Language Processing Difficulties Research Articles

Attention-aware with stacked embedding for sentiment analysis of student feedback through deep learning techniques

Automatic polarity prediction is a challenging assessment issue. Even though polarity assessment is a critical topic with many existing applications, it is probably not an easy challenge and faces several difficulties in natural language processing (NLP). Public polling data can give useful information, and polarity assessment or classification of comments on Twitter and Facebook may be an effective approach for gaining a better understanding of user sentiments. Text embedding techniques and models related to the artificial intelligence field and sub-fields with differing and almost accurate parameters are among the approaches available for assessing student comments. Existing state-of-the-art methodologies for sentiment analysis to analyze student responses were discussed in this study endeavor. An innovative hybrid model is proposed that uses ensemble learning-based text embedding, a multi-head attention mechanism, and a combination of deep learning classifiers. The proposed model outperforms the existing state-of-the-art deep learning-based techniques. The proposed model achieves 95% accuracy, 97% recall, having a precision of 95% with an F1-score of 96% demonstrating its effectiveness in sentiment analysis of student feedback.

Schizotypal traits and their relationship to reading abilities in healthy adults

Schizotypal traits (i.e., personality characteristics that range from mild eccentricities to more pronounced schizophrenia-like perceptions, thought patterns, and behaviours) have been associated with a variety of cognitive impairments, including difficulties in language processing. Although these difficulties span several aspects of language (e.g., semantic processing, verbal fluency, visual word recognition), it is unclear whether reading abilities are also affected. Thus, the current study employed the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) – Brief (Raine and Benishay, 1995) to examine how schizotypal traits impact both word-level and text-level reading skills (using a battery of standardized assessments) in a sample of healthy young adults. We found some evidence that higher schizotypal traits, specifically, increased Disorganized factor scores (reflecting aberrant thinking, communication patterns, and behaviour), were associated with reduced word-level reading abilities. However, this finding did not remain significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. Overall, our study suggests that reading may be another aspect of language affected by schizotypal traits, although additional research (with greater power) is needed to further explore and confirm this finding.

Language bursts and text quality in digital writing by young EFL learners

This study investigates the relationship between pausing and revision behaviors, as captured by pause bursts (P-bursts) and revision bursts (R-bursts), and text quality in digital L2 writing contexts among young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The study involved 22 elementary school students aged 10–11 years, with English proficiency levels ranging from A1 to A2 (CEFRL). Participants completed a picture description writing task, and their writing processes were recorded using keystroke logging software. The results revealed that frequent pauses (P-bursts) were negatively correlated with text quality, suggesting cognitive overload or difficulties in language processing. In contrast, revision bursts (R-bursts) exhibited a positive correlation with text quality, indicating that the revision process played a crucial role in refining and improving the written output. Regression analysis further demonstrated that R-bursts significantly predicted text quality, underscoring the importance of revision behavior among young L2 writers. These findings contribute to our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying L2 writing in digital contexts and highlight the central role of revisions in enhancing text quality among young EFL learners. Educational implications emphasize the need for instructional practices that encourage and support the revision process in writing instruction for this population.

Delayed auditory experience results in past tense production difficulties and working memory deficits in children with cochlear implants: A comparison with children with developmental language disorder

