal and external resources to enhance the original Calm Place. The initial goal of this intervention is to create a specific experience of a Calm Place. The Fort Tent Calm/Safe Place (Fort Tent) is an intervention designed to help create safety within the constructs of the therapy office. This creative intervention heightens present moment experience of safety in real time. The Fort Tent allows clients who need a more concrete, kinesthetic intervention to be involved in the development of the safe place, thus empowering them to have a level of control in their own sense of safety.

The population of geriatric homeless individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness is a largely underrepresented subpopulation in the research literature despite the notion that this population is one of the most vulnerable to negative outcomes due to physical, mental, and psychosocial factors. This chapter briefly summarizes the separate impact of each of these three factors: being homeless, being in the geriatric population, and being diagnosed with a serious mental illness (SMI). In addition, the chapter illustrates how these three factors combined impact overall subjective quality of life and poor outcomes for mental health through the use of a case vignette of a homeless, geriatric individual with a severe mental illness. It also provides case example illustrating that high comorbid substance abuse along with an SMI (i.e., dual diagnosis) associated with complex medical conditions create seemingly insurmountable challenges for the interdisciplinary care team.

A journey into learning about dissociation usually begins with a therapist being unsuccessful in the treatment of traumatized children. An eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) clinician starts to seek information on how to help their clients by attending training, reading books, or engaging in “What am I missing?” discussions while in supervision. Therapists have an “aha moment” when they look through the lens of dissociation at the child's symptoms and behaviors. The gift of dissociation brings relief to many children in harmful situations. This chapter provides an understanding of the internal world of self-states and what that might look like in the child's external world and in the playroom. Recognizing and knowing the guiding principles of how to access self-states provide therapists the tools for effective treatment for the child and all of their caregivers.

This chapter demonstrates how the gains acquired through Theraplay® can be leveraged for healing by infusing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) into Theraplay treatment. Infusion in the preparation phase will be the primary focus; however, considerations for infusing EMDR and Theraplay are offered for application within the assessment, desensitization, installation, and body scan phases of the EMDR protocol. Treatment with Theraplay yields reparative experiences that can be used for adaptive information processing during the trauma-resolution phases of treatment. Infusing EMDR into this process allows these experiences and subsequent positive feeling states to be harnessed as resources through EMDR-specific strategies. The chapter provides steps that demonstrate how these strategies can be used for resource gathering and installation, and the considerations section explains how to infuse EMDR into Theraplay for target gathering or assessment (Phase 3) and reprocessing (Phases 4–6).

Popcorn Night is a term that was coined to assist caregivers in providing a calm and comfortable night for their child following a desensitization session. Following the reprocessing of a memory, the therapist works with the caregivers to manage the possible emerging behaviors and assist with a log to track any changes in symptomology. Engaging caregivers and other outside support in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy with kids leads to better outcomes as it provides additional support and additional information about the child's functioning. Popcorn Night is an instructional handout and log that helps guide caregivers in structuring a carefree and supportive evening after desensitization and track emerging symptoms or behaviors in the time between sessions. It is important to be transparent, flexible, and hopeful with this intervention as it can both inform treatment and encourage commitment to continued growth through EMDR.

This chapter serves as a call to include interventions that acknowledge, value, and celebrate the culture of children and their families. The Latinx population is growing in the United States, and it is imperative that therapists provide culturally sensitive services to this population. The chapter presents playful and creative interventions that have been helpful during the different phases of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy with Latinx children. It highlights important cultural and clinical considerations when utilizing EMDR therapy with Latinx children and teens through the lenses of three main principles: (a) Follow the child's lead and interest; (b) be curious, ask questions, and maintain an open attitude; and (c) utilize and emphasize cultural and individual strengths. It includes playful and creative interventions that have been helpful during the different phases of EMDR therapy with this population in order to make their treatment more culturally attuned and developmentally appropriate.

This chapter addresses combining synergetic play therapy (SPT) with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) while maintaining fidelity to both therapies. Both SPT and EMDR are informed by the adaptive information processing (AIP) model as developed by Francine Shapiro in 1987. This combined process of therapy is synergetic and relies heavily on theories and research regarding the storage of memory, the mirror neuron system, neurobiology of the brain, interpersonal neurobiology and coregulation, and the innate states of nervous system activation. The chapter expands on these key concepts: understanding the neurobiology of coregulation as it relates to EMDR therapy and synergetic play through the lens of SPT; the importance of therapist regulation while facilitating EMDR in the playroom using SPT theory and its base in neuroscience; the stages of EMDR therapy with SPT and EMDR combined; and the use of EMDR as a directive and nondirective process in play therapy.

