The Extended Mind is a thesis by Andy Clark and David Chalmers which states that the Mind Extends beyond the brain and encompasses aspects of the physical world. They give an example of a person who has dementia who keeps a diary to remind him of things he needs to do, such as when to take medication, where things are stored etc. If the person with dementia has reliable access to this diary most of the time, then they argue that the information in the diary is part of his extended mind.

            In ordinary circumstances if I want to remember when to do something it is because the information is stored in my brain, and I can access to information to make decisions. I don’t have to always have access to the information sometimes I may forget, but in general I have reliable access to the information. Chalmers and Clark argue that it is arbitrary to consider the information stored in a brain which you can reliably access to be part of your mind but to think that information in your diary which you can reliably access isn’t.

The thesis is counter intuitive. And some people reject it because of this counterintuitive feel, arguing that the thesis extends our ordinary concept of cognition too far. However, this counter argument has little force. There is little reason to assume that our theoretical understanding of a particular phenomena should be intuitive at first. Logical coherence should be the test of the theory not whether it chimes with your folk-psychological concepts.

The argument of Chalmers and Clark focused on information within a diary, but today with our phones which we carry everywhere with us storing so much information, the argument becomes even more radical, with it implying that aspects of the internet that we can reliably access are part of our extended mind.

Intellectual Disability

Psychologist J.J Gibson wrote about affordances which are relational aspects of our environment which we could interact with. Affordances relate not just to features of the environment but to the suitability of the environment to an observer or agent. Thus, steep stairs are an affordance for a person who can walk but to a person in a wheelchair they are not an affordance. Our natural and social environments contain affordances for some people but not for all. What are affordances are depends on the intentions, capabilities, and interests of the individual. In general, we tend to build our environment in such a way that can help people access the affordances they need, for example, building wheelchair ramps.

People with an intellectual disability who are non-verbal have interests and desires, but as a result of being non-verbal they will have difficulties in accessing various affordances in their environment. It is for this reason that there are practices and regulations in place which ensure that organisations who care for people with an intellectual disability do everything possible to ensure that they facilitate their communication capacities. Doing this involves giving them access to Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and a full Multi-Disciplinary Team. Furthermore, staff working with them must be trained in things like techniques to facilitate non-verbal people communicating their needs. Various types of augmentative communication devices are used on the recommendations of SLT, and things are in place such as visual schedules and Picture Exchange Communication System (an augmentative system based on Skinners Verbal Behaviour).

We saw above when discussing the patient with dementia who had reliable access to his diary that this could be considered a part of his extended mind. In the case of a non-verbal person in a service, there are affordances in their environment they may want to access such as going for coffee, visiting friends, going for a bus drive etc. If they can use PECS cards to indicate what they want, and those cards are not reliably available they you are taking away a part of their extended mind. It would be analogous to taking away a person’s prosthetic leg. A prosthetic leg may be artificial, but it is still a part of the persons way of accessing affordances in their environment and the same thing would apply to augmentative communicative systems.

I would argue that a similar thing is true of staff working with non-verbal people in a service. The staffing team ends up as part of the extended mind of the non-verbal person they are supporting. Just like the diary of the person with dementia contains information he can access, and my I-phone contains information I can access, staff working with non-verbal people with an intellectual disability contain information and affordances which a non-verbal person cannot access on their own.

As discussed above, not providing a person with reliable access to their prosthetic leg, denies them access to affordances in their environment, and likewise not providing a non-verbal person with experienced staff who know them and are versed in communication training is denying them affordances in their environment. It is for this reason that there is such a massive push in policies to ensure that effective communication training is available, consistent staffing are maintained etc. However, in a lot of the literature this is spelled out in atomistic terms. Thinking of these issues in terms of the extended mind helps people think  more relationally, and emphasises how our environment, social network, and social supports are partially constitutive of our own minds.