Originally published in 1987, interest in mathematical cognition was not new in psychology. However, it was rediscovered in the 1970s under the influential work of the Genevan School. In particular, Piaget's work on conservation, including conservation of number, profoundly influenced developmental psychologists who, working first in the Piagetian theoretical framework, began to discover a broader set of topics in mathematical cognition. In developmental psychology, the field continued to expand and covered a wide range of topics. During the same period, however, no such evolution occurred in neuropsychology, and except for some studies around the time of publication, very little had been published on acalculia and number processing disorders. However, a more general theoretical evolution occurred in neuropsychology, mainly due to increasing collaboration between clinical and experimental neuropsychologists, on the one hand and cognitive psychologists on the other. The objective of this book was to promote an evolution in the neuropsychology of calculation and number processing deficits and thus to introduce clinical and experimental neuropsychologists, as well as developmental and cognitive psychologists, to recent research and theoretical approaches that are of particular interest for the neuropsychological approach to mathematical cognition.

Originally published in 1989, presenting a new perspective on cognitive therapy in neuropsychology, these papers examine a cognitively-oriented, single-case methodology in neuropsychological rehabilitation. The recommended strategy is in-depth analysis of the precise nature of the impaired as well as the preserved processing components in the individual patient. The objective is to design a therapeutic course based on individual patient needs that is justified by the theoretical interpretation of the location of the deficit in his or her cognitive architecture.

There is psychological and neurobiological evidence that number and language processing present some specificities and may dissociate after brain damage. Furthermore, animals and babies seem to be able to discriminate small numerosities in a non-symbolic way. However, one of the specificities of the human species is the development of language and symbolic processes. The acquisition and development of arithmetic is thus bound to the acquisition of language and symbolic notations.
In this special issue, the relationship between language and number processing is discussed through the examination of the similarities and divergences of language and number disorders in aphasic subjects, in patients with dementia, and in children with specific acquisition deficits. A separate contribution is also devoted to the rehabilitation of number and calculation deficits in brain-lesioned subjects.

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