Introduction to the Special Issue: Recent Advances in Cognitive Remediation for Persons With Serious Mental Illness

Impaired cognitive functioning is a common feature of serious mental illness that contributes to worse psychosocial functioning and attenuated response to psychiatric rehabilitation. To address these impairments, cognitive remediation (i.e., interventions aimed at enhancing cognitive abilities such as attention and memory based on learning principles with the goal of improving psychosocial adjustment) has emerged in recent decades as a dynamic, rapidly evolving evidence-based practice. In this introduction we provide a summary of controlled research on the effects of cognitive remediation on cognitive and psychosocial functioning in people with serious mental illness, highlighting the results of three meta-analyses using similar methods conducted over 14 years. We next review different methods employed in cognitive remediation and summarize the recommendations of a consensus expert panel on the critical component of effective programs. We then highlight four papers in this special issue that illustrate the broad range of applications and research questions addressed in contemporary research on cognitive remediation. One paper examines the intriguing effects of combining cognitive remediation with aerobic exercise to improve psychotic symptoms in first episode psychosis, while a second one explores the feasibility of using cognitive remediation to enhance independent living skills training in people living in locked supervised residential settings awaiting discharge into the community. A third paper describes the processes involved in the cultural adaptation of a widely researched program for improving social cognition. The fourth paper considers what has been learned about the effects of cognitive remediation and tackles questions related to increasing its implementation and dissemination.