Abstract:

With the emergence of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, researchers began to employ neuropsychological technologies to investigate the structural and functional brain abnormalities in children with developmental disabilities, and explored the relationship between intervention and brain plasticity. These empirical findings not only revealed the pathogenesis of children with developmental disabilities but also provided significant supports for precisely diagnosing and intervening developmental defects at early age. By summarizing the studies about brain development of several common developmental disorders in childhood, it is indicated that the future studies need to distinguish the generality and specificity of brain developmental characteristics among children with different developmental disabilities, to adopt the integrative study of gene-environment- brain-behavior, and to take the abnormalities and improvements of brain function as important indices for early diagnosis and intervention.

Key words:  developmental disorders, brain development, structural brain, functional brain, intervention