Extent evidence has shown that morphosyntax is one of the most challenging linguistic areas for children with atypical early language experiences. Over the last couple of years, comparisons between deaf children with CIs and children with DLD have gained interest – as cases of atypical early language experiences, including, but not restricted to, delayed onset of exposure to language input and language-processing difficulties. Evidence suggests that the morphosyntactic difficulties experienced by deaf children with CIs and children with DLD are very similar in nature. However, the few studies that have directly compared both groups are inconclusive, with deaf children with CIs either performing significantly better or on par with children with DLD. These differences in findings can be attributed, in part at least, to a failure to implement essential methodological controls – even more so given that deaf children with CIs comprise a very diverse population. The goal of the present study was to directly compare the performance of deaf children with CIs to that of children with DLD on a morphosyntactic ability known to be particularly difficult for both groups. Specifically, the present study conducted a detailed examination of the past tense marking abilities of deaf children with CIs and children with DLD while controlling for factors specific to deaf children with CIs, for children's basic cognitive abilities as well as for children's age, sex assigned at birth, and SES. Past tense verbs are particularly relevant as they are used as a marker of developmental language disorder (DLD) in children learning French.Moreover, extent evidence shows that deaf children with CIs and children with DLD have important WM difficulties, but also that there is an association between auditory perception, processing abilities, and working memory (WM) abilities as well as with the acquisition of morphological features, including tense marking. Unfortunately, no study has examined the relation between the accurate production of past tense verbs and WM abilities in children with CIs and children with DLD learning French.Fifteen deaf children with CIs between 5 and 7 years of age were compared to 15 children with DLD and to 15 typically-developing monolingual controls (MON), matched on important variables, using a past tense elicitation task as well as measures of phonological and nonverbal WM abilities.The results confirm that the deaf children with CIs and the children with DLD both performed significantly lower than the MON controls on the past tense elicitation task – suggesting that difficulties with past tense verbs in French might not only be a marker of DLD but, instead, a correlate of atypical language acquisition. Of importance, the present study is the first to show that deaf children with CIs perform significantly lower than children with DLD on a past tense elicitation task – highlighting the importance of using methodological controls. As well, significant correlations were found between the performance of the deaf children with CIs and of the children with DLD on the past tense elicitation task and their phonological and nonverbal WM abilities. Taken together with previous studies conducted in the same populations, this represents another evidence suggesting that early atypical language experiences result in language and WM deficits, including morphosyntactic difficulties.

გრამატიკალიზებული ადგა ფორმის ფუნქციურ-სემანტიკური ანალიზი

Language as a system of signs is a complex phenomenon. Full analysis of language means, on the one hand, studying the linguistic system and, on the other hand, studying the mechanisms of its functioning, i.e., analysing the interaction between deep and surface structures. At the same time, language is a constantly changing system. Changes occur on each level of language: in its phonological setup, its morphological system and its syntactic structures. Changes also apply to the field of semantics and pragmatics.The primary function of language – its use in communication – builds upon the linguistic inventory, which consists of lexical units and functional elements. The inventory of a language can be divided into different paradigmatic classes. Due to changes, a sign can be transposed from one paradigmatic class to another in natural languages. This type of change in a given language system is called grammaticalisation. Grammaticalisation is a well-known phenomenon in typology. During the process of grammaticalisation, a lexical unit looses its historically developed semantics and after its desemanticisation acquires some specific grammatical function; consequently, it becomes a functional element. In general, the change of lexical units into grammatical/functional elements is quite common in natural languages and it is characteristic for both nouns and verbs; however, the research methodology concerning them is different. In typological terms, grammaticalisation is particularly specific in the transformation of verb forms into functional elements. The process of grammaticalisation involves a change of the paradigmatic class of a linguistic sign. A change of this type does not occur at once, it is gradual, as a grammaticalisation process as Hopper says: “a change is only incompletely achieved at any given stage of language” (Hopper 2005:25). The present paper refers to the process of grammaticalisation, the functional and semantic analysis of grammaticalised items, and the ways to tackle the problems that arise in computer linguistics due to grammaticalised elements of verbal origin. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate the grammaticalised function of the verbal form a-dg-a (PR-stand-AOR.S3.SG) ‘stood up’ vs. ‘abruptly stopped an action and began a new one’ and the semantic and functional aspects of this form. The investigation uses both corpus-based and corpus-oriented methods and is carried out on the basis of the Georgian National Corpus (GNC; www.gnc.gov.ge). The empirical data are collected from the Old, Middle and Modern Georgian corpora, as well as the subcorpora of juridical and political texts. In order to search the functional and semantic characteristics of the grammaticalised form a-dg-a, we applied the methods of lexical substitution and elimination, and to describe the functions of the form, we used a language competency test. The results of the test are illustrated by charts. Functional elements create special difficulties in computational language processing, i.e. in computational linguistics. Today no one argues about the establishment of digital bases of spoken and written language and the importance of its processing with digital methods: in the 21st century, scientists’ efforts are rather aimed at creating and improving methods of artificial intelligence. The creation of systems for automatic recognition and analysis is one of the main tasks. This requires a thorough analysis of the linguistic system on phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels. Since the Georgian language material is not yet functionally processed in all its facets, the Georgian National Corpus does not possess an algorithm to distinguish functional elements from homonymous elements belonging to another paradigmatic class, which is an unsettled problem of disambiguation. The present paper describes the homonymy that is caused by the grammaticalisation of the form a-dg-a and the ways of removing the ambiguity in the GNC. On the basis of the collected data, it suggests rules which are illustrated by charts. We hope that the suggested rules will be a basis for an improvement of the corpus-internal mechanism of morphological analyis.

