Theory and data on various aspects of cognition, communication and handicap are presented here, related to two sorts of psychological compensation. On the one hand, basic principles of cognition are employed with the purpose of helping to overcome communicative difficulties among handicapped people, and on the other, various sorts of technical aids used for compensatory purposes are examined. Many of the papers presented here stem from a conference held in Stockholm in 1985, sponsored by the Swedish Council for the Planning and Coordination of Research, as part of a large-scale project on handicaps. Although researchers in psychology were in the majority, students of other disciplines also took part.