This chapter reviews how clinicians can combine play therapy skills with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy to treat young children who have experienced trauma. It presents a descriptive approach to integrating play therapy skills with the EMDR protocol for therapists already using play to facilitate trauma. Young children's trauma often arises from early neglect and abuse, resulting in emotional dysregulation and inappropriate behaviors. Child-centered play therapy, developmental play therapy, and EMDR are interventions that address these issues and are also effective relational therapies that can be even more powerful when combined. These therapies complement each other to allow successful treatment of complex trauma in our youngest clients. Through examples and a case study, therapists will appreciate how play therapy and EMDR work well together and how clinicians' play therapy skills can be easily incorporated into all phases of the EMDR protocol.

This chapter proposes the Pocket Smock as a Phase 2 intervention to facilitate the preparation process. The Pocket Smock is designed to be a visible and even tangible location to consolidate the child's acquired self-regulation resources. While it primarily serves to prepare the child for the trauma-resolution phases of the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) protocol, the Pocket Smock is suitable for use throughout the entire treatment process and beyond. The chapter introduces writing and coloring utensils; clothing items for smocks; preferred craft items; index cards; pocket smock template; office posters (step-by-step instructions in this chapter); optional: electronic drafting applications, camera, and Velcro dots.

The Superhero Shuffle is a playful intervention that is designed to work best with high-energy children and children who have low tolerance for exposure to trauma or engaging in the bilateral eye movements of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Superhero figurines are utilized to assist with bilateral eye movements for desensitization and installation as well as to serve as inspiration for resource development in the preparation phase and cognitive restructuring in the installation phase. The effectiveness of this intervention relies on the therapist's ability to maintain a playful, fast-paced approach to meet the child's energy levels for maintaining concentration and participation. This play-based intervention was designed specifically for the child who is unable to sit still and concentrate for long periods of time. Symptoms of trauma may include hyperarousal, sensory-seeking behaviors, inattention, and low tolerance for exposure to anything related to processing the trauma.

This chapter provides a brief description about the intervention that was designed to support and assist children and adolescents in developing negative cognition and positive cognition in the assessment, desensitization, and installation phases using a creative intervention of “making lemonade” and turning “sour” thoughts into “sweet” thoughts. This intervention integrates eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and play in the processing of traumatic material. Creativity and modifications to the standard EMDR protocol have been used to great success by the leading child and adolescent therapists in the field. Lemon Squeezies is a modification of the standard EMDR protocol in the assessment, desensitization, and installation phases when working with children and adolescents. Modifications to the EMDR standard protocol should only be made to accommodate the developmental needs of each age group. If the child or adolescent does not like lemonade, the therapist may substitute another metaphor using their best clinical judgment.

This intervention was designed to work best with children who may be sensory seeking, seem hesitant or cautious when discussing the trauma, have low tolerance for exposure to the trauma, or find bilateral eye movements challenging. It requires that children engage in bilateral stimulation and eye movements by physically tapping different color hand images for desensitization and installation. The effectiveness of this intervention relies on the level of control and independence that the child has, the bilateral stimulation and sensory experience that they gain from the tapping motions, and the increased feeling of safety for children who tend to be more guarded when exploring their trauma experience. Color Hands is a creative, play-based intervention for Phase 4, desensitization, and Phase 5, installation, of the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) protocol. This chapter discusses phases of EMDR; materials; rationale; description of intervention; step-by-step instructions; modifications; and considerations.

Despite the potential benefits, children are often very reluctant to participate in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Prescriptive play therapy for trauma involves a phase-based approach where the activities within the playroom may vary from less directive to more directive with the goal of supporting trauma exposure/trauma narrative work. Trauma-informed prescriptive play therapists guide play in the avenues that will support trauma digestion and emotional regulation. Integrating play therapy within Francine Shapiro's adaptive information processing model with a flexible approach to the EMDR protocol holds promise in using play to enter the memory network and promote healing. This chapter establishes eight essential considerations in fully integrating EMDR in a play therapy setting and examines the idea that play may be the preferred avenue to access and reprocess with EMDR the implicit memories involved so often in complex trauma in children.

This chapter discusses four sub disciplines of psychology: cognitive, developmental, differential, and social. It shows that psychologists need a four-pronged attack on the phenomenon known as genius. The cognitive neurosciences have made major advances using a diversity of techniques, from evoked potentials to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Moreover, such methods have shed some light on many processes connected with genius, such as problem solving and insight. The age-achievement relationship is the oldest topic in the scientific study of genius, the first study having appeared in 1835. For most domains of achievement, the greatest geniuses are distinguished by the longest careers. The empirical data on the age-achievement connection are well established. Undoubtedly the relationship between age and achievement is partly rooted in basic human physiology and neurology. This connection is most obvious in the case of athletic champions.

