This chapter focuses on the second bridge between economic and social values in contract law, examining the role played by regulation in bringing together these values. The discussion questions the effectiveness of regulatory responses to business to consumer (B2C) relations in English consumer contract law, in protecting people not just as economic actors, but also as citizens, and in safeguarding values such as autonomy and human dignity. The analysis focuses on the regulation of unfair contract terms, unfair commercial practices, implied terms in contracts for the provision of goods, services and digital content, and on information and cancellation rights in business to consumer (B2C) contracts. This chapter also examines the concept of consumer vulnerability in trader– consumer relations.

This chapter focuses on the influence of nineteenth-century neurology on Beckett’s writing, especially the work of Jean-Martin Charcot and Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who both worked at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Charcot’s famous Tuesday lectures, at which he exhibited his patients to admiring crowds, became an intellectual and middle-class pastime in Paris, instigating a new performance style in the Parisian café-concert, in cabaret, and in music hall, while the performers at such venues, in turn, became the stars of early cinema, adapting their convulsive performance style to silent film. Beckett took a lifelong interest in these popular forms, and the chapter considers the impact of their convulsive aesthetic on his work. It also addresses Beckett’s representation of speech and his reading of Bergson’s 1900 essay on Laughter, which argued that humour arises from ‘something mechanical encrusted on the living’. Bergson’s extended essay was itself substantially influenced by medical discoveries, and especially the theatrical and often spectacular culture of the late-nineteenth-century science of neurology. While Beckett diverges from Bergson’s Cartesian stance, he nevertheless concurred on the limitations of free will and agency, on ‘the deep-seated recalcitrance of matter’, and on the human as always already determined by the mechanical.

Describe how children can take different paths in development and reach similar destinations; understand the developmental differences between children as a set of strengths and challenges that are highly sensitive to environmental context; explore how events in children’s lives can trigger a cascade of later consequences.

This chapter explores the unique relationship between music and individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It highlights the remarkable musical abilities often found in people with autism, contrasting with their challenges in social interaction and communication. Research shows that music can serve as a bridge, facilitating social interaction and emotional expression for those on the spectrum. Brain imaging studies reveal how brain regions typically associated with language processing are activated in autistic individuals when they engage with music. This suggests that music may offer an alternative pathway for communication and emotional understanding. The chapter also discusses the therapeutic applications of music for individuals with autism, such as auditory-motor mapping training (AMMT), which has shown promise in improving verbal communication and social skills. Music therapy can also foster emotional expression, social connection, and a sense of belonging. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding and embracing the individual’s musical preferences and strengths in order to support their development and well-being.

In this chapter we discuss that, as well as being the main feature necessary for the diagnosis of Hoarding Disorder, hoarding can also occur as a symptom in many other physical and mental conditions. We will discuss clinical stories of people who have had difficulties with hoarding but will demonstrate how a different type of approach is needed to help them overcome their problems from that described from pure Hoarding disorder. There will then be a brief examination of the overlap between trauma and neurodiversity and hoarding as well as a brief description and discussion of the validity of the concept of Diogenes Syndrome in the elderly.

This chapter discusses cognitive individual differences that affect learning processes and outcomes of second language. It answers broad questions such as Why do some learners seem to have such an easy time learning a second language? and Why do some learners sound like a first-language speaker but others don’t? The chapter examines how our cognitive abilities influence our learning, and how we might be able to improve our learning even if we have lower cognitive skills in some areas. Specific individual differences include general intelligence, working memory, and language learning aptitude (phonemic coding ability, grammatical sensitivity, rote memorization). The chapter then examines how cognitive individual differences mediate the impact of second language instruction, that is, aptitude–treatment interaction. The chapter includes less-investigated individual differences as well, such as neurodiversity, autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. The chapter concludes with learning strategies and pedagogical recommendations that help counter the negative impacts that cognitive individual differences have on second language learning.

