ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author considers certain unresolved questions having to do with the disability designated as constructional apraxia that is observed in a fair proportion of patients with cerebral disease. Constructional praxis refers to behaviour in which parts are put together or articulated to make a single entity or object. The constructional tasks are sometimes extremely simple, as in stick-arranging, block-building in the vertical dimension, or copying single simple figures such as a square or a triangle. A comparative study has shown that tests of constructional praxis generally identify a higher proportion of brain-damaged patients than do most WAIS subtests. S. C. Kohs believed that his test assessed a broad and fundamental mental capacity that was not at all specifically associated with a spatial relations factor but rather one that could well be considered as the very core of intelligence.