Geniuses have been around for a very long time. Genuine scientific inquiries into the psychology of genius came much later. The investigators engaged in these inquiries adopted two main approaches: psychometrics and historiometrics. Not only was Francis Galton the first psychometrician to study genius, but he himself was a genius. Psychometric research represents the most common way that research psychologists investigate genius. The principal alternative is a technique known as historiometrics. Frederick Woods also conducted historiometric research of his own. In 1906, he had studied the inheritance of intellectual and moral genius in royal families, and in 1913 he examined the influence of political genius on the welfare of the nations ruled. Lewis M. Terman had also explored a method of calculating intelligence quotient (IQ) scores using historiometric methods. Unlike psychometrics and historiometrics, psychobiography constitutes a single-case qualitative approach.

This chapter concentrates on the nature of intelligence and the nature of domain expertise. It examines three alternative positions on the nature of cognitive ability: unified intellect, diverse intellect and hierarchical intellect. Historiometric studies suggest that historiometric genius correlates at between.25 and.35 with estimates of psychometric genius. Whether intelligence is unified or multiple, all budding geniuses must go through some sort of apprenticeship period in which they acquire the expertise that will enable them to make original and exemplary contributions to their chosen domain of achievement. To understand the difference between algorithms and heuristics, and to appreciate their relevance to an understanding of the nature of genius, the chapter takes a glance at two kinds of computer programs that engage in problem solving of a rather high order: expert systems and discovery programs. In any case, most expert systems operate according to algorithms rather than heuristics.

This chapter discusses five topics: cultural stimulation, interactive relationships, collaborative groups, disciplinary zeitgeist, and sociocultural context. It discusses how the individual and social levels of analysis can be integrated into a unified sociopsychological conception of genius. Individuals were creatures of culture rather than slaves to their genes, and peoples were ethnic groups rather than biological races. When delineating the various contemporary relationships that can augment genius, the author included collaborative interactions. Genius is heavily contingent on the availability of predecessor geniuses who can serve as role models and mentors. This cross-generational influence is then amplified or dampened by other factors, such as political fragmentation, civil disturbances, and political anarchy. Contemporaries and compatriots may display equal magnitudes of genius and yet exhibit that genius in contrasting domains of achievement. The level and type of genius is determined by numerous variables that are inherent in the individual human being.

Students and professionals in the field of psychology are encouraged to understand diverse populations. Life scripts are formed in childhood, and feelings of alienation seeded in their early years can haunt the gifted throughout their lifespan. Gifted individuals need professionals who understand their striving, their search for meaning, their yearning for connection, and their complexity, sensitivity, and intensity. They need professionals alert to the issues of giftedness—who use this template to help their clients develop greater self-awareness. Those who are interested in success equate giftedness with eminence. The Great Divide in the field of gifted education and psychology stems, in part, from polarized perceptions of IQ testing. Gifted behavior occurs when there is an interaction among three basic clusters of human traits: above-average general and/or specific abilities, high levels of task commitment, and high levels of creativity.

With the elderly population rapidly increasing worldwide, neuropsychologists are often called upon to conduct assessments of possible neurodegenerative disorders. This chapter provides an overview of the differential diagnostics via neuropsychological methods of cortical dementia syndromes. Over the last several decades, clinicians have seen significant changes with regard to daily practice in interprofessional settings, which are becoming more commonplace for practicing neuropsychologists. The chapter provides guidance/input/assistance for practitioners working in such settings. Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is the most commonly administered psychometric screening assessment of global cognitive functioning. The Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR) is a widely used rating scale for measuring dementia severity. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characteristic of a progressive decline in memory, executive functioning, visuospatial abilities, language, and behaviors as a result of neurodegeneration in the brain. Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a neurodegenerative akinetic rigid disorder.

Dementia is a syndrome in which impairment of cortical or subcortical brain function leads to deterioration of cognitive processes or intellectual abilities, including memory, judgment, language, communication, and abstract thinking. The treatment of dementia can be broadly divided into two domains: those interventions used to improve or preserve cognitive function and those interventions used to control disturbed behavior of individuals with dementia. Dementia can result from many conditions, some of which are potentially reversible, but the most common and clinically relevant forms include Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (AChI) drugs donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine, and the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-receptor antagonist memantine have produced modest and persistent improvements on measures of cognition, activities of daily living (ADL), and behavior in patients with disease severity ranging from mild to severe.

