The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky: The Fundamentals of Defectology (Abnormal Psychology and Learning Disabilities) (Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics)

vi the text can engender. Of course, translations by scholars of advanced standing are not a novelty in modern scholarship. The Plenum translations ofVygotsky' s texts are appearing at a moment when authentic and authoritative English versions of them are rare-a moment when the frequency of works about Vygotsky threatens to outstrip the availability of work by Vygotsky. Since seminal thinkers make their contributions by provoking further thought, admirers ofVygotsky will, of course, welcome the spate of interpretation, reinterpretation, revision, reconstruction, and deconstruction which Vygotsky's work has invited and will participate with alacrity in the activity. Yet, the translations appearing in these volumes are not offered as interpretations in the sense that they are new analytic works about Vygotsky. They are offered to serve as basic texts for readers of English who may be interested in what Vygotsky himself had to say. They are offered to scholars and students, who will make their own interpretations (in its broader sense) and who will evaluate the interpretations of others. Having taken the view that a good translation is essentially an interpretation, the claim that this volume is an accurate and authentic interpretation of Vygotsky's meanings and intentions-and only of those meanings and intentions-must await hoped-for reassurances from those reviewers and critics who are qualified to make such judgments. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Vygotsky and Soviet Russian Defectology....Pages 1-25 Front Matter....Pages 27-27 Introduction: The Fundamental Problems of Defectology....Pages 29-51 Defect and Compensation....Pages 52-64 Principles of Education for Physically Handicapped Children....Pages 65-75 The Psychology and Pedagogy of Children’s Handicaps....Pages 76-93 Front Matter....Pages 95-95 The Blind Child....Pages 97-109 Principles of Social Education for the Deaf-Mute Child....Pages 110-121 Compensatory Processes in the Development of the Retarded Child....Pages 122-138 The Difficult Child....Pages 139-149 Moral Insanity....Pages 150-152 The Dynamics of Child Character....Pages 153-163 Defectology and the Study of the Development and Education of Abnormal Children....Pages 164-170 Front Matter....Pages 171-171 The Study of the Development of the Difficult Child....Pages 173-177 Bases for Working with Mentally Retarded and Physically Handicapped Children....Pages 178-183 Fundamental Principles in a Plan for Pedological Research in the Field of “Difficult Children”....Pages 184-190 The Collective as a Factor in the Development of the Abnormal Child....Pages 191-208 Introduction to Ia. K. Tsveifel’s Book:Essay on the Behavioral Characteristics and Education of the Deaf-Mute....Pages 209-211 Introduction to E. K. Gracheva’s Book: The Education and Instruction of Severely Retarded Children....Pages 212-219 The Problem of Mental Retardation....Pages 220-240 The Diagnostics of Development and the Pedological Clinic for Difficult Children....Pages 241-291 Front Matter....Pages 171-171 From Addresses, Reports, Etc.....Pages 292-301 Afterword....Pages 302-314 Notes to the Russian Edition....Pages 315-330 Back Matter....Pages 331-349 Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist and one of the most influential psychologists in the world during the 20th century. This volume, the first of six, examines Vygotsky's works involving problems of general psychology, including thinking and speech This work is a translation of Volume 5 of Pedagogika's 6 volume series published in Moscow between 1982 and 1984. It includes Vygotsky's works on defectology originally published between 1924 and 1932, as well as posthumous, unpublished material