Brenda Rapp – författare

Cognitive neuropsychological research studies of people with cognitive deficits have typically been directed either at investigating methods of intervention, or at furthering our understanding of normal and impaired cognition. This book reports on research that combines these goals, using studies that use intervention as a ‘tool’ for investigating hypotheses about the functioning of the human cognitive system. The introductory chapter discusses some of the unique and more general difficulties that this approach faces, while the five reports describe intervention studies with children and adults with cognitive impairments – studies which investigate current theories of cognition. The studies demonstrate that the use of intervention to study cognition is a promising and valuable methodology. Aiming to promote wider use of these combined methods, this book makes it clear that while the approach faces various methodological and interpretative challenges, it has the advantage of providing advances on issues of theory while, at the same time providing treatment to participants, and bringing together what have been largely separate research traditions. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology.

The ability to communicate with written language is critical for success in school and in the workplace. Unfortunately, many children suffer from developmental dysgraphia—impairment in acquiring spelling or handwriting skills—and this form of impairment has received relatively little attention from researchers and educators. This volume brings together, for the first time, theoretically grounded and methodologically rigorous research on developmental dysgraphia, presented alongside reviews of the typical development of spelling and writing skills. Leading experts on writing and dysgraphia shed light on different types of impairments that can affect the learning of spelling and writing skills, and provide insights into the typical development of these skills. The volume, which contributes both to the basic science of literacy and to the applied science of diagnosing and treating developmental dysgraphia, should interest researchers, educators, and clinicians. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology.

The ability to communicate with written language is critical for success in school and in the workplace. Unfortunately, many children suffer from developmental dysgraphia—impairment in acquiring spelling or handwriting skills—and this form of impairment has received relatively little attention from researchers and educators. This volume brings together, for the first time, theoretically grounded and methodologically rigorous research on developmental dysgraphia, presented alongside reviews of the typical development of spelling and writing skills. Leading experts on writing and dysgraphia shed light on different types of impairments that can affect the learning of spelling and writing skills, and provide insights into the typical development of these skills. The volume, which contributes both to the basic science of literacy and to the applied science of diagnosing and treating developmental dysgraphia, should interest researchers, educators, and clinicians. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology.

Cognitive neuropsychological research studies of people with cognitive deficits have typically been directed either at investigating methods of intervention, or at furthering our understanding of normal and impaired cognition. This book reports on research that combines these goals, using studies that use intervention as a ‘tool’ for investigating hypotheses about the functioning of the human cognitive system. The introductory chapter discusses some of the unique and more general difficulties that this approach faces, while the five reports describe intervention studies with children and adults with cognitive impairments – studies which investigate current theories of cognition. The studies demonstrate that the use of intervention to study cognition is a promising and valuable methodology. Aiming to promote wider use of these combined methods, this book makes it clear that while the approach faces various methodological and interpretative challenges, it has the advantage of providing advances on issues of theory while, at the same time providing treatment to participants, and bringing together what have been largely separate research traditions. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology.

This volume reviews the full range of cognitive domains that have benefited from the study of deficits. Chapters covered include language, memory, object recognition, action, attention, consciousness and temporal cognition.

Written language permeates virtually every aspect of modern society and literacy plays a central role in determining the economic and personal success of the individual. However, while the importance of written language comprehension (reading) is generally acknowledged, the significance of written language expression (spelling) is often overlooked. As a result, there has been relatively little research directed at understanding the cognitive and neural bases of written language production. Equally surprising is that the treatment of written language deficits is largely neglected in the training of clinical aphasiologists and speech and language pathologists. This is particularly problematic given the evidence that written language skills may be amenable to treatment even when spoken language deficits are not. Thus the successful treatment of acquired dsygraphia may provide a means of communication for individuals who otherwise may be severely limited in their communication abilities. This volume seeks to provide an overview of the state-of-the-field by bringing together a collection of research papers concerning the treatment of written language deficits in individuals with acquired dysgraphia, along with investigations of the cognitive processes and neural substrates of written language production. In addition, the inclusion, within this volume, of papers investigating the cognitive processing and neural substrates of non-alphabetic written language codes such as Chinese and Japanese, provides an impetus to consider the ways in which the cognitive processes and neural substrates responsible for written language processing may be similar or different across languages and language codes. The broadening of the domain of investigation in this manner can only lead to a deeper understanding of written language processing, its neural bases and the methods that can be successfully used in facilitating its recovery.