Abstract
Lexical development in children with cognitive disabilities is analyzed from several different perspectives: i.e., the relationships with chronological age, mental age, and early cognitive development; the relationship between cognitive basis, comprehension, and lexical production; inter-syndromic and inter-individual variations; the role of working memory; the particular constraints bearing on lexical learning, as well as the organization of the lexicon in longer-time semantic memory. Lexical development in subjects with Mental Retardation remains an insufficiently studied topic. The overall trend of development is relatively clear and may be related to normal lexical learning if one makes abstraction of the important delays and plateaus taking place in the course and at the end of development. However, the possible existence of particular deficits in some processing strategies has not been ruled out. Many questions are still without an answer, but the empirical and theoretical indications already available supply interesting intervention perspectives.

Abstract
Corporeity is integrated in the human person during her development and becomes instrument of experience and of knowledge. The thought, mediated, by listening, has promoted the birth of man, has marked out the species and has allowed her fast evolution. Being human has grown with his thinking. Corporeity, the scenery and memory of human narration, is the source of biological birth, of primary experiences and the fate. In the experience of corporeity are founded the preliminaries of psychic development. Sensation acts as the precursor, the old ancestor of symbol, of thought. In the corporeity the early memories of human experiences are inscribed by sensations. The body reveals ourselves to the world, is our primary image that precedes the expression of ourselves, the personal behavior: unrepeatable identity of every people. The first sensations received by a person are passed on by her corporeity. The corporeity gives many messages, is continuos source of information. It is the place of health and of illness, the vital expression and biological boundary. In old people, the corporeity may be influenced by illness and by pain, and ascribes to aging negative meaning. The illness is often lived in old age as intrinsic production of aging body, as decline, and not changing of vital processes. Nevertheless recent researches have confirmed that old people have realized a positive image of their own body, the former trade union with the world, historical memory of human living. The perceived corporeity may often express the more depth, intimate often secret level of relationship with the world. By the corporeity, its sensuality, primary needs, its wellbeing or uncomfortableness condition it has been ontogenetically experienced the relationship with the environment. The body evokes ancient experience, history and semantic memory and may become again a interpreter of the relative affective qualities, that often influence attitudes and relationship to reality. It can express or hidden the dynamic and the meaning of himself. Old men have better image of body respect to women of same age Male and female attitudes, about corporeity evoke cultural and traditional patterns, of identification in man and woman. Aging process causes physiological and somatic changes, but also reflects the development of creative thinking. The creative dimension expresses the attitude to realise pathes of individual growth, to discover themselves, to be projected toward a future in every age and in every condition. The creative attitude acts as subjective instrument that allows development and self realisation. The creativity is present in every person and needs to be respected, to be looked after, to be cultivated, and preserves it own energies, its own vital strength hidden by daily habits. Sometimes are missing environmental and cultural opportunities towards a real development of creativity. Creative process steers to knowledge and realised dimension of self, is next to meaning that is linked and supportes personal project and mediates the passage between nature e culture. The creativity was born contemporary to human being, characterises the evolution of thought, sometimes by important feeling of security other times by long hard pathes of pain. When we talk about creativity we don't concern only genius, but to refer also the attitude that could reveal every person to her realisation self. The creativity skill may be limitated and repressed by rational and authoritative education, by usual repetitive ed executive activity. Often creative expression is preceded by inner tension particulary strong toward research of better personal spaces and representes emotive condition, that allowes the transition to a more elevated condition. The creativity present during the development and in adult may further increase during the life, and appears with specific value in old age, when bonds and social-cultural conditionals decrease and disappear. The reactivation of creativity in old age is also compensative of the gradual decrease of sensorial and neuromotories functions as sight, hearing, reactions time, slowing down and the difficulties in the coordination of movements. The researches have showed that also old people used by a long time to undertake activities executive, mechanics and tasks, when are adequately stimulated, succeed expressing skills creative. There are many examples of famous people that, in old age, have realised works of great meanings, in literature, in architecture, in engineering, in music and in the theatre.

Abstract
The contribution shows the importance of boundaries for family relationships and for the assessment of the family. In particular, a married couple has to define their own boundary and personal space. It is a very difficult passage for young people today, because they continue to stay in their own family of origin for a long time. Pathology and family disorganization are connected with the idea of boundaries. The family balance is not static, but dynamic and always changing, and so are its boundaries. The research investigates the difficulty 53 couples, married for not more than one year, experienced as they tried to find a new adaptation, a new balance between the new and the old family. The instrument which was used is the “Double Moon” (Greco, 1999), a graphic-symbolic technique which investigates the specific variable of boundaries in various contexts. In particular, the research shows that wives have a lot of difficulty separating from their family of origin; in fact, they frequently represent their mothers, fathers, .. but not their husbands. Differently, husbands appear more detached from their family of origin, because they show fewer difficulties deciding the boundaries of their new family, as the Double Moon requires. On the whole, the bond between women and their families appears very strong, and probably this can be the cause of tense relationships between wife and husband. A family with closed boundaries is not able to modify its behavior as the situation demands.

