A Cognitive Remedy for Disaster

According to Katherine Harmon in the article, “Brain Injury Rate 7 Times Greater Among U.S. Prisoners,” mental conditions vary among individual prisoners which makes it all the more difficult to treat traumatic brain injury. Harmon quotes Dr. Klinkhammer, who believes that criminals suffering from traumatic brain injury can very much benefit from cognitive rehabilitation therapy. In fact, this article quotes many practitioners who feel that people suffering from traumatic brain injury, often with prisoners, should engage in this cognitive therapy. Dr. Klinkhammer goes on to state that although there may be benefits to the therapies, this may re-trigger previous behaviors of the prisoners due to the effects of the treatment. The article also states that even informing prisoners about their brain injury along with its symptoms can make a significant difference. Harmon’s article focused on cognitive rehabilitation therapy, which does not focus on the etiology of the individual, but rather a general spectrum of traits for all. This may not be as efficient, especially if particular disorders tend to vary with certain cognitive tasks. If the wrong cognitive task is given to the wrong individual, their symptoms may worsen and thusly may become more violent.

 

Contrary to this, Baskin-Sommers focused on a treatment known as cognitive remediation. This strategy does take etiology into consideration for the individual. Research by Baskin-Sommers, Curtin, and Newman (2014) involved prison inmates who were psychopathic or had externalizing disorders (i.e. ADHD, impulsivity). This experiment contained inmates that have antisocial behaviors affecting their thinking, and thus were provided cognitive remediation, to determine whether or not their thinking abilities could improve. Cognitive remediation is an approach that involves specific cognitive attention to contextual cues using working memory and the ability to focus one’s attention. This involved a number of cognitive tasks used to determine if the behaviors of these inmates changed as a result. The results of this study found improvement in the inmates thought processes and better control over their behaviors. The research of Baskin-Sommers focuses on the various symptoms and reactions of particular tasks appropriate for each disorder which is why two types of tasks were used: attention to contextual information and affective cognitive control. Psychopathic individuals tend to have low fear, reduced psycho-physiological reaction to fear and punishment whereas individuals with externalizing disorders tend to be more emotional with poor impulse control and do not engage in crimes as violent as those who are psychopathic. Psychopaths were found to better recognize salient information and improve self-regulation with attention to contextual information tasks. Those with externalizing traits were less likely to emotionally over-react and also improved their self-regulation through affective cognitive control tasks. These results were shown on tasks that were given instruction as well as those without. The findings of the experiment suggest that remediation may be a significant stepping stone in reducing the existing violent behaviors of the prisoners; allowing for prisoners to take a step back and be able to control their cognitive thoughts as well as behaviors.

Regarding remediation and therapy in both sources, it appears as though remediation may be the better treatment for prisoners suffering from brain injury, for it takes into consideration the various traits of the individual and treats that individual according to their respective disorder. Further, with the results of the study, remediation strategies may reduce the aggression of these prisoners and increase the control over their behaviors, therefore suggesting that cognitive remediation could be a remedy for disaster.

Baskin-Sommers, Arielle R., Curtin, John J., Newman, Joseph P. (2014). Altering the Cognitive-Affective Dysfunctions of Psychopathic and Externalizing Offender Subtypes with Cognitive Remediation. Clinical Psychological Science.

Harmon, K. (2012, February 4). Brain Injury Rate 7 Times Greater among U.S. Prisoners. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/traumatic-brain-injury-prison/