Up to 90% of people with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) report dissatisfaction with the status of their leisure participation and/or social integration. Yet, there are virtually no studies that have investigated the benefits of interventions that target leisure specifically for this population. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Leisure Education Program (Carbonneau, Fontaine, & Lussier, 2006) designed to assist people with stroke to engage in meaningful leisure activities, build leisure self-efficacy and promote general wellbeing would have similar benefits for survivors of TBI. We recruited three community-dwelling survivors of TBI to participate in a 10-week leisure program. All three participants reported some benefit in leisure satisfaction and self-efficacy. This extended to improvements in general wellbeing and health-related quality of life for two of the three. These findings suggest that further investigations into the benefits of leisure education for adults with TBI should be conducted.

In this article, we discuss the problem of the relationship between brain, mathematics, and cognition. In the first part, we present some elements concerning the anatomy of the brain and its growth. Against this background and drawing on current neuroscience research, we offer a summary of the cerebral parts usually associated with arithmetic thinking and the transition from perceptual arithmetic (common to several species) to symbolic arithmetic (specific to the human species only). Our discussion then turns around brain research and algebra. The literature review offers a general panorama that points out the multimodal nature of cognition in general and mathematical cognition in particular. This multimodal nature of cognition is compatible at different levels with the ontogenetic development of the brain -a development that turns out to be strongly related to the cultural context. In the conclusions we suggest some problems and questions that may be useful contact points for a research program between educators and neuroscientists.

En este artículo abordamos el problema de la relación entre el cerebro, la cognición y las matemáticas. En la primera parte discutimos algunos elementos de la anatomía y crecimiento del cerebro; a partir de esos elementos y de resultados recientes de investigaciones en neurociencias, en la segunda parte presentamos un esbozo de las regiones cerebrales que generalmente están asociadas al pensamiento aritmético. Aquí, ponemos una particular atención a las áreas cerebrales que se activan en el pasaje del pensamiento aritmético perceptual (común en varias especies) al simbólico calculatorio (específico del humano). Luego, hacemos un resumen de las investigaciones que han sido efectuadas en las neurociencias con respecto a las partes cerebrales asociadas con el pensamiento algebraico. La revisión de la literatura ofrece un panorama general que subraya la naturaleza multimodal de la cognición en general y de la cognición matemática en particular. Dicha naturaleza multimodal de la cognición es compatible con diferentes niveles explicativos del desarrollo ontogénico del cerebro, el cual está fuertemente ligado al contexto cultural. En las conclusiones sugerimos ciertos problemas y cuestiones que podrían ser puntos de partida de un programa de investigación que incluya a educadores y neurocientíficos.

Objective: To explore the ecological validity of commonly used executive functioning tests in chronic acquired brain injury (traumatic brain injury, stroke) (mean years postinjury, 11.49±7.94) by comparing performance on measures of executive functioning with performance in daily life (as reported by their significant others). Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Large health care center. Participants: Convenience sample of 26 acquired brain injury participants and 26 significant others. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Executive function tests: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Trail-Making Test Part B (TMT-B), digit symbol, and Controlled Oral Word Association Test. Measures of performance in daily life: Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX) and Mayo-Portland Adaptability Inventory (MPAI). Results: Although modest correlations in the expected direction were found between 3 measures of executive functioning (WCST, TMT-B, digit symbol) and the total score on the MPAI (r range, .30–.36), and between 2 measures of executive functioning (WCST, TMT-B) and the DEX (r range, .29–.30 respectively), only the WCST and the MPAI ability subscale were found to correlate significantly (r=.43, P=.03). Conclusions: Standard measures of executive functioning appear to explain modest amounts of variation in daily life performance in adults with chronic acquired brain injury. Standard measures of executive functioning have limited ecological validity in this context.