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The symptoms you describe, are most closely aligned with devolution into senility and dementia.Trump’s father, FRED, famously suffered from Alzheimer’s Diisease, which has a proven hereditary component.Comparing Trump, as he appears at present, and comparing his speech and behavior from videos from years past, shows a remarkable change toward incapacity by virtue of significant mental decline.If Trump has not been, thus far, diagnosed with dementia, it is almost certain that neither he, nor his sycophantic GOP party would admit to his shortcomings, nor agree to have his cognitive function assessed by professionals! Particularly so, since so many of them continue to publicly and vociferously, attest to his competence and stability.

Copy this cubeNow draw me a clock face and put the numbers inA huge chunk of Neuropsychology involves administering paper and pencil tasks to patients, face-to-face.With COVID-19, how do we make that possible?It's been tricky.We've moved from personal contact, to calling our patients on Zoom.Now the task of creating online assessments is being discussed. Many patients need their brain functioning assessed and monitored. Without these tests, not only will Psychology departments risk falling behind, but patients with significant problems will be going undetected.You'd think with technology moving forward, we would have left paper based tests in the past. It's not that simple however. Psychologists use normative datasets, to compare an impaired brain to a normal, healthy brain. This takes time, in fact years of research to complete.Fortunately, I have a desire for challenges. A popular assessment that is used worldwide, in my opinion, has scope to becoming virtual. I've come up with a plan, following potential limitations with solutions. I can't discuss the process for confidential reasons, but I'm super pumped for what seems to be my biggest breakthrough!With that, I have been writing three research papers, running meetings, working with psychologists behind a mental-health hotline, giving projects to my students, and I will be video calling my patients for appointments in the upcoming weeks.I don't see this lockdown being lifted in the UK anytime soon, so I'm getting myself comfortable with this new routine. The current times are hard, but I'm happy with the skills and experience that I have gained throughout it all.

Okay, so here’s a key part of the issue:New research shows 'high functioning' is an inaccurate autism labelThis study shows something that autistic folks have been saying for years:Having a high IQ does not mean that we function well. Some autistic folks with a high IQ do score high on functioning assessments, but some score low.The medical community has generally used the term ‘high functioning’ for any autistic person with a high IQ. Laypeople tend to assume that any autistic person who can talk and/or participate on social media is high functioning.Now, some autistic people are legit high functioning, and they may not mind being called high functioning. But a lot of us who have been called high functioning aren’t. And it gets upsetting when people dismiss your needs and problems and tell you that you don’t know what it’s like to be low functioning, when you are low functioning.And, of course, what about those of us with moderate function? Like, the whole high/low thing ignores the fact that autism is a spectrum and most of us fall in the middle.Finally, the term ‘high functioning’ is a problem because it ignores the fact that autism affects us on multiple axis. Hell, even the DSM recognizes that these days, assessing autists on a scale from low support needs to high support needs in two different categories.So what happens when someone has high support needs in one area but low support needs in another? Maybe they can talk fine but can’t handle even mild sensory stimulation? How well do the high/low functioning labels work then?(Let me note that the DSM gives two axis, in reality it’s more like 4 or 5 axis. Why the hell the DSM put sensory problems under repetitive behaviours has never been explained.)So… some people are okay with it because they feel it describes them adequately.The rest of us aren’t okay with it because either 1) it doesn’t describe us adequately but keeps getting forced on us, 2) it’s used to silence us and shut down our requests for help, or 3) it’s an inaccurate term that is applied without regard for the reality of the people it is applied to.Personally? I don’t throw a fit about the term, and I respond to questions about it because I know that those questions are directed at autists like me, even if I don’t consider myself ‘high functioning’. So you might think I’m okay with it, when really, I’m just picking my battles. No idea how many other autistic folks are doing the same, but I’m sure there are some.