The Ghost of Christmas Present. I was recently at a conference where I was approached by a psychologist who overheard some conversation about the work I do in technology. She expressed interest in receiving some information. I asked her to send me an email so I could embed some links with descriptions.

“Oh, no” she countered, “I don’t use email. I'm philosophically opposed to using it.”

I paused. Even though I had previously encountered this philosophical refrain, it had been some time. She very nicely told me that she would be happy to speak by phone. The problem was that she wanted web links. Have you ever tried to spell out a long, complex web link, let alone several of them? A nightmare. What would have taken five minutes of my time by email would require closer to twenty minutes by phone. This doesn’t include the likelihood that a single missed letter or symbol would result in her not accessing the information she requested. She smiled and, after thinking for a moment told me, “Perhaps I’ll break my email rule, just this once.”

The Ghost of Christmas Future. For the past few months I have been actively involved with approximately 250 school psychologists who have been participating in a research project. In order to track their progress completing three surveys the research team designed, I used a piece of web research software that tracks whether each email was received, when it was opened, when the respondent first opened each survey, and when it was completed. The software worked just fine -- but only for 130 out of the 250 I needed to track. The other emails were largely rejected as spam.

It proved so ludicrous that later, as they required technical support for accessing or completing the surveys, I could receive emails, but could not respond to them. I probably spent more time trying to figure out how to reach certain individuals than I did actually helping them.

However, those who understood what “whitelisting” meant were able to add my email address and website information, enabling smooth communication between us. Many however, professed irritation and fear regarding “whitelisting.” Those who used the feature found it required between 15 seconds and two minutes of their time. Judging by the length of some of the emails, those who did not “whitelist” my email spent far more time feeling frustrated than those who solved the problem.

The Ghost of Christmas Past.Two weeks ago on a Friday I received an unusual email. The writer professed to have known me approximately twenty years ago when I worked at a state hospital in Massachusetts. She mentioned my exact position, “principal psychologist,” and the correct name of the facility, then suggested I had taken her out for a meal to a “lovely cafe.” She recalled how “wonderful” my shoes were and how much she missed them (yes, you read correctly).

Initially my anxiety went up, especially since it was signed “love always.” She wrote that she was writing just to “catch up” and alluded to her “two children.” The fact was, other than my position and the name of the facility, nothing else in the email made sense. I had no recollection of this person or the events she described. My wife worried that perhaps I was being stalked. Although I haven’t answered the email, I am pretty certain this is a form of a scam.

My guess: The person, probably not a female to begin with, found my resume online and selected an isolated piece of my professional history. Were I to respond, my guess is the “two children” would become a more salient feature of her desire to "catch up." Of course, it’s tempting to respond, just to see if I’m right, but the rule for scams is: don’t respond.

Philosophically opposed to email? Afraid to "whitelist"? An unknown past admirer who just wants to "catch up" and remembers your shoes? Terrifying!

The And the Moral of the Story is -- Simple. Many of you are avoiding learning more about technology. With the advent of electronic IEPs, Medical Records, and other online uses, it’s time to begin. You can visit John Grohol’s site (just wait 5 seconds to skip the ad) at http://psychcen tral.com/best which reviews some e-therapy practices. A nice summary and guidelines about using email and other online methods for therapy plus useful links can be found at http://www.m-a-h.net/hip. If you are a rank beginner, use Google or Yahoo and type in the words “computer, beginner,” and “tutorials” (leaving out the commas and quotes. You’ll find many excellent sites at no charge offering to teach you computing skills.

Mental health and special education practitioners must keep up with the times. We do not eschew treatments, simply because they are new. Technology is not going away. It doesn't have to be a Dicksonian nightmare either. Having a basic working knowledge of technology will place you in a better position to decide whether something is a useful tool or an unnecessary encumbrance. Ignorance eliminates the possibility of choice.

When I applied for my internship in psychology, a well-known professor at my university privately chided me for wishing to go to Boston Children’s Hospital. I wanted a more rounded perspective after having been immersed in several years of applied behavior analysis and learning theory. “Bruce, going to Boston is one of the dumbest things you could do. What do you need to know about those eight Rorschach cards anyway?” (Pssst! Jon, there are ten cards). Going to Boston was best thing I ever did. Now I can CHOOSE not to use the Rorschach, having a full understanding of the instrument.