Anaphoric processing deficits in Alzheimer's disease: the role of working memory

Empirical studies have shown that Alzheimer's patients have language-processing difficulties. In particular, they frequently fail to identify the referent of pronouns and other anaphoric expressions. In healthy individuals, the explicit repetition of proper names elicits a processing delay known as the repeated name penalty. However, in Alzheimer's patients, such repetitions help them establish connections between phrases and allow them to process language more easily. The study of anaphoric processing in patients with cognitive deficits shows: (a) the existence of design features of the language faculty independent of the language in question; (b) the interdependence of language and other cognitive processes; (c) the involvement of working memory in the resolution of pronouns; (d) the contribution of psycholinguistics to the improvement of communication between Alzheimer's patients and health care professionals.

High-Order Language Processing Difficulties in Patients With Schizophrenia: Cross-linguistic and Cross-cultural Results From the Hindi Version of a Newly Developed Language Test.

To detect subtle linguistic performance deficits in patients with schizophrenia, a test battery was developed in Hindi vernacular language. It was a replication study of observational, analytical, and case-control design. Total of 86 participants, namely 43 patients with schizophrenia and 43 controls, were recruited into the study. The patients were evaluated by using PANSS (positive and negative symptoms scale for schizophrenia) for recruitment into the study. Participants from the general population were evaluated with GHQ-12 (General Health Questionnaire-12) to be found to fit as healthy controls. Subsequently, the linguistic performance of patients (on HLFT: Hindi linguistic function test) was compared with that of controls. The HLFT battery was designed, containing 3 blocks by using antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, hyperonyms, hyponyms, distractors, and adages. Patients scored significantly less than that of controls in identifying antonyms, distractors, and hyponyms while in identifying homonyms they scored significantly more than that of controls. At block I (antonyms) score of 15.5; at homonym score of 5.5; at hyponym (as in hyponym plus distractor combination) score of 2.5, the sensitivity and specificity for using them as a cutoff to screen for schizophrenia are 60.5% and 67.4%; 86% and 41.9%; 81.4% and 46.5%, respectively. Ambiguity processing of taxonomic representation such as antonymia, homonymia, hypo-/hyperonymia, synonymia, and also understanding of adages might be significantly impaired in patients with schizophrenia. The HLFT battery could be used as a quick and sensitive instrument to detect and quantify the linguistic difficulties of patients with schizophrenia.

Object and action naming in a sentence context in people with Parkinson's disease free of dementia

Difficulties in action language processing (e.g. verbs) have been described in Parkinson's disease (PD). The embodied cognition approach links this difficulty to degenerative motor process. It has also been suggested that frontostriatal dysfunction could involve executive problems for lexical selection, which is generally more demanding for verbs. From this point of view, difficulties should diminish in a supportive context. 21 non demented people with PD and 16 control subjects were evaluated in an object and action naming task preceded by a sentence context that could be predictive or not of the target word (e.g. 'When the music started the couple began to…' 'dance'). The mobility of actions and the manipulability of objects were also manipulated. PD patients showed longer response latencies for verbs than the control group. In line with the embodied cognition approach, actions that implied higher mobility were more difficult for the group of people with PD. Moreover, PD patients benefited more from the predictive context for naming objects and actions. Results suggest that both a disruption at the level of action semantics and a subtle executive dysfunction contribute to lexical access difficulties in people with PD, even in the absence of overt cognitive impairment.