When one knows what to look for, giftedness appears in unanticipated places, expressed in unexpected ways: plaintive graffiti, a very clever reason for not having one’s homework, a really good joke, a fascinating question, a turn of phrase, painstaking absorption in an activity, a drawing of the inside of the pumpkin instead of the outside, an abiding passion, the courage to defend the underdog, stillness in the midst of chaos. Highly intelligent children who live in rural areas are often unseen. Learning style can pose a barrier to the recognition of high abilities. A remarkable number of gifted individuals suffer from disabilities, and both their gifts and disabilities may be hidden. Disabilities come in a variety of shapes and sizes: dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, central auditory processing disorder, Asperger Syndrome, disorder of written expression, and more. More often than not, the child is graced with a combination of these labels.

Old age brings with it unique challenges in diagnosis, treatment, and care; dementia complicates these issues even more. Improving the management and care of persons with dementia has positive implications for patients, caregivers, and physicians alike. Two types of secondary complications can be analyzed in relation to dementia: conditions that arise outside of the dementia and then conditions that appear to develop due to the neurological degeneration inherent in dementia. Examples of psychiatric complications include depression, anxiety, and psychosis. Medical problems consist of issues such as stroke, cardiovascular problems, cancer, infections, orthopedic issues, diabetes, nutritional disorders, vision and hearing problems, as well as general pain. The high comorbidity of dementias with other psychiatric and medical issues can complicate the diagnosis and treatment of patients with dementia. Issues in the central nervous system (CNS) have long been looked at as possible predictors of dementia.

This chapter provides a brief guide to the main brain imaging techniques from the point of view of their usefulness in differentiating the principal forms of cortical dementias, that is, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), which have relatively specific imaging findings. It considers mild cognitive impairment (MCI) because it is a clinical condition that is often prodromal to cortical dementias, in particular AD. The chapter discusses in detail other dementias associated with movement disorders, that is, the corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), because they belong to the FTLD spectrum, and vascular dementia (VaD), which is frequently considered in differential diagnosis of cortical dementias. It also offers a quick look at future directions in neuroimaging, which will most likely be based on the combination of different techniques of structural, molecular, and functional imaging.

The gifted have always been with us; it’s just science that entered late in the game. The grandest experiment occurred in the 16th century: Suleiman the Magnificent established a palace school for the education and upbringing of gifted youth. Even in modern times, giftedness in reference books is frequently defined as an “endowment”. A developmental framework proved to be an effective means of measuring accelerated development in gifted children. By studying the profoundly gifted, Hollingworth understood giftedness in a profoundly different manner. She documented their difficulties negotiating the social and educational world, their early philosophical interest in origins and destinies, their uneven development, their imaginary worlds, their need for meaning, and their loneliness. In order to serve the gifted population in a healthy manner, mental health workers need to guard against their own prejudice, the prejudice of the press, and the common misperceptions in society.

Dementia is chronic and causes widespread dysfunction in multiple neuropsychological domains. While cognitive symptoms vary across different types of dementia based on their underlying neuropathology, impairments in attention, memory, and comprehension predominate. This chapter briefly discusses the research on the efficacy of various cognitive and behavioral interventions aimed to improve the neuropsychological symptoms in patients with dementia. Cognitive reserve has been shown to be influenced by various premorbid factors. Cognitive training refers to nonpharmacological interventions aimed to improve a patient’s cognitive function and is specifically designed to improve the patient’s functional capacity. Cognitive training generally includes a combination of cognitive stimulation, memory rehabilitation, reality orientation, and neuropsychological rehabilitation. Cognitive interventions have been shown to improve global cognitive functioning and abilities of daily living, reduce behavioral disturbances, and have positive effects on quality of life in patients with dementia.

This chapter explores the incidence of giftedness, the parallels between degrees of delay and advancement, giftedness as an organizing principle, different levels of giftedness, typical characteristics throughout the lifespan, and why it is important to recognize advanced development as early as possible. Educators forgot the integral role of psychologists in the development of the gifted, and psychology abandoned the gifted. The 21st century holds promise of reconnecting gifted education with its psychological roots. Giftedness is a psychological reality—the opposite end of the spectrum from Intellectual Developmental Disorder, as it is referred to in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). When a psychologist evaluates a child and concludes that the child is gifted, it often has a ripple effect on the parents’ self-perceptions. Gifted adults, perhaps more than any other group, have the potential to achieve a high degree of self-actualization.