Or, can an inherent weakness in one neuropsychological ability be compensated by another neuropsychological ability? I am looking for previous studies.
I would be very grateful for any answer or guidance.
There is a solid tradition within neuropsychological rehabilitation based on the idea of compensation (rather than restoration). That is, according to some, certain functions can never be recovered (e.g., memory), therefore instead of wasting time trying to improve memory, a healthier rehabilitation approach would suggest to utilize intact cognitive skills (e.g., executive functioning) to compensate for the weakness. Thus, a client would be better off improving his/her organisation skills (using executive skills, e.g., diaries, reminders, scheduling, etc.) rather than paying for expensive useless restorative packages. Hope this helps. Rodrigo
I think that Phineas Gage is the very best example of compensation of the plastic brain. Look it up and read about the rod that penetrated his head and how he went on with his life.
Compensation is such a relevant topic in neuropsychology. However, it might depend on the context, whether abilities are really able to compensate each other. As already mentioned above, it may be a goal in rehabilitation to compensate for certain deficits with strengths that are still present. However, assessing driving behavior can be more difficult: Is an elderly patient actually able to balance his underperformance in divided attention reaction time (traffic!) with above-average performance in cognitive flexibility (e.g. TMT-B)? In fact, there is still a lot of discussion about age-related neuro-cognitive compensation (Reuter-Lorenz, P. A., & Cappell, K. A. (2008). Neurocognitive aging and the compensation hypothesis. Current directions in psychological science, 17(3), 177-182.).
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