Deficits in musical rhythm perception in children with specific learning disabilities.

A specific learning disability comes with a cluster of deficits in the neurocognitive domain. Phonological processing deficits have been the core of different types of specific learning disabilities. In addition to difficulties in phonological processing and cognitive deficits, children with specific learning disability (SLD) are known to have deficits in more innate non-language-based skills like musical rhythm processing. This paper reviews studies in the area of musical rhythm perception in children with SLD. An attempt was made to throw light on beneficial effects of music and rhythm-based intervention and their underlying mechanism. A hypothesis-driven review of research in the domain of rhythm deficits and rhythm-based intervention in children with SLD was carried out. A summary of the reviewed literature highlights that music and language processing have shared neural underpinnings. Children with SLD in addition to difficulties in language processing and other neurocognitive deficits are known to have deficits in music and rhythm perception. This is explained in the background of deficits in auditory skills, perceptuo-motor skills and timing skills. Attempt has been made in the field to understand the effect of music training on the children's auditory processing and language development. Music and rhythm-based intervention emerges as a powerful intervention method to target language processing and other neurocognitive functions. Future studies in this direction are highly underscored. Suggestions for future research on music-based interventions have been discussed.

Research on Text Classification Based on BERT-BiGRU Model

Text classification is a typical application of natural language processing. At present, the most commonly used text classification method is deep learning. Meanwhile there are many difficulties in natural language processing, such as metaphor expression, semantic diversity and grammatical specificity. To solve these problems, this paper proposes the structure of BERT-BiGRU model. First, use the BERT model instead of the traditional word2vec model to represent the word vector, the word representation is calculated according to the context information, and it can be adjusted according to the meaning of word while the context information is fused. Secondly BiGRU model is attached to the BERT model, BiGRU model can extract the text information features from both directions at the same time. Multiple sets of experiments were set up and compared with the model proposed in this paper, according to the final experimental results, using the proposed BERT-BiGRU model for text classification, the final accuracy, recall and F1 score were all above 0.9. It shows that BERT-BiGRU model has good performance in the Chinese text classification task.

Natural Language Processing Theory, Applications and Difficulties

The promise of a powerful computing device to help people in productivity as well as in recreation can only be realized with proper human machine communication. Automatic recognition and understanding of spoken language is the first step toward natural human machine interaction. Research in this field has produced remarkable results, leading to many exciting expectations and new challenges. This field is known as language Processing. In this paper the natural language generation and language understanding is discussed. in NLU, applications and comparison with structured programming language are also discussed here. Mrs. Anjali Gharat | Mrs. Helina Tandel | Mr. Ketan Bagade Natural Language Processing Theory, Applications and Difficulties Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-6 , October 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd28092.pdf

Natural Language Processing Theory, Applications and Difficulties

Natural Language Processing Theory, Applications and Difficulties

Similarity corpus on microbial transcriptional regulation

BackgroundThe ability to express the same meaning in different ways is a well-known property of natural language. This amazing property is the source of major difficulties in natural language processing. Given the constant increase in published literature, its curation and information extraction would strongly benefit from efficient automatic processes, for which corpora of sentences evaluated by experts are a valuable resource.ResultsGiven our interest in applying such approaches to the benefit of curation of the biomedical literature, specifically that about gene regulation in microbial organisms, we decided to build a corpus with graded textual similarity evaluated by curators and that was designed specifically oriented to our purposes. Based on the predefined statistical power of future analyses, we defined features of the design, including sampling, selection criteria, balance, and size, among others. A non-fully crossed study design was applied. Each pair of sentences was evaluated by 3 annotators from a total of 7; the scale used in the semantic similarity assessment task within the Semantic Evaluation workshop (SEMEVAL) was adapted to our goals in four successive iterative sessions with clear improvements in the agreed guidelines and interrater reliability results. Alternatives for such a corpus evaluation have been widely discussed.ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first similarity corpus—a dataset of pairs of sentences for which human experts rate the semantic similarity of each pair—in this domain of knowledge. We have initiated its incorporation in our research towards high-throughput curation strategies based on natural language processing.