Abstract
The Alzheimer Disease, a progressive and irreversible process of CNS degeneration, is considered one of the most common causes of dementia in industrialized countries (Spinnler, 1985). Many studies have shown lackness in local Health Services both for sustaining the diseased person and his/her own family. This lackness is still existing even though nowadays it can be found an improvement in Health Services which provide necessary supports for these cases. So the family is still considered an essential resource for the care of the diseased person. Within the family, the care-giver (a spouse, a son or daughter, etc.), that is to say the relative which is most involved with the diseased person, is that one who mostly suffers the stressing situation. The present study investigates about the stress of the caregiver through an analysis of the requests expressed at an Alzheimer Disease call center by people that are involved with an Alzheimer diseased person. 980 phone calls at the S. Eugenio Hospital call center in the period 1998-1999 have been analyzed in cooperation with AIMA (Associazione Italiana Malati di Alzheimer) to investigate the needs expressed by these customers. So it has been possible to define the profile of these customers (degree of relativeness and/or closeness with the Alzheimer diseased), specific typology of the Alzheimer diseased for whom the phone calls were made, the feature of the caregiver if different from the caller. It has been possible in this way to define the needs of all the persons which are involved in the care of the Alzheimer diseased based on what was expressed by the caller. Data show that it is necessary to promote interventions that can mitigate the hard impact of the Alzheimer disease on the caregiver, that can improve the quality of life in the diseased promoting a continuity from families to specialized Health Centers based on consideration of the real physical, psychological, and economic conditions both of the diseased and the caregivers. In order to this it is necessary the cooperation of different professionals: physicians, health care workers, psychologists, etc. Some actions are indicated to realize the expected changes: more informations for families and professionals, a best quality of cares, more financial aids.

Abstract
The study explores the theory of mind development in visually impaired children, adopting a socio-affective perspective. The goal of the research is to explore if mentalizing abilities are associated with differences in children’s relationships with parents and teachers. The participants are 18 visually impaired and 18 control children- aged from 6 to 10 years -, and 18 teachers randomly chosen from those who had spent the most hours with children that week. The research focuses on the following elements: the theory of mind (1st and 2nd order false belief comprehension); the representation of attachment to parents and teachers (evaluated by two semiprojective tests: the Separation Anxiety Test – Family and School versions). Additionally, the study examines the teachers’ representations of their relationship with a specific pupil (Teacher Relationship Interview –TRI). The results show that the development of theory of mind is delayed in visually impaired children; and that the relationship with the teacher, and the affective dimension of that relationship, constitute an important protection factor during the development of these children.

Abstract
Memory for Designs Test (MFD), developed in 1946 by Graham and Kendall and revised in 1960, was designed to analyze differential performance in short-term memory and spatial orientation tasks of patients with or without organic damage. This test requires graphic reproduction of 15 simple geometrical figures. In literature, only a few studies on the use of this test in developmental age and Mental Retardation can be found. The aims of this work are the following: to assess clinical application of MFD in a sample of children and adolescents with mild and moderate mental retardation; to control for its effectiveness in discriminating organic damage; and finally to understand how visual and motor skills affect test performance. MFD was administered to a sample of 68 MR subjects together with a battery of test (WISC-R, Rey’s Complex Figure Test B, VMGT). Results show that the test is effective in discriminating the two levels of mental retardation but it’s not effective in discriminating subjects with from those without organic damage. Moreover, the use of Bender’s VMGT and Rey’s tests confirmed that visual and motor skills does affect MFD performance. Psychometric data on MFD are also provided.

Abstract
In the past years, a limited number of studies have been described in the literature that investigate the ability of children to produce representational gestures. These studies involved normally developing children and children with developmental motor deficits, specific language impairment and/or learning disabilities. This paper presents a study about the representation of gestures, conducted with a sample of children with specific learning disabilities (reading and writing) and a control group (aged 8.4 - 11.2 years). A protocol to study both fine motor abilities and the representation of gestures was established, made up of different blocks of tests. The aim was to investigate the intrinsic complexity of the items proposed, in order to grade them, based on the performance and age of the children tested. The type of errors made also provided useful elements in the study of the items. The comparison between children with learning disabilities and the control group has additionally emphasized that while similar types of errors were committed by children in the two groups, the learning disabilities group made these mistakes much more frequently. The interpretation of the reason for these errors takes into account the possible difficulties that arise from imprecise implementation of the sequence of movements or an inability to conceptualize the action.

Abstract
To support disabled students’ right to education, the University Service and Research Centre has started a tutoring activity with the participation of six senior students and six disabled students. The reference model for this activity clearly refers to learning as an active and constructive process and advocates the student’s maximum participation, making reference in particular to the construct of Self Regulated Learning (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994). The studied involved disabled students who had applied for support to the Servizio Diritto allo Studio (Right to Education Service), student tutors showing specific characteristics, and disabled students who had given their availability for tutoring work when enrolling for that academic year. To encourage a personalised tutoring activity, the tutors involved received special training and had carried out the activity for up to 120 hours with the aim of increasing disabled students’ self-regulation strategies, study strategies, and active participation in University life. The project was implemented over a whole academic year. In this study, data related to intervention efficacy control and indications for future tutoring activities are presented.