Recognizing the characteristics of children with learning disabilities and deciding how to help them is a problem faced by schools all over the world. Although some disorders are fairly easily recognizable (e.g., mental retardation) or very specific to single components of performance and quite rare (e.g., developmental dyscalculia), schools must consider much larger populations of children with learning difficulties who cannot always be readily classified. These children present high-level learning difficulties that affect their performance on a variety of school tasks, but the underlying problem is often their difficulty in understanding written text. In many instances, despite good intellectual abilities and a superficial ability to cope with written texts and to use language appropriately, some children do not seem to grasp the most important elements, or cannot find the pieces of information they are looking for. Sometimes these difficulties are not immediately detected by the teacher in the early school years. They may be hidden because the most obvious early indicators of reading progress in the teacher's eyes do not involve comprehension of written texts or because the first texts a child encounters are quite simple and reflect only the difficulty level of the oral messages (sentences, short stories, etc.) with which the child is already familiar. However, as years go by and texts get more complex, comprehension difficulties will become increasingly apparent and increasingly detrimental to effective school learning. In turn, studying, assimilating new information, and many other situations requiring text comprehension -- from problem solving to reasoning with linguistic contents -- could be affected.
Problems with decoding, dyslexia, and language disorders have attracted more interest from researchers than have specific comprehension problems and have occupied more room in specialized journals. Normal reading comprehension has also been a favorite with researchers. However, scarce interest has been paid to subjects who have comprehension difficulties. This book is an attempt to remedy this situation. In so doing, this volume answers the following questions:
* Does a reading comprehension problem exist in schools?
* How important and widespread is the problem?
* Is the problem specific?
* How can a reading comprehension difficulty be defined and identified?
* Does the "syndrome" have a single pattern or can different subtypes be identified?
* What are the main characteristics associated with a reading comprehension difficulty?
* When can other well-identified problems add to our understanding of reading comprehension difficulties?
* Which educational strategies are effective in preventing and treating reading comprehension difficulties?
* What supplementary information can we get from an international perspective?

This is the first volume in the Counterpoints Series, which explores the issues being debated in psychology, child development, linguistics, and neuroscience. Each volume consists of the presentation of three or four extensive chapters by researchers representing key points of view on the issue. This text examines one of the liveliest areas of debate in psychology today, the relationship between perception and mental imagery. A variety of recent studies have pointed to the existence of a strong relationship between memory and mental representation, while others have shown that images are open to reinterpretation and manipulation, and are therefore not merely static impressions or mental representations of memories. Three core chapters by researchers in the midst of this debate--Maria Brandimonte, Geir Kaufmann, and Dan Reisberg--make up the central portion of this text. The first chapter is a historical overview of the problem as well as a review of the research in psychology and the argument as it has developed in related fields, such as philosophy and artificial intelligence. The last chapter pulls together all of the positions and points to new areas of research which may help uncover an explanation for the apparent contradictions in the research. Students and researchers in psychology and cognitive psychology will benefit from this comprehensive look at this heated debate.

What is intelligence? How can we examine individual differences in intelligence? What does it mean to be very intelligent or dumb? Such questions have always pervaded human thinking, and have been raised during the development of scientific psychology. However, for many years, the practical needs of having reliable measures of intelligence have prevailed and the field has suffered the limitations of the psychometric approach. Recently, cognitive neuroscience, and in particular cognitive psychology, have proposed new models and data which have revived thinking in this area. This Special Issue offers examples of how the field of cognitive psychology can contribute not only to the refinement of theoretical thinking but also to the development of new tools for the study of human intelligence. The contributors to the issue are prominent researchers in working memory, speed of processing, executive functions, language, and intellectual development/decline and show how their lines of research may contribute key concepts and methods to the field. Different ideas and lines of research within cognitive psychology are presented, but, working memory, despite some contra-indications discussed throughout the issue, emerges from many chapters as the most important contender for the study of central aspects of intelligence.

