Neurophysiology has provided three processes that form a unit of functional abilities. The processes that unite ability to function are:
- Aroused attention,
- Sustained attention, and
- Processing speed.
Former editions of the Allen Cognitive Levels (ACLs) have analysed behaviour while doing specific actions and activities (1985, 1987, 1992, 1995). Behaviour and specific activities are too inefficient because there are too many activities in the world. We would be doing activity analysis for centuries. The mental ability to process information provided an efficiency boost because the cues that entered the information processing system were defined (1999).
From the advantage of hindsight, the error in the information processing system is that the cues are selected, by the person or the occupational therapists. Aroused attention is a subtle shift that makes a big difference in my mind because it replaces selection with biological determination.
With a cognitive disability, a biological determination of what information captures the person's attention makes more sense to me. The biology of the brain reduces the information that arouses the person's attention. People do not choose to have a cognitive disability and a blank look on a person's face is not a willful choice. A blank look means that the person's brain is not computing, period. Aroused attention means that the person's brain is engaged in doing an action or an activity.
The current edition of the ACLs concentrates on aroused attention to qualities of sensorimotor information. The information that goes into the brain can be processed. Available information that is ignored by the person can be ignored by us too. The information that arouses attention and guides the person as they cause effects can be found in many different material objects. Bingo! We can now generalise from one activity to another.
Aroused Attention
Aroused attention starts all conscious mental processes. The conscious person functions after attention is aroused and not without aroused attention. The person can pay attention to any information that matches the top definition of information that arouses their attention.
The power of attention as a predictor of a person's cognitive ability to function and in the selection of actions or activities must be taken seriously. The fuel required to start and keep attention going at any speed is supplied by energy that comes from the physiology of the brain. The mechanism is probably electrical because the physiological energy of the brain is electrical. Therefore, the hierarchy of sensorimotor information that arouses attention can probably be measured electrically too. The hierarchy of sensorimotor information that arouses attention has been linked to information processing speed and sustained attention time by the ACLs. The action and activities that arouse attention probably have equivalent amounts of electrical energy needed to arouse attention. Information that is too high for the person probably requires more electrical energy to arouse attention than the person has now.
Abstract information passes by people with a cognitive disability as if it did not exist at all. The assumption that they could if they would is flat out wrong. Willpower is limited by the mental energy of the person.
Sustained Attention
Sustained attention time is the length of time for a single session doing an action, activity or occupation. The ACDM excludes breaks, rest periods, and pauses longer than a minute because they are sly ways of cheating that produce nonsense data.
Information Processing Speed
Information processing speed is slower for the cognitively disabled than normal. We know that the speed can be incredibly slow when the person is bed ridden, and that the speed slowly increases as the ability to function increases.