Research on Learning Disabilities in Adults

Abstract

Abstract The premise of this book is that assessment of learning disabilities (and ADHD) in adults should be guided by research. In the early to mid-1990s, it was often necessary to guide assessment based on learning disability research on children. However, this is no longer the case. As an aside, it is interesting to note that this is the one area in clinical neuropsychology in which clinicians have had to extrapolate research findings on children upward to clinical assessment of adults. This is very different from assessment of neurological disorders in which, for many years, research on adults was extrapolated downward, often erroneously, to guide assessment of children. Fortunately, most of what has been learned about childhood learning disabilities and ADHD turns out to be applicable to adults. The literature on adults with learning disabilities has grown tremendously over the past ten years, although it is still dwarfed by the amount of research on children. In the past, much of the literature was descriptive, clinical, or theoretical. However, there has been a large increase in the number of studies focusing on neuropsychological and cognitive aspects of learning disabilities in adults, as well as those using functional neuroimaging.