Developmental Neuropsychology

Janna Glozman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415532754
• eBook ISBN: 9781136172038
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education
• Index: Psychology

Developmental Neuropsychology draws upon the research of Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky to present a comprehensive study of developmental neuropsychology from a Russian, and Western perspective. Janna Glozman offers a fresh and accessible analysis of Luria and Vygotsky's collaboration, which greatly influenced the field of neuropsychology as we know it today.

The text provides an examination of theoretical and methodological foundations of developmental neuropsychology, which Glozman describes and systemizes, before providing methods of assessment and neuropsychological aspects of specific situations. In her work Glozman considers:

• abnormal social mechanisms
• methods of assessment and remediation
• historical developments
• specific disabilities including dyslexia, ADHD and autism

Glozman's comparative text makes Russian developmental psychology practically accessible to a western audience. It is valuable reading for researchers in developmental and clinical psychology, as well as professionals in special education, speech therapy and social work.

Chapter 1
The history of developmental
neuropsychology

Natural, theoretical and practical premises of the
creation of developmental neuropsychology

The theoretical basis of developmental neuropsychology as well as of general neuropsychology comprises three principles, proposed by L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria: the principle of social genesis of higher mental functions (HMF); the principle of system organization of HMF; and the principle of dynamic organization and localization of HMF. These principles derive from the cultural–historical approach to analysis of development of HMF and of abnormalities in HMF; that is, from orientation not to the disease or the defect but to the development, looking at the history of culture for the reasons behind mental phenomena and for the means of their remediation. L.S. Vygotsky proved that a defect interferes with a child’s appropriation of her culture, but cultural means help the child to overcome the defect. Hence, the cultural– historical approach became and remains a methodological basis for remedial education.

The creation by Vygotsky and Luria of the systemic cultural–historical approach in the 1920s and 1930s should be considered the first premise of developmental neuropsychology. One of the first studies based on this approach is a comparative exploration of mental functions in urban, rural and homeless children. The study proved the influence of social and cultural factors on child cognitive development (Luria, 1928, 1930).

In all his works L.S. Vygotsky stressed the social nature of the formation of functions, and the role of mediation – a use of psychological tools (social means) in the genesis of HMF (Vygotsky’s principle of “doubling experience”).

To understand the theory of system structure of HMF in humans, the following factors are the most important: variability of interfunctional relations and connections; formation of complex dynamic systems, integrating of many elementary functions; and generalized reflection of the environment by conscience and mediated mental functioning.

Luria’s principle of dynamic ontogenetic localization of HMF refers to variable levels and types of brain structures and of their functional integration, acknowledging the same cognitive activity by children of different ages.

An analysis of Russian developmental neuropsychology should not forget psychogenic studies in the 1920s at the Eugenics Office of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, created in 1921, and in the Laboratory of Heredity and Human Constitution at the Moscow Medico-biological Institute, created in 1928. The former used the genealogical method; the latter used a more informative (as was proved later) twins method (Ravich-Scherbo & Sigal, 2003), and compared the input of genetic and environmental factors in individual variability of child psychological and neurophysiological features.

A.R. Luria started his work at the Medico-biological Institute in 1932 – the year that the paper by M.S. Lebedinsky, “The problem of heredity in psychology and twins method”, was published. The paper analysed the method as well as the results of assessment of different mental features (reasoning, mediation capacities, temper) in twins at different ages. It revealed the greater genetic similarity of most features in monozygotic twins as compared with dizygotic, and also a dependence of similarity on the age of twins and the function assessed. From 1932 till 1937 (when the Medico-biological Institute was closed and genetics was prohibited) Luria directed studies of genotype–environment relations through cultural–historical theory (Figure 1). The group included M.S. Lebedinsky, A.N. Mironova, N.G. Morozova and F.Ya. Yudovich. They were the first in Russia to use the “twins model” in experimental study of genetic mechanisms of mentality. The difference from similar studies in Western countries consisted in the use of special tests addressed predominantly to

Figure 1 Some of the twins that participated in the research work of the psychological laboratory of the Medico-biological Institute (from Luria’s archive).