Late maturation of backward masking in auditory cortex.

Speech perception relies on the accurate resolution of brief, successive sounds that change rapidly over time. Deficits in the perception of such sounds, indicated by a reduced ability to detect signals during auditory backward masking, strongly relate to language processing difficulties in children. Backward masking during normal development has a longer maturational trajectory than many other auditory percepts, implicating the involvement of central auditory neural mechanisms with protracted developmental time courses. Despite the importance of this percept, its neural correlates are not well described at any developmental stage. We therefore measured auditory cortical responses to masked signals in juvenile and adult Mongolian gerbils and quantified the detection ability of individual neurons and neural populations in a manner comparable with psychoacoustic measurements. Perceptually, auditory backward masking manifests as higher thresholds for detection of a short signal followed by a masker than for the same signal in silence. Cortical masking was driven by a combination of suppressed responses to the signal and a reduced dynamic range available for signal detection in the presence of the masker. Both coding elements contributed to greater masked threshold shifts in juveniles compared with adults, but signal-evoked firing suppression was more pronounced in juveniles. Neural threshold shifts were a better match to human psychophysical threshold shifts when quantified with a longer temporal window that included the response to the delayed masker, suggesting that temporally selective listening may contribute to age-related differences in backward masking. NEW & NOTEWORTHY In children, auditory detection of backward masked signals is immature well into adolescence, and detection deficits correlate with problems in speech processing. Our auditory cortical recordings reveal immature backward masking in adolescent animals that mirrors the prolonged development seen in children. This is driven by both signal-evoked suppression and dynamic range reduction. An extended window of analysis suggests that differences in temporally focused listening may contribute to late maturing thresholds for backward masked signals.

A Digital App to Aid Detection, Monitoring, and Management of Dyslexia in Young Children (DIMMAND): Protocol for a Digital Health and Education Solution.

BackgroundDyslexia, a specific learning difficulty and a disability as defined in the Equality Act 2010, is a lifelong condition that affects a child from the start of education. Dyslexia is characterized by difficulties in language processing (reading, spelling, and writing) which do not correspond with the child’s general intellectual abilities. Although dyslexia cannot be cured, there is a consensus that interventions are more effective and have greater impact the earlier they are administered. Effective interventions start with diagnosis. Currently, formal diagnosis requires an assessment by a dyslexia specialist or educational psychologist. These assessments are expensive and are not easy for a non-specialist teacher or parent to interpret. Consequently, formal assessments are normally performed at a much later age, when interventions are less likely to be effective. Combining the latest in scientific research, expertise of dyslexia practitioners and real-time interactivity facilitated by digital technologies, we aim to provide a cost-effective and convenient solution that focuses on early dyslexia detection and management.ObjectiveWe discuss the rationale and protocol for the design and development of a digital health solution aimed at improving the early detection, monitoring and management of dyslexia (DIMMAND) in young children (4-8 years). The primary objective is to create a game-based digital solution aimed at children, parents, and teachers that firstly assesses, then monitors and manages progress in a convenient, cost-effective and private environment.MethodsThe proposed solution will be designed and developed in phases. In the initial phase, the full functional specification of the games that constitute the app will be designed, together with the overall architecture of the solution. Prototype proof-of-concept implementation for few of these games, and commercialization strategies will also be developed. The follow-on phases will see the design implemented into a validated solution.ResultsIn the initial phase, we worked closely with dyslexia specialists, adult dyslexics, teachers of special-needs children, parents of dyslexic children, and senior dyslexia representatives for large organizations. These interactions provided insights into the range of language difficulties faced by dyslexics, which solutions are used by teachers and professionals, and an overall understanding of the market. We comprehensively defined the ethical, privacy, and data security issues. The detailed design spec of the games, the methodology to be followed to interpret the results, and flow diagrams illustrating how the game screens will be presented was completed. As proof of concept, a few reading, visual, and auditory games were developed and successfully tested by stakeholders on different digital devices. The stakeholders provided regular feedback and confirmed the viability of our game-based solution.ConclusionsDIMMAND has the potential to provide significant positive health care and economic impact. It is expected to reduce intervention costs, improve dyslexia detection at an early age and aid self-management.Registered Report IdentifierRR1-10.2196/9583

Commentary on Bora & Zorlu (2017): Social cognition deficits in addiction-an attachment problem?