Will you be in a similar position to make choices about what technology to adopt or reject? Don’t enter into 2006 without making a commitment to become minimally proficient in technology.

This issue’s case involves “Norma.” Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, she has participated in one of my social skills group programs for several years. She had difficulty reading social cues and would become very anxious. Norma would ask detailed personal questions, have difficulty staying on the topic, and used to exhibit limited eye contact, which has improved over time. But, perhaps her most memorable behavioral challenge was her tendency to purchase watches. Hours changed at her part time job -- buy a watch. Parents going on a trip -- buy a watch, daylight savings time -- you get the idea. Norma not only would buy watches, but she would immediately tear up the receipt so they couldn’t be returned.

Having worked with her in successfully helping her better monitor her social behavior and practice more socially acceptable responses in group, I had been reasonably ineffectual at helping her control her watch-buying urges. She even bounced checks, coming to the attention of the D.A.’s office, which only raised her anxiety, and correspondingly, her watch-buying behavior.

At one point, she had amassed a collection of over two hundred watches. One day, a well-meaning behavior support staff criticized Norma for owning too many watches. That night, she dumped approximately one hundred of them into the trash chute of her apartment building. Impulsive judgment without considering consequences is not uncommon for persons with AS.

We had tried behavior charts, tracking systems developed in Word, even telephone checking in. We set up reward systems, response cost systems, and role plays to expose her to her anxiety. The response cost system, where Norma had to donate one dollar which would be given to a homeless person (something she did not want to see happen, “they should get a job, like me,” she would counter), had the most success. But it was limited.

In 2002, Norma became one of the first sets of clients to use Progress Communicator (Disclosure: This application was developed by BehaviorTech Solutions. It allows a client to track their behavior and report progress to others.) In Norma’s case, she opted to have other group members learn of her progress, in addition to one being sent to me each time she completed it. Now in use for over 3.5 years, she has logged in a total of 1314 times, a 99.3% compliance rate. Norma’s results indicate that she has an urge to buy a watch 32% of the time. However, she has acted on this urge just 4% of the time. Baseline data, prior to the initiation of this program, indicate watch-buying was occurring approximately two to three times per month. In the first year of the program, Norma’s average watch- buying was one watch every two months. The next year of the program, her data showed an interesting pattern. Norma purchased only five watches during the period between January and August of 2003. However, in the final quarter of the year, she purchased eight watches. She maintained excellent control in 2004, buying watches in only five months of the entire year, purchasing a total of seven watches for 2004. The current year showed continued control, until August. She has since increased her watch buying for the past five months, buying two to three watches per month, the highest rate since the program began.

The increased pattern is concerning, especially if dollar costs are examined. Between the thirteen month period between April 2004 and April 2005, Norma spent just $292, buying no watches in eight out of thirteen months. Yet in the past eight months, she has spent $644, nearly double what she spent the previous year.

I know, this story is supposed to have a happy ending and we’re not there yet. But look how easily a detailed analysis can be conducted on Norma’s behavior. Now there is solid evidence to use to help her set very clear targets and better control her spending. The advantages of this form of tracking have been that Norma has shown sustained control over her urges for nearly three years. The recent trend toward increased watch-buying has emerged slowly, but now there is five months of data showing very slight, but significant pattern rise.

Our current planned intervention: 1) Confront Norma with the data. 2) Increase the level of group support and feedback on her logs. 3) Modify the form. Norma has used the same form, with only one minor modification in 2003. She is able to recognize, via form tracking, that she is most likely to buy a watch when she is bored, tired, or if there is a significant life event (e.g., job hours change, store manager leaves). The point is, we have solid data for tracking our response to intervention. And, in this case, the form itself acts as both an intervention tool and a monitoring tool.

Do you need a good picture organizer program? Would you like to be able to edit all the pictures on your hard drive? Would it be all right if it were FREE? Then point your browser to http://pic asa.google.com/index.html and download Picasa, a program that will search your hard drive(s) for all your photographs, let you make collages (like the one on the left), burn CD’s, even upload your pictures to your favorite web- based photo processing service. Don’t just take my word for it.

Visit PC Magazine's review for an independent review. Or visit About.com for a second opinion. It isn’t as powerful when it comes to editing photographs, but its organizing tools are just great! I think it’s a wonderful beginner’s program. (Yes, that's a sample which took about 3 minutes to create -- most of that time spent finding the pictures to include).