In this timely and comprehensive text, Cesare Cornoldi and Tomaso Vecchi describe their recently developed experimental approach to the investigation of visuo-spatial cognition, based upon the analysis of individual differences. A review of the most influential theoretical advances in the study of visuo-spatial cognition is presented, including both critical analysis and comparisons between the distinct approaches. In addition, the authors describe recent research into memory for spatial configurations, mental manipulation and the active integration of visuo-spatial information. This includes studies on the effects of congenital blindness on mental imagery abilities, developmental and age-related modifications, gender effects, and the role of genetic syndromes in determining visuo-spatial abilities. The authors draw together these distinct areas of research and integrate the findings within an innovative framework of working memory. This text will be a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of psychology, as well as researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and neuroscience.

In this timely and comprehensive text, Cesare Cornoldi and Tomaso Vecchi describe their recently developed experimental approach to the investigation of visuo-spatial cognition, based upon the analysis of individual differences.
A review of the most influential theoretical advances in the study of visuo-spatial cognition is presented, including both critical analysis and comparisons between the distinct approaches. In addition, the authors describe recent research into memory for spatial configurations, mental manipulation and the active integration of visuo-spatial information. This includes studies on the effects of congenital blindness on mental imagery abilities, developmental and age-related modifications, gender effects, and the role of genetic syndromes in determining visuo-spatial abilities. The authors draw together these distinct areas of research and integrate the findings within an innovative framework of working memory.
This text will be a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of psychology, as well as researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and neuroscience.

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This work is a collection of theoretical statements from a broad range of memory researchers. Each chapter was derived from a presentation given at the 2nd International Conference on Memory, held at Abano Termi, Italy, 15th to 19th July 1996. The contributions cover imagery, implicit and explicit memory, encoding and retrieval processes, neuroimaging, age- related changes in memory, development of conceptual knowledge, spatial memory, the ecological approach to memory, processes mediating false memories, and cognitive models of memory.

Recognizing the characteristics of children with learning disabilities and deciding how to help them is a problem faced by schools all over the world. Although some disorders are fairly easily recognizable (e.g., mental retardation) or very specific to single components of performance and quite rare (e.g., developmental dyscalculia), schools must consider much larger populations of children with learning difficulties who cannot always be readily classified. These children present high-level learning difficulties that affect their performance on a variety of school tasks, but the underlying problem is often their difficulty in understanding written text. In many instances, despite good intellectual abilities and a superficial ability to cope with written texts and to use language appropriately, some children do not seem to grasp the most important elements, or cannot find the pieces of information they are looking for. Sometimes these difficulties are not immediately detected by the teacher in the early school years. They may be hidden because the most obvious early indicators of reading progress in the teacher's eyes do not involve comprehension of written texts or because the first texts a child encounters are quite simple and reflect only the difficulty level of the oral messages (sentences, short stories, etc.) with which the child is already familiar. However, as years go by and texts get more complex, comprehension difficulties will become increasingly apparent and increasingly detrimental to effective school learning. In turn, studying, assimilating new information, and many other situations requiring text comprehension -- from problem solving to reasoning with linguistic contents -- could be affected. Problems with decoding, dyslexia, and language disorders have attracted more interest from researchers than have specific comprehension problems and have occupied more room in specialized journals. Normal reading comprehension has also been a favorite with researchers. However, scarce interest has been paid to subjects who have comprehension difficulties. This book is an attempt to remedy this situation. In so doing, this volume answers the following questions: * Does a reading comprehension problem exist in schools? * How important and widespread is the problem? * Is the problem specific? * How can a reading comprehension difficulty be defined and identified? * Does the "syndrome" have a single pattern or can different subtypes be identified? * What are the main characteristics associated with a reading comprehension difficulty? * When can other well-identified problems add to our understanding of reading comprehension difficulties? * Which educational strategies are effective in preventing and treating reading comprehension difficulties? * What supplementary information can we get from an international perspective?

