Current trends in morbidity suggest that by the beginning of the twen ty-first century, psychiatric illness may become the most pressing problem in public health in many of the advanced countries. As ably demonstrated by Vandenberg, Singer, and Pauls, the principal identifia ble etiology of the major psychiatric disorders is heredity; if progress is to be made in prevention and treatment of these disorders, it may have to come from improved understanding of their inheritance. A relentless increase has been observed in the frequency of mood disorders, primarily major depression but also manic-depressive ill ness, appearing earlier and more frequently in each age cohort born since (approximately) 1940. Because major depression is a recurrent disorder, whose episodes increase in frequency with age, the number of observed depressions can be expected to increase dramatically as these people reach middle and old age. The rate of suicide has also increased enormously, according to birth cohort. Starting with people born around 1935, the rate of suicide between 15 and 19 years of age has increased more than 10 times from the earliest to the most recent birth cohorts. What is not clear is if there will be a compensatory reduction in suicide rate as this cohort ages, because people likely to commit suicide will have done so earlier, or if this presages a general increase in suicide, comparable to the increase in mood disorders and perhaps a function of them.

In 1896 the British physician William Pringle Morgan published an account of “Percy,” a “bright and intelligent boy, quick at games, and in no way inferior to others of his age.” Yet, in spite of his intelligence, Percy had great difficulty learning to read. Percy was one of the first children to be described as having word-blindness, better known today as dyslexia. In this first comprehensive history of dyslexia Philip Kirby and Margaret Snowling chart a journey that begins with Victorian medicine and continues to dyslexia’s current status as the most globally recognized specific learning difficulty. In an engaging narrative style, Kirby and Snowling tell the story of dyslexia, examining its origins and revealing the many scientists, teachers, and campaigners who put it on the map. Through this history they explain current debates over the diagnosis of dyslexia and its impact on learning. For those who have lived experience of dyslexia, professionals who have supported them, and scholars of social history, education, psychology, and childhood studies, Dyslexia reflects on the place of literacy in society – whom it has benefited, and whom it has left behind.

This book is a concise but comprehensive review of Specific Learning Disabilities, with a special attention to the biology of these diverse conditions. The reader will get a review of most aspects of SLD, including the different clinical syndromes (mostly dyslexia and dyscalculia), the clinical manifestations and the therapeutic approaches. It is unique in the proportion of its content dedicated to the biological aspects of SLD. It attempts to assemble and present the biological knowledge which has been accumulated on these conditions. This knowledge includes the neurological anatomy of dyslexia and dyscalculia, demonstrated with the help of modern neuro-imaging studies, and the physiology and the genetics of these conditions, again demonstrated by recently available technologies. These new technologies produced major discoveries related to SLD including the importance of phonological processing in reading, the presence of "number center ̈in the brain, and the rain networks involved in reading. We recognize that many dyslexic subjects have a deficit in aspects of language processing, specifically phonological processing; that dyscalculia can be the result of a number of distinct cognitive impairments, and that the basic underlying deficit in many cases of SLD may be a genetic variation. The same new biological investigative techniques can, like never before, measure the outcome of therapeutic techniques and learning methods. Such measurements will, in the future, be the "gold standard ̈in assessing the efficacy of different methods of classroom teaching in regular and different learners. Last, unlike many other publications on SLD, this book discusses the relatively unrecognized emotional aspects of SLD, and the sometime devastating effects that these conditions have on the life of affected subjects and their families, in and out of the classroom.

This is one volume of a two-volume work on neurocognitive development, focusing separately on normative and non-normative development. The disorders and disabilities volume focuses on disorders of intellectual abilities, language, learning memory as well as psychiatric developmental disorders. The developmental aspects of neurological diseases in children is also covered. Chapters discuss when and how these disorders develop, the genetics and neurophysiology of their operation, and their evaluation and assessment in clinical practice. Assessment, treatment, and long-term outcome are provided as well as advances in methods and tools for assessment. This book will serve as a comprehensive reference to researchers in cognitive development in neuroscience, psychology, and medicine, as well as to clinicians and allied health professionals focused on developmental disabilities (child neurologists, pediatric neuropsychologists, child psychiatrists, speech and language therapists, and occupational therapists.) - Summarizes research on neurocognitive developmental disorders and disabilities - Includes disorders of intellectual abilities, language, learning, memory, and more - Separately covers developmental aspects of neurological diseases in children - Features advances in methods and tools of assessment - Reviews patient care, rehabilitation, and long-term outcomes - Provides interdisciplinary information of use to both researchers and clinicians

Philosophers of science work not only with the methods of the sciences but with their contents as well. Substantive issues concerning the relation between mind and matter, between the material basis and the functions of cognition, have been central within the entire history of philosophy. We recall such philosophers as Aristotle, Descartes, the early Kant, Ernst Mach, and the early William James as directly inquiring of the organs and structures of thinking. Science and its philosophical self-criticism are especially and deeply united in the effort to understand the biological brain and human behavior, and so it requires no apology to include this collection of clinical studies among Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. The work of Dr. Norman Geschwind, well represented in this selection, explores the relation between structure and function, between the anatomy of the brain and the 'higher' behavior of men and women. As a clinical neurologist, Geschwind was led to these studies particularly by his in terest in those pathologies which have to do with human perception and language. His research into the anatomical substrates of specific dis orders-and strikingly the aphasias -present a fascinating and provocative examination of fundamental questions which will concern not neurologists alone but also psychologists, physicians, linguists, speech pathologists, educators, anthropologists, historians of medicine, and philosophers, among others, namely all those interested in the characteristic modes of human activity, in speech, in perception, and in the learning process generally.