Cognitive Neuropsychology and the Remediation of Disorders of Spoken Language

The growth of cognitive neuropsychology in the 1970s was stimulated in large measure by the incursion into the field of experimental cognitive psychologists who brought with them their armoury of cognitive theories, experimental methods and statistical techniques ( Shallice, 1988a ). These psychologists were typically concerned to understand the nature and organisation of cognitive processes in the neurologically intact individual. They saw neuropsychological patients as a source of insights into normal cognitive processes that could complement and extend the insights gained from experiments in the laboratory. In the words of Wilson and Patterson (1990 ), “As practiced by the majority of cognitive neuropsychologists,... this approach to research is indeed just a variant of cognitive psychology. The source of evidence may be different ... but the techniques tend to be similar and, more importantly, the goals are the same.”