Si nce the beginning of the 1970's the psychological study of imagery has shown a renewal of scientific interest reflected in a di verse body of theory, research paradigms, and data, which, with dil1iculty, ean be managed by a reader interested in imagery. Further, ment. al i lllagery appears to be an important construct in fields such as perception, memory, learning, thinking, motor behavior, cognitive development, and so on. With the diversity of theoretical and empirical work on imagery, cognition, and performance, it is increasingly problemut. ic to find a single source that provides contemporary overviews ill each field. Our purpose in organizing this book was to attempt all IIp-Lodate presentation of imagery research and theory. It is ollr hope that the volume will help serve as a starting point for the progress that will surely appear in the 1990's. This book hi:\:; its roots in the Second Workshop on Imagery and Cognition held at the University of Padova, Padova, Italy from September 21 to September 23,1988. An impressive array of research was presented at the workshop, and as the workshop unfolded several salient point. s elllerged. Though the research was diverse, it was even more so convergent on several main themes (e. g. , relations betweeen imagery and perception, imaginal coding in working memory, the role of imagery in v(;rbal memory and in memory for action events, imagery and problem solving).

This work is a collection of theoretical statements from a broad range of memory researchers. Each chapter was derived from a presentation given at the 2nd International Conference on Memory, held at Abano Termi, Italy, 15th to 19th July 1996. The contributions cover imagery, implicit and explicit memory, encoding and retrieval processes, neuroimaging, age- related changes in memory, development of conceptual knowledge, spatial memory, the ecological approach to memory, processes mediating false memories, and cognitive models of memory.

This is the first volume in the Counterpoints Series, which explores the issues being debated in psychology, child development, linguistics, and neuroscience. Each volume consists of the presentation of three or four extensive chapters by researchers representing key points of view on the issue. This text examines one of the liveliest areas of debate in psychology today, the relationship between perception and mental imagery. A variety of recent studies have pointed to the existence of a strong relationship between memory and mental representation, while others have shown that images are open to reinterpretation and manipulation, and are therefore not merely static impressions or mental representations of memories. Three core chapters by researchers in the midst of this debate--Maria Brandimonte, Geir Kaufmann, and Dan Reisberg--make up the central portion of this text. The first chapter is a historical overview of the problem as well as a review of the research in psychology and the argument as it has developed in related fields, such as philosophy and artificial intelligence. The last chapter pulls together all of the positions and points to new areas of research which may help uncover an explanation for the apparent contradictions in the research. Students and researchers in psychology and cognitive psychology will benefit from this comprehensive look at this heated debate.

What is intelligence? How can we examine individual differences in intelligence? What does it mean to be very intelligent or dumb? Such questions have always pervaded human thinking, and have been raised during the development of scientific psychology. However, for many years, the practical needs of having reliable measures of intelligence have prevailed and the field has suffered the limitations of the psychometric approach. Recently, cognitive neuroscience, and in particular cognitive psychology, have proposed new models and data which have revived thinking in this area. This Special Issue offers examples of how the field of cognitive psychology can contribute not only to the refinement of theoretical thinking but also to the development of new tools for the study of human intelligence. The contributors to the issue are prominent researchers in working memory, speed of processing, executive functions, language, and intellectual development/decline and show how their lines of research may contribute key concepts and methods to the field. Different ideas and lines of research within cognitive psychology are presented, but, working memory, despite some contra-indications discussed throughout the issue, emerges from many chapters as the most important contender for the study of central aspects of intelligence.

Increasing numbers of children and adolescents are being diagnosed with nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD), yet clinicians and educators have few scientific resources to guide assessment and intervention. This book presents up-to-date knowledge on the nature of NLD and how to differentiate it from DSM-5 disorders such as autism spectrum disorder and developmental coordination disorder. Effective strategies for helping K-12 students and their families address the challenges of NLD in and outside of the classroom are illustrated with vivid case material. The authors thoughtfully consider controversies surrounding NLD, discuss why the diagnosis is not included in the current DSM and ICD classification systems, and identify important directions for future research.