David Skuse Quotations

Teenagers really do get 'dumber' in their social intelligence around the time of puberty,

Does this explain the Kevin phenomenon? It might be behind the social ineptitude of early adolescents, the seeming inability to understand the two expressions that have this dip most strikingly - sadness and anger.

It looks as though when the brain reorganizes itself during puberty, rewires itself as a consequence of the hormonal changes presumably taking place at that time...we actually get worse at recognizing facial expressions and remembering faces we have seen before than we were 5 years previously,

It may be that they are simply unable to read them.

For some emotions, such as anger, we see a dip in the ability to perform these tasks around puberty,

The theory that autism is the extreme of the male brain is not strongly supported by these data,

At six years, 70% of boys are below the mean for girls; so in other words, 70% of boys are worse than 50% of girls,

There is deterioration for some facial expressions, particularly sadness and anger, at puberty for boys and girls. If anything it's actually worse for girls.

If teachers attempt to control boys by subtle means, such as raised eyebrows, and the boys ignore these cues, it may be that they simply are not able to read them and decode them accurately,

One wonders sometimes if they understand anything you are saying. It would appear that this is a function of their brain at that time.