EmergingAlbert
Active Member
Hey guys...I'm back! Well, I never really "left" per se, but I haven't posted in a reeeeally long time. I haven't really thought of anything to post. But alas, I have finally had a revelation that I would like to post about!
I have had epilepsy for my entire life, and I have known since I was a young teenager that this is due to heterotopic gray matter in my brain. I learned this from an MRI. This is no special revelation. The revelation is the way HGM can affect cognitive functioning.
I have also from an early age had trouble with certain cognitive skills, but I never really understood the source of these. For example, I have always taken sometimes up to twice as long to complete tests than the average student. I also have always found it hard to relate to the way other people think (which I believe has a lot to do with my INTP personality, but it's more than that), and both strangers and close friends and relatives have always treated me as if I have a disability. It's always driven me crazy...it often makes me feel stupid, which I know I'm not.
I also took a series of neuropsychological tests in high school that ended up qualifying me for extra time on the ACT and eventually extra time on tests in college through disability services. The tests revealed that my processing speed, working memory, and certain social tasks were below average, especially processing speed.
Several months ago, my girlfriend expressed concern that I might have autism. She said many of her friends have thought that about me. After that, I finally decided I HAD to figure out what was up. I mean, I knew that I had all these random, seemingly unrelated cognitive deficits that couldn't be explained by any diagnosed disorder, but I didn't know why.
Just a couple weeks ago, I decided I would go and see the disability counselor at school. I was pretty sure that she had all of my neuropsychological examinations since she is the one who granted me extra time on tests and gave me all the accommodation forms to give my professors. Although she isn't a neuropsychologist and couldn't explain everything in my results, she did read some of my results to me, and things finally started to come together. Apparently, many of these cognitive deficits were due to the heterotopic gray matter in my brain. After this meeting, I Googled HGM and found an extremely informative article about it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_matter_heterotopia
Anyway, does anyone else have any experience with or expertise on HGM? If you actually have it, what have you struggled with cognitively and socially?
I have had epilepsy for my entire life, and I have known since I was a young teenager that this is due to heterotopic gray matter in my brain. I learned this from an MRI. This is no special revelation. The revelation is the way HGM can affect cognitive functioning.
I have also from an early age had trouble with certain cognitive skills, but I never really understood the source of these. For example, I have always taken sometimes up to twice as long to complete tests than the average student. I also have always found it hard to relate to the way other people think (which I believe has a lot to do with my INTP personality, but it's more than that), and both strangers and close friends and relatives have always treated me as if I have a disability. It's always driven me crazy...it often makes me feel stupid, which I know I'm not.
I also took a series of neuropsychological tests in high school that ended up qualifying me for extra time on the ACT and eventually extra time on tests in college through disability services. The tests revealed that my processing speed, working memory, and certain social tasks were below average, especially processing speed.
Several months ago, my girlfriend expressed concern that I might have autism. She said many of her friends have thought that about me. After that, I finally decided I HAD to figure out what was up. I mean, I knew that I had all these random, seemingly unrelated cognitive deficits that couldn't be explained by any diagnosed disorder, but I didn't know why.
Just a couple weeks ago, I decided I would go and see the disability counselor at school. I was pretty sure that she had all of my neuropsychological examinations since she is the one who granted me extra time on tests and gave me all the accommodation forms to give my professors. Although she isn't a neuropsychologist and couldn't explain everything in my results, she did read some of my results to me, and things finally started to come together. Apparently, many of these cognitive deficits were due to the heterotopic gray matter in my brain. After this meeting, I Googled HGM and found an extremely informative article about it on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_matter_heterotopia
Anyway, does anyone else have any experience with or expertise on HGM? If you actually have it, what have you struggled with cognitively and socially?
