No abstract

Research suggests that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have processing limitations; however, the mechanisms involved have not been well defined or investigated in a theory-guided manner. The theory of constructive operators was used as a framework to explore processes underlying limited processing capacity in children with SLI. Mental attentional capacity, mental attentional interruption, and 2 specific executive functions (shifting and updating) were examined in 45 children with SLI and 45 children with normally developing language, aged 7 to 12 years. The results revealed overall group differences in performance on measures of mental attention, interruption, and updating, but not shifting. The findings supported the premise that mental attention predicted language competence, but that this relationship was mediated partially by updating.

Children use numbers every day and typically receive formal mathematical training from an early age, as it is a main subject in school curricula. Despite an increase in children neuroimaging studies, a comprehensive neuropsychological model of mathematical functions in children is lacking. Using quantitative meta-analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, we identify concordant brain areas across articles that adhere to a set of selection criteria (e.g., whole-brain analysis, coordinate reports) and report brain activity to tasks that involve processing symbolic and non-symbolic numbers with and without formal mathematical operations, which we called respectively number tasks and calculation tasks. We present data on children 14 years and younger, who solved these tasks. Results show activity in parietal (e.g., inferior parietal lobule and precuneus) and frontal (e.g., superior and medial frontal gyri) cortices, core areas related to mental-arithmetic, as well as brain regions such as the insula and claustrum, which are not typically discussed as part of mathematical problem solving models. We propose a topographical atlas of mathematical processes in children, discuss findings within a developmental constructivist theoretical model, and suggest practical methodological considerations for future studies.

The paper criticizes some epistemological presuppositions of Piaget's and of neo-Piagetian's work, in particular, the psycho-Logical principle. This principle is contrasted with a more valid psycho-dialectical one. It is suggested that a dialectical-constructivist (i.e., causal-dynamic) perspective offers a causal theoretical framework for cognitive development that is superior to that of Piaget and many neo-Piagetians. I outline criteria for evaluating causal developmental theories, and point out deficiencies in Piaget's and neepiagetian's stage theories vis-a-vis the criteria. An organismic theory of constructive operators -a dialectical/causal theory -is introduced as a remedy for these deficiencies. I focus on a modular model of mental attention that is constituted by four dynamically interacting functional systems. These systems together explain the 'beam' of mental attention and its phenomenological/behavioural effects. I claim that the stages of cognitive development are caused by growth of mental attention. The validity of this model is supported by data on a motor performance task (Rho task). The Rho data show: (a) the existence of stage-wise plateaus in children's performance at ages congruent with the redefined Piagetian stages; (b) the psychological structures which, driven by mental attention (M-capacity), are responsible for performance on the task, appear to be located in the left hemisphere of the brain. These findings, predicted by the dialectical theory of mental attention, highlight its causal-predictive power.When in 1960 I went to Geneva to work with Piaget he had already developed his monumental theory of cognitive development. At this point the theory was as its peak of optimism. Possibly influenced by Baldwin (1968/1894), Cassirer (1923, and the Swiss mathematician Gonseth (1974Gonseth ( /1936, he had brought back into psychology from philosophical oblivion the principle of psycho-logical differentiationthe Leibnizian idea that the organism is a sort of logico-mathematical biomachine that in a literal sense embodies logico-mathematical functions and structures which constitute, in the strong sense of the word,

and then apply it to understanding experiential change processes in psychotherapy. Dialectics in its most essential form is rational analysis based on the splitting of a totality into its contradictory parts and the examination of the parts as they relate to each other (Lenin, 1915(Lenin, /1977. The totality of interest here is the dynamic system of a client's psychological processes. The contradictory parts are the different psychological processes that, when brought into contact, often interact to produce therapeutic transformations, selfdevelopment, or novelty through a dialectical synthesis of the components. Dialectical constructivism therefore explains human functioning and development in terms of the relations between parts.The dialectic with which we are most concerned is that involved in the type of construction of meaning characteristic of life-engaged 169