Establishing diagnostic criteria: the role of clinical pragmatics

The study of pragmatic disorders is of interest to speech-language pathologists who have a professional responsibility to assess and treat communication impairments. However, these disorders, it will be argued in this paper, have a significance beyond the clinical management of clients with communication impairments. Specifically, pragmatic disorders can now make a contribution to the diagnosis of a range of clinical conditions in which communication is adversely affected. These conditions include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the autistic spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and the dementias. Pragmatic disorders are already among the criteria used to diagnose some of these conditions (e.g. ADHD), although they are not described in these terms. In other conditions (e.g. the dementias), pragmatic disorders have potential diagnostic value in the absence of reliable biomarkers markers of these conditions and similar initial presenting symptoms. Using clinical data, and the findings of empirical studies, the case is made for the inclusion and/or greater integration of pragmatic disorders in the formal classificatory systems that are used to diagnose a range of disorders. A previously unrecognised role for pragmatic impairments in the nosology and diagnosis of clinical disorders is thereby established

Going for Broke: A Talk to Music Teachers

In 1963—a racially-charged time in the United States—James Baldwin delivered “A Talk to Teachers,” urging educators to engage youth in difficult conversations about current events. We concur with Giroux (2011, 2019) that political forces influence our educational spaces and that classrooms should not be viewed as apolitical, but instead seen as sites for engagement, where educators and artists alike can “go for broke.” Drawing upon A Tribe Called Quest’s 2017 Grammy performance of “We the People…” as an example of the role of the arts in troubled times, we consider ways to work alongside youth in schools to respond, consider, and process current events through music

Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places: addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school

This paper interrogates the ways in which school is produced as a particular bounded place (or collection of places) where sexuality, and particularly non-heterosexuality, is carefully policed by these boundaries. Drawing upon data generated in primary schools during a nationwide action research project (No Outsiders), we focus on three very different school places: the classroom, the staff room and a school -based afterschool art club. Our analysis engages with the contingency of place-making to show that place is neither a unitary experience nor a neutral stage upon which social relations are enacted. The three vignettes analysed offer insights into the critical potential of consciously and persistently working across (apparently) boundaried spaces within and beyond schools

Rhizomatic Mnemosyne: Warburg, Serres, and the \u3cem\u3eAtlas\u3c/em\u3e of Hermes

This essay aims to examine Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas according to two conceptual perspectives that seem deeply interwoven, Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of rhizome and Michel Serres’s metaphor on Hermes. Both theoretical approaches cast light on the epistemological implications of the Mnemosyne Atlas and explore its intriguing composition from an innovative point of view. Specifically, this paper excavates the disrupted nature of the Warburgian Atlas, paying particular attention to the schizophrenic proliferation of unexpected connections. In this scenario, it will be necessary to elucidate the terminological opposition between ‘atlas’ and ‘archive,’ as studied by Boris Groys, Foucault, and Derrida, without leaving aside Didi-Huberman’s pioneering research on Warburg