Our most chronic young criminals often have no capacity for internal imaging. Lacking this they must resort to primitive, physical, sensory motor, reflexive responses to the world, which is often violent.

Childhood suicide in America begins at age three. Suicide is the third cause of death of American children between the age of five and seventeen.

Historically there were no movies, not until the mind 1920’s. Television did not arrive until 1950. Normal development was filled with rich diets of descriptive language, words without pictures which naturally developed the critical capacity for internal imagery.

Storytelling and the ability to create internal images not present to the senses leads to play. Play is the way children learn. Learning is interacting. This interaction is scripted by story. Story promotes play and around and around we go unfolding evermore complex stories, interaction, learning and development.

When reading or telling a child a story the stimulus coming in is ‘word.’ The responds in the brain is ‘imagery.’ When you pair the word with an image, as with video and computer programs, there is nothing for the high brain to do. No activity in the prefrontal regions. No demand made on the neocortex.