Some addicted patients have social cognition deficits that require therapists to have special skills to ensure treatment success. Specific remediation techniques that teach addicted patients to look at the relevant emotional cues when interacting with people should be tested as adjunctive treatment. Almost two decades after the first studies reporting reduced ability to read non-verbal signals in alcohol dependence 1, Bora & Zorlu's meta-analysis confirms further that social cognitive impairments comprise an important research topic in the field of addiction 2. Social abilities are fundamental to human behaviour. Patterns of body language, including facial expressions and body postures, translate into a tuned ballet between interacting partners that binds and bonds people together 3. In this context, it appears inevitable that difficulties decoding non-verbal inputs could lead to interpersonal difficulties in alcohol-dependent patients 4. Bora & Zorlu evoke possible aetiologies to explain social cognitive deficits in alcohol-dependent patients. A toxic effect of chronic alcohol consumption on connectivity between brains areas devoted to social cues decoding has been described 5. However, social cues decoding difficulties have also been seen in other substance-related addictions (e.g. opiates 6). Additionally, non-verbal emotion decoding impairments have been highlighted recently in pathological gambling; that is, an addiction without a substance 7. This suggests that non-verbal emotion decoding impairments in addiction could occur in the absence of any toxic effect of a substance on the brain. In this commentary, I propose that attachment styles could impact significantly upon alcohol-dependent patients’ ability to decode non-verbal emotions. Insecure attachment is associated with alcohol dependence and constitutes a risk factor for its development 8. The majority of alcohol-dependent patients display an abnormal attachment style and experience difficulties in securing stable interpersonal relationships 9. Because impaired interpersonal attachment is associated with an inability to buffer life's emotional turmoil effectively 9, alcohol might be used as a coping strategy. Attachment problems impair emotion decoding in faces, as they are associated with gaze avoidance towards informative cues in childhood. Children with callous/unemotional traits show low levels of eye contact towards their mothers; in other words, they fail to attend to the eyes of attachment figures 10. Impaired ability to seek out and make use of the eye regions is also present in autism, and improves with oxytocin administration 11. Specific neuronal structures are considered important in the monitoring of gaze: amygdala regions are involved in the processing of gaze and eye fixation, as illustrated by deficits of facial emotion processing in patients with amygdala lesions 12. Interestingly, alcohol-dependent patients have been shown to exhibit lowered amygdalar responses when looking at emotional faces 13. This pattern of activation has also been found among young people with a high risk of alcoholism (i.e. from families with a history of alcohol dependence 14, 15). This supports the idea that non-verbal language processing difficulties might partly precede the development of an addiction. Consequently, we encourage future studies on alcohol dependence to examine the association between attachment styles and patterns of eye movements during facial emotion decoding. On a therapeutic level, addicted patients’ social cognition deficits could interfere significantly with psychotherapeutic interventions. Patients with addiction show a very high level of dropout from treatment, which might partly reflect attachment problems. The effectiveness of treatment relies heavily upon strong interpersonal skills, independently of theoretical psychotherapeutic background 16. It is therefore important that the therapist is aware of patients’ lowered ability to decode non-verbal emotional states and finds ways of interacting with them despite these difficulties. Indeed, high emotional tuning characterizes psychotherapies with higher symptom reduction 17, and might be difficult to achieve with some addicted patients. As well as psychotherapeutic interventions, cognitive remediation procedures could help to improve social cognition deficits in addiction, and should also be examined in future studies. For instance, training patients to look at the right cues when decoding emotional faces (i.e. the eyes and the mouth) has been shown to be effective in the treatment of impaired emotion decoding in child psychopathy 10 and in schizophrenia 18. Moreover, an emotion perception intervention combined with cognitive remediation has been shown to improve both emotion recognition and social functioning in chronic schizophrenia 19. In summary, we need further research to explore the relationship between social cognition deficits and abnormal attachment styles in addiction. Improving these deficits in adult addicted patients might still be possible through effective psychotherapeutic interventions and specific cognitive remediation procedures, aiming at a positive impact upon their social life and their substance use. None.

