Qamar Bradford

Mission Statement (1)
My goal with the cognitive certificate is to build enough professional experience that I can explore the ideas of art therapy, drama therapy, exposure therapy, etc. through Cognitive Assistive Technology and apply in a constructive manner for the rehabilitation of people with cognitive disabilities. My approach is heavily influenced from a page from Feminist Theory in its prioritization of male rehabilitation and women’s empowerment from problematic religious and other stigmatizing social structures. While the technologies on the market that have a highly Cognitive Assistive basis are plentiful, the majority lack modeling aspects for social, economic and developmental modeling. Games often focus on individual gain, war and violence, sexual objectification of women, lack of minorities, homophobic themes, competitive sports fixation, etc. It is absolutely arguable whether or not these themes are inherently damaging, however modeling them exclusively--often which happens in our sexually stratified social environments--is a likely culprit in biased and delusional thinking.
Ultimately the creation of medical and psychosocial adjusted Cognitive Assistive Technologies--away from the traditional, crystallized and the prescriptivism of rote memory written and verbal literature based systems--will offer universality, adaptiveness to learning styles, be more ergonomic, built-in accommodations, and offer a larger variety of themes for personal growth and training. Various psychological theories can be formatted into virtual simulations of various levels of technological immersion as well as can be done for vocational assessments and trainings. In conjunction with referral from various demographic outreach organizations, integration into state rehabilitation agencies and other publicly funded vocational programs and universities, Cognitive Assistive Technology can be a regular training mechanism for rehabilitation in the vocational sense as well as for assessment and therapeutics.

San Diego schools are being overwhelmed by non-accommodated ESL students who are being placed in Special Education classes. In these classes teachers are too overwhelmed with a workload of long, tedious assessments and also administering IEPs not only to the students with disabilities they’ve been trained to handle, but also ESL students for whom they have limited resources. This paper explores ways to assess, accommodate and teach to ESL students with special attention to those who may have cognitive disabilities. The paper will be written bilingually and investigate psycholiguistic, neurolinguistic and CBT approaches and their applications in curriculum and assistive technologies including assessments, games, teaching tools and apps.

Coming from a house of counseling parents, I grew up acclimated to an environment of helping, consideration and introspection. As I have experienced the curriculum regarding the theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy as posited in Gerald Corey’s text, I’ve realized that the various counseling approaches to which my parents exposed were centered upon the models in the book. Exposed to personal centered approaches and narrative approaches of looking at especially the intellectual African-American experiences with which I was raised; via the cognitive behavior approaches when they dealt with drug and alcohol dependent consumers; via existential approaches when they dealt with clients dealing with death and loss; and via Feminist approaches while supporting clients living in the LGBT community; I was slowly developing a counseling approach. This paper explores my development of my unique method. My Qamarist approach which acknowledges that race, gender, sexuality, etc. are all important qualitative axis we traverse in an ultimate axis of existence, each quality containing a range of pyschophysiosocial abilities with which our lifetime is spent in learning how to maneuver and cope.

Although ASD orders, including HFA like Asperger’s, often incorporate symptomologies that portray affected persons as socially incapable and “impeded”, Daniel Tammet's memoir displays the exact inverse. Specifically through examples of his life he shows the ability to connect at an individual social level in a variety of degrees and also at a higher level of civic duty in his ability to the larger system of society that surrounds him. Manuals like the DSM must take into account the way in which individuals fit into social framework, but also how they innovate and improve it. Looking at Daniel Tammet's memoir, I discuss how the ASD diagnosis relates to empathy addressing the description of being socially or emotionally withdrawn or incongruent. I look at examples from his childhood and adulthood and his relationship with his boyfriend. I also talk about how ASD relates to the shape of society and how Daniel’s discreet information skills and international relations skills serve a civic role. Then I address ASD accommodations for education and vocation; development of synesthetic curricula; and the need to acknowledge culture, socialization, politics as information systems need to be incorporated into curricula. Lastly I touch upon the need of domestic collaboration and foreign competition as a socioeconomic focus, rather than domestic competition and foreign collaboration as our multinational corporate systems are prone. Finally I address more discrete, specialized and rewarding job divisioning.

