Book Description

This book developed out of the editors' longstanding interest in the retraining of traumatically brain-damaged adults and the management of their behavior by family members. A search for relevant experimental evidence to support the clinical use of behavioral principles for retrain ing, which began in 1977, turned up little empirical support. Moreover, the literature on retraining was dispersed among a variety of journals published in various countries. Nowhere was there a compendium of literature that addressed issues of assessment and retraining. There was no place to turn if one wanted to move from a standard neuropsy chological evaluation to the retraining of skill deficits revealed in the evaluation. We have attempted to edit a book that represents what we had hoped to find in the literature and could be used by professionals in clinical psychology, clinical neuropsychology, rehabilitation medicine, physical therapy, speech therapy, and other disciplines that address rehabilitation of brain-damaged adults-a book that addresses assess ment and rehabilitation issues and is sufficiently detailed to offer the reader a starting point in developing behavioral assessment and re habilitation programs. The book contains conceptual foundations, re views of research, descriptions of successful rehabilitation programs, and relatively detailed approaches to the retraining of specific skills. A shift from an assessment-based practice to one encompassing both prescriptive assessment and treatment has become a recognized transition in the neuropsychological literature and was best articulated in an article by Gerald Goldstein in March of 1979.