“natural” (genetic) or cultural (environmental) factors instead of use of standardized batteries measuring IQ. For instance, in nonverbal tasks, which better reveal “natural” factors, the results were more similar in monozygotic than in dizygotic twins.

Their programme for study of genotype–environment relations, based on Vygotsky–Luria’s theory of mental development, revealed changes in the relative input of heredity and environment due to modifications in mental functioning in response to different educative procedures and to the role of speech acquisition in mental development (Lebedinsky, 1932; Mironova and Kolbanovsky, 1934; Luria, 1936, 1948, 1963, 2002; Ravich-Scherbo and Sigal, 2003). A study of 130 pairs of twins aged 6–11 years revealed, for instance, that the elementary memory is determined by genotype in all age groups, while mediated remembering using pictograms was dependent on genotype only in preschoolers. To generalize, the influence of natural factors on child cognitive functions decreases with age but the influence of cultural factors increases. “This evidence indicates that during ontogenetic development not only the psychological structure of mental processes but also their internal nature dramatically changes” (Luria, Symernitskaya, & Tybulevich, 1973, p. 112).

The research work in the Medico-biological Institute permitted Luria to state the main ideas of developmental neuropsychology: “mental development in childhood is first of all a modification in the child’s forms of activity, complication of the structure of this activity and enrichment of mental processes, developing inside this activity” (Luria, 1948, p. 34). In the process of development, a mental function “does not stay the same . . . it changes significantly its own structure, it solves the same task using different operations” (Luria, 2002, p. 17). With this, “the genotype influences to a great degree the speed of appropriation of these ‘cultural‘ forms of mental activity” (Luria, 2002, p. 18).

The psychogenetic studies first proved the formative effect of speech and language on mental processes and then revealed that twins form “a group of risk” for mental development. For instance, Luria together with Yudovich assessed a pair of five-year-old twins with a lower than normal level of speech and general mental development. The authors supposed that the cause was that the “twins situation” did not stimulate verbal activity, replacing it with more primitive forms of communication. The researchers then placed each twin in a different group of the kindergarten, so that an objective need to acquire speech as a means of communication was created (Luria & Yudovich, 1959). Also, special lessons to develop speech were given to one of the pair. In three months, the verbal abilities of the children (both vocabulary and grammar) changed significantly, and the general mental development improved to the greater degree in the child who had speech therapy. So, when an objective need for verbal communication was created, not only did both children acquire new verbal means for communication, but significant modifications in the structure of their conscious activity based on verbal speech were provoked.

The psychogenetic studies by Luria formed also the basis of neuropsychological remediation, namely the principles of developing games with small children. In a pair of monozygotic (genetically similar) six-year-old twins, one was taught a construction activity with cubes using a “step-by-step method” (i.e. copying of teacher’s actions); the second child was given the “model” method, whereby he saw only the general shape of the construction and had to select himself the elements fitting this shape. The second version of the game, aimed at developing visual reasoning and constructive analysis and synthesis abilities, was much more efficient, and the resulting development included some other forms of creative activity and was stable, being evident 1.5 years after the end of the programme (Luria, 1948).

In Western countries, developmental (also called paediatric) neuropsychology became a major area of research and practice during the second half of the 20th century.

It was in the 1960s that the clinical picture of the “clumsy child” (renamed developmental dysgnosia and dyspraxia) was described, specific reading disability (renamed developmental dyslexia) was investigated from a neuropsychological standpoint, and the concept of minimal brain dysfunction (MBD) was formulated to account for these and a myriad of other behavioral disabilities in children. Since this time pediatric neuropsychology has become a flourishing area of inquiry and practice, generating new knowledge and deeper understanding, with the result that today the evaluation and management of children with documented or suspected brain dysfunction by the well-informed neuropsychologist are incomparably more insightful and effective than was the case 20 years ago.

