This ambitious work aims to provide a comprehensive view of the mechanisms, processes, influences, factors, and past and present events that may keep children from constructing, structuring or mobilising their abilities in an academic environment, and from acquiring new abilities and successfully constructing the required learning skills. Contributors to this multi-disciplinary work include researchers and clinicians, academics and hands-on professionals, with backgrounds ranging from psychology and child psychology to paediatrics, psycho-physiology and education. The authors review the fundamental aspects of child development and the learning deficiencies and disorders that may appear. They examine how pedagogy and the learning environment interact with the child: their goal is to place the child at the heart of the discussion on education, and to encourage an inquiry into how education actually works, based on the current state of knowledge in the various related fields. Included here are clear, concise analyses on issues such as the rhythm of the school day and academic year, the acquisition of reading skills, violence, academic failure, memory and motivation, and school meals. In the struggle against academic failure, the main tool is understanding the child better. In order to do this, it is essential to base educational practice on the most recent knowledge.

Georges Dupon-Lahitte is the president of France’s main parent-teacher association.

Professor Hubert Montagner heads a research unit of INSERM, at the University of Bordeaux-II, specialising in the psycho-physiology and the psycho-pathology of development. He is the author of many works, including L’Attachement and L’Enfant et ses rythmes.

Contributors to this work include: M. Bouvard, J. Bernicot, F. Fenouillet. R. Fontaine, M.-L. Frelut, J.-E. Gombert, R. Jaffard, P. Meirieu, J. Paty, B. Pierrehumbert, F. Testu, M. Touzin, L. Vera.