Overcoming Learning Disabilities
A Vygotskian-Lurian Neuropsychological Approach

Based on the ideas of Russian psychologists Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, this book explores methods of preventing or overcoming learning disabilities.

Tatiana V. Akhutina (Author), Natalia M. Pylaeva (Author)

9781107531659, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 July 2015

318 pages, 138 b/w illus. 10 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

"...Readers will recognize in this book many ideas that are now common to Russian and North American psychologies, but they also will find many innovative features characteristic of the branch of Russian neuropsychology represented in the volume. Some ideas will be reminiscent of what has been presented in books on Russian psychology in English before, whereas others will be new. All in all, Overcoming Learning Disabilities: A Vygotskian–Lurian Neuropsychological Approach is a wonderful read, connecting the past and the present and the West and the East."
--Dr. Elena L. Grigorenko, Yale, Columbia University and Moscow State University, PsycCRITIQUES

Based on the ideas of Russian psychologists Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, this book explores methods of preventing or overcoming learning disabilities. Tatiana V. Akhutina and Natalia M. Pylaeva build on Vygotsky and Luria's sociocultural theory and their principle of a systemic structure and dynamic organization of higher mental functions. They focus on the interactive scaffolding of the weak components of the child's functional systems, the transition from joint child-adult co-actions, and the emotional involvement of the child. The authors discuss effective ways to remediate issues with attention, executive functions (working memory and cognitive control) and spatial and visual-verbal functions. Overcoming Learning Disabilities translates complex problems into easily understandable concepts useful to school psychologists, special and general education teachers, and parents of children with learning disabilities.

Part I. General Issues in Development and Remediation of Higher Mental Functions: 1. Neuropsychology of individual differences in children as the foundation for the application of neuropsychological methods at school
2. Methodology of neuropsychological intervention in children with uneven development of mental functions
3. What psychologists, teachers, and parents need to know about children with learning disabilities
4. Neuropsychological support of remedial and developing education
5. Neuropsychological approach to development of health preserving educational techniques
Part II. Methods of Development and Remediation of Executive Functions: 6. Organization of joint activity
7. The 'School of Attention' method - approbation and pilot study of effectiveness
8. Modified psychological methods to facilitate development of the executive functions
9. Numerical sequences in the remedial work with the 4th-graders
10. The role of the analysis of the zone of proximal development in the course of remediation of executive functions: an example
Part III. Methods of Developing Visual-Verbal Functions: 11. Remediation of visual-verbal functions in 5-7 year old children
12. Perceptual modeling in visual-verbal functions development
Part IV. Methods of Developing Visual-Spatial Functions: 13. Development of visual-spatial functions
14. 'Construct the figure' methods in assessment and remediation of visual-spatial functions
15. The use of construction methods to develop spatial functions
16. Table and computer games to improve spatial functions in children with cerebral palsy
17. Directions of intervention for developing visual-spatial functions to prepare children for school
18. Neuropsychologist-teacher collaboration in designing a 'numbers' composition' manual
19. On visual spatial dysgraphia: neuropsychological analysis and methods of remediation
Part V. Neuropsychological Interventions in Children with Severe Developmental Delay: 20. 'Tracking diagnostics' methods: Case 1. Predominant delay in the development of programming and control functions (unit III)
Case 2. Predominant delay in the development of information processing functions (unit II)
Case 3. Predominant delay in the development of energy support functions (unit I).

Subject Areas: Educational psychology [JNC], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Psychology [JM]