A Mind at a Time

Mel Levine, M.D.

ISBN 0-7432-0222-8

Read: 2007 April 22 – May 14

Reviewed: 2007 June 12

When we went to Ann Hagmaier at Azusa Pacific U. about John’s academic problems, this was the first book she recommended. (The second was Boundaries.)

Dr. Levine has truly found his calling working with individuals whose mental configuration is far enough from adjustable to societal “norms” that they need professional help. He has categorized around a dozen mental developmental dysfunctions and has subcategorized each of them. The number of lists, points, and other sorts of groupings presented here are far too numerous to itemize or review. I underlined four or five things on each of the 300 plus pages of text. There is also an extensive additional resources list in the back with the regular index.

While reading, I bought a second copy so John could be reading it at the same time. I thought he would find it encouraging. He hasn’t gotten very far, however. I was reading it during the period when we were traveling to and from Viannah’s college graduation. The irony of the situation did not escape me. This reading ate up most of the four three-hour flights.

The issue at hand is that every child is required to go through considerable formal education in our society. This education is mostly presented in a lecture format with student work and examinations. Those whose mental makeup makes them do well in this scholastic setting get a good start on life. For those who have any sort of problem, whether it be fine motor development, short term memory deficiency, or an inability to present themselves to others acceptably due to missing body language and other “normal” interpretive clues, the school system and the expectations of society are not kind. Many fail, needlessly, thinks the author.

When a person has very short concentration span for receiving lecture material then becomes fidgety and distracted in the classroom, it is a problem for the person, the teacher, and the classmates. The situation can degrade until people become desperate, think they are stupid or hopeless, and give up easily. They are branded as lazy troublemakers. This disconnects them from the way they ought to be, the way they were wired to behave, and they end up either in Dr. Levine’s office (if they have the resources) or on the street, or in jail.

Levine thinks this is largely unnecessary. People learn different sorts of things in different ways and should be accommodated. As one might imagine, his theories and suggestions are controversial among teachers, who, often of necessity, have made their jobs as easy as possible for themselves at the expense of the exceptional students. Exceptional, that is, in non performing or not-normally-performing ways.

Having a deficiency is no excuse. We all have deficiencies. Much failure and pain was churned up from my own memory while reading the scenarios given. John and I have some of the same weaknesses, not surprisingly. Yes, there are ways to beat people into submission, or just demote them to whatever they can do within a system that is not structured for them, but there are ways of dealing with strengths and weaknesses in individuals that much more effective for the individuals and the societies in which they live. Dr. Levine has made his career of identifying such techniques and passing them on as widely as possible.

OK, I will produce one of the lists, the top-level set of mental systems each of which must be developed lest we fail at our peril. They are: Attention Control, Social Thinking, Higher Thinking, Motor, Sequential Ordering, Spatial Ordering, Language, and Memory. Since it’s probably not obvious what distinguishes these eight Neurodevelopmental Systems from each other and what problems result deficiencies in one or more of them, you’ll have to read or at least refer to the book for expansion and examples.

At the end of the book, after lengthy sections describing each of these, Levine covers the topic at hand: What happens when a mind falls behind? How can we get back on track? What should be happening with children at home? At school? Among other things, Levine thinks abuse should be illegal, broad brush labels like “Attention Deficit Disorder” and accompanying medications should be used extremely sparingly if at all, and teachers and parents should be finding the strengths and weaknesses of all children and dealing with them appropriately. This means majoring in the strengths in a big way while learning to cope with the weaknesses.

Take away ideas are: No child is lazy. Matched to the task they are wired for they will show plenty of motivation and achievement. How distant this is from the pseudo-Biblical notion that laziness is part of original sin and everyone must be beat and shamed into working. It is the job of parents to teach children how to work, teachers to teach them how to learn. Notice, teach them “how,” not merely try to cram all facts into them. Kids in a classroom setting might well have different rules and expectations that are matched to their strength. The one who can write should write, the one who can draw should draw, the one who can speak should speak. Everyone should try everything and learn something about how to cope with their weaknesses, but their major reward should come from their major accomplishment that comes mostly from exercise and development of their strength, not their weakness.

Everyone should be “expert” on something, highlighting their strength and its value to his world. This gives inestimable self-worth and saved many of Dr. Levine’s toughest patients. Having a deficit or a dysfunction does not make one useless (since we all have them); it merely points out the person’s needs for support, indeed, community. It is no excuse for them not to do what they can, not to lean into their weakness and learn how to cope, but an individual can only go so far. Not everyone can be expected to run a four-minute mile no matter how hard they try, as only one example. Those who can should excel at it and should do a lot of it. Those who can’t should do their best, find out what their best is, but then major in something with which they truly resonate.

John’s weaknesses are writing and sequencing. He fails at everything that requires any kind of non-verbal output, which is just about everything late in secondary school, including Physical Education. It has gotten so bad that he has given up and now requires extra micro-management at an age when he should be largely independent. I am angry with everyone involved, the parents, the student, the teachers, and the school. This problem has been known for at least ten years but even this year we just sit around in conference and chide John as to why he’s not motivated and what would it take to get him going and looking grave that such a bad thing could happen. Who was supposed to put forth the extra effort to teach him to write and adjust his requirements to let him do more talking about what he knows?

We are getting help, however, and A Mind at a Time gives significant hope that John will be able to function well enough in school to complete it and transition to an effective life in the larger world.