Universities should recognise neurodiversity as conferring risk for mental health conditions and suicide. Evidence-based support and monitoring can reduce the risk of these occurring and can also reduce dropout and improve academic and psychosocial outcomes for these students and staff members. Staff training in recognition and management of neurodiverse conditions should be delivered at levels appropriate to staff roles. Despite growing interest in both ASD and ADHD in adults, many people who could benefit from diagnosis have not received it. Professionals need to be aware of underdiagnosis of both ASD and ADHD in girls and probably in ethnic and other minority groups. Lack of recognition deprives these vulnerable people of the supports universities can offer to people with neurodiversity. Lay people who take on caring or ‘buddying’ roles for people with neurodiversity need to be well-supported within a helping community rather than expected to shoulder responsibility alone. Waiting lists at many NHS clinics are too long to provide timely assessment for students. University mental health staff may be able to create recognised training programmes and negotiate agreements about diagnosis and prescribing with local GPs.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the aims of the book, and the coverage in the chapters contained within the book. It includes a brief introduction to dyslexia, starting with the key features of dyslexia, primarily as seen from research and practice on children, before moving to a discussion of adult dyslexia. These key elements related to dyslexia focus on difficulties with reading and writing that can be long-lasting, and hence occur in adulthood. They also link to the potential cause of dyslexia, such as phonological processing deficits, and the impact that dyslexia can have on learning and cognition in general. Therefore, the chapter also discusses issues related to the experiences of adult dyslexics and the consequences of dyslexia that can impact on life and performance in the workplace. Dyslexia in adulthood can be considered more complex to childhood dyslexia given the range of experiences and strategies that the individual has acquired, as well as the variability in tasks that the adult needs to perform. Hence, individual differences in strengths and difficulties, as well as lifetime experiences, are an important for understanding adult dyslexia.

How can we use cognitive approaches to embed the dynamic and often variant outcomes of ritual experiences? Key themes that have emerged in both individual and communal rituals are the subjectivity and variation in these experiences: the role of physical and emotional interaction in shaping memory. The concluding chapter begins with a vivid discussion of cognition, sensation and experience, exploring how these elements function together, creating a spectrum of variable experiences and outcomes in modern and ancient ritual contexts. This section is used to further develop ideas, common themes and issues connecting the different chapters – the versatility of ritual experience(s), the role of embodied cognition in constructing ritual experience(s), the importance of the relationship between distributed cognition and ritual experience(s) - and how these themes help to expand disciplinary boundaries in the study of ancient religions and religious rituals. The concluding chapter also situates the themes of the volume within current cognitive science of religion research as well as broader disciplines such as art, heritage and museum studies. These discussions address how the study of ancient religions from a cognitive perspective can contribute to a number of disciplines, opening up new venues for research and interdisciplinary collaboration.

In this chapter, we advocate for a neurodiversity approach as a way to eschew deficit perspectives on disability and to articulate fully inclusive educational practices. With a specific focus on autism, we show the value of conversation analysis (CA) as a method for (1) discerning dimensions of communicative competence in children who communicate through unconventional or non-verbal means; and (2) identifying interactional processes that afford or constrain children’s participation in communication exchanges. The chapter offers illustrations of how early childhood educators might use insights and strategies from CA to identify autistic children’s social-communicative competencies within everyday settings, and to understand how interactions can be mediated to support neurodiversity and inclusion.

This essay considers Charles Brockden Brown’s Ormond as an imaginative experiment with neurodiversity, considering, in particular, what it means to know, as we do now, that different brains are fundamentally, neurologically different and how neurological difference might have been narrated before there was a language for it. This is an investigation not of intelligence or mental health but of fundamental neurological difference and what it might have meant for the late eighteenth century United States, then a new nation politically organized through republicanism in which representative (white, propertied) men were expected to represent the needs of “the people” and trusted with governance. Ormond troubles the foundational formulation that American bodyminds simply required the right education and training to become, in Benjamin Rush’s words, “republican machines” able “to perform their parts properly, in the great machine of the government of the state.” If republicanism was structured by a presumption of neurotypicality, Ormond presents a fascinating example of a novel working to represent different bodyminds during a time when there were not yet adequate narrative means for doing so.