Gil Newburn

And here's a brain scan.

So who are we to argue with a brain scan?

It's super science.

The experience teachers might have said, whoop-dee-doo, tell me something I haven't known for the last 30 years.

But yeah, it's nice to be able to link the two.

So we've got the science to justify that.

What that means, of course, is if we understand that, we don't have to put a kid into a fancy flash functional MRI to give them a simple tool that helps them to focus in the classroom.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I've noticed that you don't stay still.

So, you know, you think you're not a fidgeter, but you are.

We fidget in all sorts of ways.

I'll get someone in my office in a chair and, yeah, you can, they're just in constant motion, but they never leave the chair.

I think there's enough data there.

I suspect, yes, but I'm by nature a bit of a magpie.

Anything new and shiny, I tend to want to go and pick up and run with.

But if you're relying purely on an fMRI, you're probably not going to get all the picture because even if that's telling you something about the particular network function in an individual, it's still not telling you how that network interacts with a particular environment.

But what it means is that we're coming to the person in front of us with a higher level of knowledge and awareness of what their brain's doing.

But if we do that and we still don't talk to them about their environment, their lived experience, the process, what that means, then we're missing the capacity to help them.

For me, the biggest use of what we learn from these things is part of what is called psychoeducation.

So in fundamental terms, it's talking to people in a language that they understand about themselves so they have the best knowledge of themselves and why they are as they are.