Sentence Processing in Traumatic Brain Injury: Evidence From the P600.

Sentence processing can be affected following a traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to linguistic or cognitive deficits. Language-related event-related potentials (ERPs), particularly the P600, have not been described in individuals with TBI history. Four young adults with a history of closed head injury participated. Two had severe injuries, and 2 had mild-moderate injuries more than 24 months prior to testing. ERPs were recorded while participants read sentences designed to be grammatically correct or incorrect. Participants also completed cognitive and sentence comprehension measures. One participant with TBI was significantly different than the control group on several behavioral sentence measures and 1 cognitive measure. However, none of the participants with TBI had a reliable P600 effect. Nonparametric bootstrapping indicated that the ERP was reliable in 10 control participants but no participants with TBI history. There were few behavioral differences between individuals with TBI history and the control group, though all reported subjective difficulty with reading. The P600 was absent in the TBI group in this study. Given the heterogeneity of individuals with TBI and the difficulty in assessing subtle language impairments, exploring the P600 further may provide useful insight into language processing difficulties.

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Brain Imaging Investigation of Phonological Awareness and Passage Comprehension Abilities in Adult Recipients of Cochlear Implants.

The aim of this study was to examine how the brains of individuals with cochlear implants (CIs) respond to spoken language tasks that underlie successful language acquisition and processing. During functional near-infrared spectroscopy imaging, CI recipients with hearing impairment (n = 10, mean age: 52.7 ± 17.3 years) and controls with normal hearing (n = 10, mean age: 50.6 ± 17.2 years) completed auditory tasks-phonological awareness and passage comprehension-commonly used to investigate neurodevelopmental disorders of language and literacy. The 2 groups had similar reaction time and performance on experimental tasks, although participants with CIs had lower accuracy than controls. Overall, both CI recipients and controls exhibited similar patterns of brain activation during the tasks. The results demonstrate that CI recipients show an overall neurotypical pattern of activation during auditory language tasks on which individuals with neurodevelopmental language learning impairments (e.g., dyslexia) tend to show atypical brain activation. These findings suggest that advancements in functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging with CI recipients may help shed new light on how varying types of difficulties in language processing affect brain organization for language.

Linguistic profiles of children with CI as compared with children with hearing or specific language impairment.

The spoken language difficulties of children with moderate or severe to profound hearing loss are mainly related to limited auditory speech perception. However, degraded or filtered auditory input as evidenced in children with cochlear implants (CIs) may result in less efficient or slower language processing as well. To provide insight into the underlying nature of the spoken language difficulties in children with CIs, linguistic profiles of children with CIs are compared with those of hard-of-hearing (HoH) children with conventional hearing aids and children with specific language impairment (SLI). To examine differences in linguistic abilities and profiles of children with CIs as compared with HoH children and children with SLI, and whether the spoken language difficulties of children with CIs mainly lie in limited auditory perception or in language processing problems. Differences in linguistic abilities and differential linguistic profiles of 47 children with CI, 66 HoH children with moderate to severe hearing loss, and 127 children with SLI are compared, divided into two age cohorts. Standardized Dutch tests were administered. Factor analyses and cluster analyses were conducted to find homogeneous linguistic profiles of the children. The children with CIs were outperformed by their HoH peers and peers with SLI on most linguistic abilities. Concerning the linguistic profiles, the largest group of children with CIs and HoH children shared similar profiles. The profiles observed for most of the children with SLI were different from those of their peers with hearing loss in both age cohorts. Results suggest that the underlying nature of spoken language problems in most children with CIs manifests in limited auditory perception instead of language processing difficulties. However, there appears to be a subgroup of children with CIs whose linguistic profiles resemble those of children with SLI.

Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Paired Associate Learning in Aphasia

Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Paired Associate Learning in Aphasia