About this Research Topic

Background

Visuospatial abilities encompass a broad range of high-order non-verbal cognitive skills, allowing the individual to perceive and interact with the visual world. The progressive maturation of these cognitive abilities implies relevant age-related changes in spatial construction, which refers to the ability to reproduce spatial arrays by organizing details into an integrated spatial configuration. Visuospatial and visuoconstructional abilities and their disorders represent a core issue in adult neuropsychology and a growing number of recent studies are showing renewed interest in the field, in particular shedding light on the complex neural underpinnings of these cognitive functions.
Moreover, in developmental literature several recent studies addressed spatial abilities and the link between visuoperceptive style and constructional abilities in individual with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism.

The main aim of the Research Topic is to collect articles providing the latest evidence on visuoconstructional and visuospatial skills across the life span in individuals with typical and atypical development, in healthy adults, and in individuals affected by acquired brain disorders.
Thus, papers on cognitive development and maturation of brain structures underpinning typical functioning of visuospatial and visuoconstructional abilities will be hosted. Also, studies dealing with disorders of these cognitive abilities in children, adolescents and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as neurogenetic syndromes will be appreciated.

Furthermore, the research topic will also be interested in articles facing the cognitive style of neurotypical individuals with high degrees of autistic-like traits, in particular on the way in which these people process visuospatial information similarly to persons with clinical autism. The research topic will reserve space to studies dealing with central topics in adult neuropsychology, that is constructional apraxia in patients with acquired brain damage, as well as age-related changes in visuospatial and visuoconstructional abilities in healthy aging.

Finally, studies dealing with applied research contexts, particularly in the clinical and educational field, will be appreciated.

Neural and neuropsychological bases of visuospatial and visuoconstructional abilities in typical and atypical development and in acquired brain disorders;

• Age-related changes in visuospatial and visuoconstructional skills across the life-span;

• Atypical visuospatial processing in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. clinical and non-clinical autism, intellectual and learning disability) and neurogenetic syndromes (e.g., Williams syndrome, Turner syndrome), as well as in psychiatric conditions;

• Constructional apraxia in patients with acquired brain damage, arising from focal brain lesions and neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease);

• Assessment of visuospatial and visuoconstructional abilities across the life-span;

• Rehabilitation of spatial impairments in patients with neurodevelopmental disorders and acquired brain damage;

• Recent implications of visuospatial training in the clinical field, as in the rehabilitation of the theory of mind, and in the educational field, in overcoming the gender gap in STEM disciplines.

Keywords: visuospatial and visuoconstructional abilities, neurodevelopmental disorders, constructional apraxia, assessment, rehabilitation.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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