Neuropsychology Of Language Reading And Spelling

Neuropsychology of Language, Reading, and Spelling explores the many neural systems and subsystems that contribute to the production and comprehension of oral and written language. This book is organized into five parts encompassing 12 chapters that emerged from the 1980 International Conference on the Neuropsychology of Language, Reading, and Spelling, sponsored by the Program in Neurosciences and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. This conference highlights the neurological and behavioral interrelatedness of language, reading, and spelling. After briefly dealing with the cognitive and language development, as well as learning to read and to spell as instances of acquiring skill, this book goes on discussing the activity of the learner in the development skill, the influence of interacting forces in the developing nervous systems, and the role of peripheral mechanisms in the development of speech and language. A chapter examines the central integrative mechanisms, specifically the electrophysiological research with infants on the dependence of language perception on multidimensional, complexes processes, and not solely as a left- or right-hemisphere task. This chapter also provides evidence of discrete localization of language processes within the dominant hemisphere at both cortical and subcortical levels. The final four chapters are devoted to an analysis of developmental disorders from the varied perspectives of neurology, linguistics, neuropsychology, and education. This book will be of value to neuropsychologists and developmental biologists.

This distinctive cross-linguistic examination of spelling examines the cognitive processes that underlie spelling and the process of learning how to spell. The chapters report and summarize recent research in English, German, Hebrew, and French. Framing the specific research on spelling are chapters that place spelling in braod theoretical perspectives provided by cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistic, and writing system-linguistic frameworks. Of special interest is the focus on two major interrelated issues: how spelling is acquired and the relationship between reading and spelling. An important dimension of the book is the interweaving of these basic questions about the nature of spelling with practical questions about how children learn to spell in classrooms. A motivating factor in this work was to demonstrate that spelling research has become a central challenging topic in the study of cognitive processes, rather than an isolated skill learned in school. It thus brings together schooling and learning issues with modern cognitive research in a unique way. testing, children writing strings of letters as a teacher pronounces words ever so clearly. In parts of the United States it can also bring an image of specialized wizardry and school room competition, the "spelling bee." And for countless adults who confess with self-deprecation to being "terrible spellers," it is a reminder of a mysterious but minor affliction that the fates have visited on them. Beneath these popular images, spelling is a human literacy ability that reflects language and nonlanguage cognitive processes. This collection of papers presents a sample of contemporary research across different languages that addresses this ability. To understand spelling as an interesting scientific problem, there are several important perspectives. First, spelling is the use of conventionalized writing systems that encode languages. A second asks how children learn to spell. Finally, from a literacy point of view, another asks the extent to which spelling and reading are related. In collecting some of the interesting research on spelling, the editors have adopted each of these perspectives. Many of the papers themselves reflect more than one perspective, and the reader will find important observations about orthographies, the relationship between spelling and reading, and issues of learning and teaching throughout the collection.

This book brings together current research findings on the involvement of word-internal structure for the purpose of word reading (especially morphological structure). The central theme of reading complex words is approached from several angles, such that the chapters span a wide variety of topics where this issue is important. It is a valuable resource for all researchers studying the mental lexicon and to those who teach advanced courses in the psychology of language.

This volume includes chapters by a number of leading researchers in the area of reading and spelling development. They review what is currently known about both normal and impaired development of decoding, comprehension, and spelling skills. They also consider recent work on the remediation of reading and spelling difficulties in children and discuss effective remedial strategies.

The past decade has brought important advances in our understanding of the brain, particularly its influence on the behavior, emotions, and personality of children and adolescents. In the tradition of its predecessors, the third edition of the Handbook of Clinical Child Neuropsychology enhances this understanding by emphasizing current best practice, up-to-date science, and emerging theoretical trends for a comprehensive review of the field. Along with the Handbook’s impressive coverage of normal development, pathology, and professional issues, brand-new chapters highlight critical topics in assessment, diagnostic, and treatment, including, The role and prevalence of brain dysfunction in ADHD, conduct disorder, the autistic spectrum, and other childhood disorders; The neuropsychology of learning disabilities; Assessment of Spanish-speaking children and youth; Using the PASS (planning, attention, simultaneous, successive) theory in neurological assessment; Forensic child neuropsychology; Interventions for pediatric coma. With singular range, timeliness, and clarity, the newly updated Handbook of Clinical Child Neuropsychology reflects and addresses the ongoing concerns of practitioners as diverse as neuropsychologists, neurologists, clinical psychologists, pediatricians, and physical and speech-language therapists.

For a period of some fifteen years following completion of my internship training in clinical psychology (1950-1951) at the Washington University School of Medicine and my concurrent successful navigation through that school's neuroanatomy course, clinical work in neuropsychology for me and the psychologists of my generation consisted almost exclusively of our trying to help our physician colleagues differentiate patients with neurologic disorders from those with psychiatric disorders. In time, experience led all of us from the several disciplines involved in this enterprise to the conclusion that the crude diagnostic techniques available to us circa 1945-1965 had garnered little valid information on which to base such complex, differential diagnostic decisions. It now is gratifying to look back and review the remarkable progress that has occurred in the field of clinical neuropsychology in the four decades since I was a graduate student. In the late 1940s such pioneers as Ward Halstead, Alexander Luria, George Yacorzynski, Hans-Lukas Teuber, and Arthur Benton already were involved in clinical studies that, by the late 1960s, would markedly have improved the quality of clinical practice. However, the only psychological tests that the clinical psychologist of my immediate post Second Wodd War generation had as aids for the diagnosis of neurologically based conditions involving cognitive deficit were such old standbys as the Wechsler-Bellevue, Rorschach, Draw A Person, Bender Gestalt, and Graham Kendall Memory for Designs Test.

Neuropsychological and Cognitive Processes in Reading explores reading and reading disabilities within the context of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology. Emphasis is on the roles of brain mechanisms in reading and reading disturbances. In the areas of perception and cognition, theoretical models of the reading process are used to highlight the various psychological processes involved in the act of skilled reading. Comprised of 12 chapters, this volume begins with an introduction to the fundamental processes of reading, giving particular attention to a psychological theory that builds on two concepts: that the basic processes of reading are few in number, and that they are separable from one another. A useful and testable information-processing model of reading that consists of three separable, fundamental processes - decoding, word meaning, and sentence comprehension - is described. Subsequent chapters deal with some of the external and internal factors involved in reading; a model of disorders of reading comprehension (the alexias); the neuropsychological test performance of brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged dyslexic children; and the problem of subtypes of learning disability. Eye movements and perceptual spans in reading are also discussed, along with reading comprehension and the problem of agrammatism. The final chapter analyzes the factors that influence recovery from alexia. This book will be of interest to neuropsychologists and those engaged in neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and educational psychology.

This handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date summary of neuropsychological approaches to the assessment and study of individual differences. The book covers individual differences in mental abilities such as intelligence, mental retardation, learning memory, language, and reading. In addition, it discusses neurological models of cognitive information processing individual differences in personality and temperament, and neuro-psychological approaches to the assessment of learning disabilities and psychopathological disorders.