Disorders in Learning: Cognitive Neuroscience and School Difficulties

This article deals with the increasing uses of cognitive neurosciences to interpret and address learning difficulties. These uses are first explained by the progressive recognition of cognitive neurosciences as an action-oriented pragmatic discipline, whose scientific materialism is supposed to be free from ideological a priori. They were also fostered by the construction of "specific learning disorders" as a public health problem whose study and resolution suppose the joint action of researchers and health professionals. The legitimation of the cognitive neurosciences approach of school difficulties nevertheless was supported by other actors. Two sets of actors will be examined here, namely, on the one hand, politicians, top civil servants and experts charged to work out and implement education policies, and, on the other hand, the parents of students with learning difficulties.