I’ve always grown up in an environment centered on counseling, patience interaction and openness to learning styles. In my own family I have multiple members with both cognitive and psychiatric disabilities, some more sever than others. I’ve an aunt on each side with schizophrenia, but handled in two different ways. I have an uncle on my father's side with severe intellectual disabilities. He was much older and very inaccessible for me to ever really get to know and lives institutionalized out of state. Although I’m new to the field and make nomenclature errors, my parents worked very hard to impart upon me African-centered ideals of community integration and humanism when cooperating with anyone disabled. To the point that I almost wed a woman with schizophrenia, though it failed due to my inability to comprehend her disability… and my hope that we could work through it, though my own love was not enough. But as they say, “ce la vie”.
However my interactions with disability and my own experiences with low-comprehension in my youth and slight vision impairment now have broadened my heart, though whether reaching an individual I understand is a faith-based goal that can only be gauged by ultimate outcomes. The interview with Mr. Stephen Hinkle for definitely assured me that with a positive narrative, sufficient love and effort along the way, we are capable of productive outcomes.

In the 1960s, Stan Lee and Marvel Comics premiered X-Men. The book was an enthralling narrative of people born with congenital or genetic characteristics that made them different from the rest of society at large. These differences–sometimes extraordinary powers, sometimes extraordinary disabilities were accordingly a pivot leading to either stigma or privilege. The story revolves around two major characters in the book who embody those philosophies leading people with the x-gene to master their mutation into action of privilege or stigma. Although the X-MEN is a pulp fantasy of a hopeful, industrial, post War America, its fanciful and socially relevant themes provide a model of guidance and exploration upon the themes of biological condition, adaptive technology, the mind and human potential, rehabilitation of weaknesses into strengths and the advocacy and self-identity of the minority in face of adversity from the majority. The book provides a rich framework for exploring Rehabilitation Counseling and an analysis of the human condition.

How can rehabilitation counselors improve the quality of life for persons with Asperger's Syndrome & ASD? Rehabilitation counselors can improve the quality of life for persons with Asperger's Syndrome & ASD by adjusting the QoL's baseline and benchmarks relative to both the dreams and the limitations of the consumer.  First we’ll explore the nature of Asperger’s and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Then we’ll look at a variety of benchmarks and baselines indicators for quality of life in general, including some general governmental benchmarks, philosophical considerations, societal approaches of measure, most authoritatively exemplified by those measurements utilized by our governing bodies, and finally health care industry qualifiers of health and life and finally our advocacy for our consumers and clients as whole persons. In the case for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Asperger's Disorder, some tests may play less of a role than others. Then we’ll look at the natures of hopes and dreams most often held by populations diagnosed with AS via an analysis of interviews. Then we’ll discuss accommodations and therapies for the functional limitations that are included in ASD diagnosis. Disabled as able bodied, disability as a limited condition, and methods of advocacy for the ASD diagnosed: Society as a body, bigotry as an ailment, propaganda as a treatment.

State Vocational Rehabilitation VR agencies (VRAs) handle large numbers when it comes to processing cases of disability for employment. When it comes to caseworkers’ loads, cognitive disabilities dominate-- learning disabilities, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD NOS), traumatic brain injury (TBI), Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) and others. Using the powerful technology of virtual reality, augmented reality and simulation engines, VRAs can affect the tide in the numbers battle that case managers and workers deal with everyday. This paper will take a technologist approach to understanding how our cognition is synaptically hard-wired. First it will explore the mechanisms of the brain and the general principles on which it runs. Then it will discuss how our physiological cognition compares to our psychosociological perceptions of cognition, "metacognition". Addressing the discrepancy, the discussion will then propose the technological solution of Virtual/ Augmented Reality Game Technologies (VARGTs), highlighting its strategic importance in supporting current policy, what those policies are and strategies for integrating the technology.
Keywords: virtual reality, augmented reality, cognition, cognitive disability