Understanding Learning and Related Disabilities

Provides parents and educators with general knowledge, research findings, and practical recommendations about a variety of developmental conditions, using cognitive and behavioral neurology.

Martha Bridge Denckla, M.D., is an honors graduate of Harvard Medical School who trained in Cognitive/Behavioral Neurology with Norman Geschwind. She has worked in hospitals affiliated with Columbia and Harvard Universities before the longest span of her career at the Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins. For half a century she has devoted clinical and research efforts to developmental learning disabilities and related school problems, contributing to more than 200 publications. Dr. Denckla has taught educators as well as those with neurological backgrounds.

1. Introduction; 2. Brain Development Relevant to "Inconveniences"; 3. Promoters and Enhancers of Learning and Development; 4. Specific Language Impairments; 5. Motor Coordination Factors Contributing to School Problems; 6. Executive Function; 7. Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD); 8. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); 9. Dyslexia; 10. Math and Miscellaneous Learning Disabilities; 11. Neuromythology; 12. An Inconvenient Brain in the Context of Changes in Educational Environments