Reading, Writing, and Rehabilitation: A Reckoning

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a number of books and even a new journal have appeared documenting research in neuropsychological rehabilitation. One possible reaction to this is to revise the gloomy assessment made by Beauvois and Derouesne (1982, p. 167): “Rapports entre recherche et reeducation—ce qui n’existe pas”. On the other hand, unbridled optimism may be premature. The arrival of Neuropsychological Rehabilitation and the recent books does not necessarily reflect significant integration between theory and therapy. An equally plausible hypothesis is that the current major increase in rehabilitation research is occurring in parallel with, but for the most part independently of, cognitive neuropsychology. In other words, even if theoretical and applied cognitive neuropsychology are both thriving, they may as yet be failing fully to communicate. It is worth briefly considering why this might be.