(Benton, 2000, p. xv; emphasis in original)

To conclude, I would like to emphasize that the origin of developmental neuropsychology, as well as the whole development of Russian psychology beginning with Luria’s school, is due primarily to the main achievement in the history of psychology – the creation of cultural–historical psychology, which has influenced to a great extent clinical neuropsychology all over the world.

Trends in the progress of developmental
neuropsychology

The progress of developmental neuropsychology follows the general tendency all over the world to replace static neuropsychology, (relating subjects’ – both adult and child – behaviour to definite brain areas) with dynamic neuropsychology (analysing the dynamics of brain–mental functioning interaction through the social conditions of subject’s life; that is, viewing childhood disorders within a developmental context) (Rourke, 1985, 2000; Tupper & Cicerone, 1990; Glozman, 2002, 2010a). Such an approach surmounts the “biologizing” tendencies of the psychology of the 19th and 20th centuries, and it is of value given that “a division of ‘natural sciences‘ and ‘mental sciences‘ into different scientific paradigms risks bisecting psychology into two different parts, lacking common subjects and methods of research” (Akhutina, 2004, p. 20). It is very close to the definition of the subject of “real psychology” by Luria. In his first book, written in 1922, Luria sets the task of studying a human “like a biological, social and psychological unity” (Luria, 2003, p. 296). Analogously, Vygotsky (1925) represented the psychology of the future as a study of “a biosocial synthesis” – a union of natural and human sciences.

It is not surprising that the main cause of delayed development (immaturity) of child functional mental systems is, according to Korsakova et al. (2001), an unfavourable environment during the child’s formative years (complicated intrafamily relations, bad conditions of everyday living, harmful ecological factors, lack of socialization and of inclusion in educative and upbringing programmes). This explains the importance of functional diagnostics (as distinct from topical diagnostics of immature or impaired brain structures) of defects preventing the child from acquiring knowledge and abilities, adapting to society (school or family) and developing to a greater degree his own potentials and personality.

The period of progress in neuropsychology (both of adults and of children) has been characterized by extensive development all over the world. The neuropsychologist is assessing now not only patients with organic focal brain lesions but also patients with endogenous, genetic and functional disturbances, with individual variations of normal mental functioning, consequences of specific social situations of development (such as social deprivation or bilingualism), and others (see Chapter 6). This increase in the types of subject sent for neuropsychological assessment is explained first by the fact that specialists in different branches of psychology realized the possibilities of Lurian neuropsychological assessment for differential and functional diagnostics of a great number of abnormal or untypical developmental conditions. Secondly, modern methods of neuroimaging reveal organic cerebral pathology in patients with endogenous and functional disorders, such as stuttering, schizophrenia or autism. Thirdly, the sphere of neurocognitive disorders increases in conjunction with understanding of systemic troubles, including specific primary, secondary and tertiary symptoms (due to functional reorganization during adaptation to disease or resulting from a particular social situation of development: see “Main concepts of developmental neuropsychology” in Chapter 2.) The fourth reason is the common understanding of the role of dysontogenesis for neurocognitive disorders, resulting in greater significance of neuropsychological assessment of different kinds of abnormal or untypical development.

Another feature of contemporary progress in developmental neuropsychology (as well as other branches of neuropsychology) is a tendency to “enlargement of the sphere of application of neuropsychology outside the clinical, pathological cases of troubles in human mental activity to a study of mentality of healthy subjects. First of all it regards the cases of deviations (for different reasons) in mental and cerebral functioning interfering with subject adjust...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 The history of developmental neuropsychology
• 2 Methodological foundations of developmental neuropsychology
• 3 Psychophysiological and psychological features of mental development in children
• 4 Neuropsychological assessment of children
• 5 Syndromes of impaired (disturbed) formation of higher mental functions in children
• 6 Neuropsychological aspects of specific situations of abnormal (untypical) child development
• 7 Neuropsychological remediation of children
• Conclusion
• References and further reading
• Index