THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE BRAIN

one in which the comprehensibility and applicability of linguistics are most likely to be lost to the clinician. This collection of papers is, therefore, an assurance to the clinician who has some prior knowledge of psycholinguistics, that clear, clinically relevant, research is being done in the United Kingdom, and that psychometric techniques are being devised to forge an organic link between diagnosis and treatment. The papers consist of paediatric/psychological research reports and rich review articles of the fields of cognition, teaching, and communication. The content of the papers and discussions emphasizes how the training and the teaching of the mentally handicapped is becoming increasingly technological and precise; but there is no risk in this book of the clinician becoming prematurely biased in favour of either 'behaviourism' or 'cognitive' psychology. We are becoming increasingly aware of the intricacy and spontaneity of the child's language development and of the universality of the linguistic devices he uses. At several points in the book the importance of the development of the two word utterance is reiterated. Once the child has learned to string two words together he has crossed a language watershed and the prognosis if he is mentally handicapped seems less grave. Further reports by the authors of these papers are eagerly awaited. This is one of the more valuable, optimistic and practical books in this series, but, like others in the series, the cost is high for such a slim volume.