Normal Language Acquisition Research Articles

Music Perception in Children With Cochlear Implants

AbstractAs a result of the widespread use of cochlear implants, individuals with profound hearing loss now are able to hear sounds ranging from a syllable to a symphony. This form of “electric hearing” has been remarkably successful in providing sound to the deaf population and at least 100,000 implantation procedures have been performed worldwide in more than 80 countries (Clark, 2008). Today, it is routine for post-lingual deafened individuals (one who lost their hearing after normal childhood language acquisition) to achieve high performance on language tests following implantation (Lalwani, Larky, Wareing, Kwast, & Schindler, 1998). Deaf children implanted at an early age with a CI usually develop excellent spoken language skills, with placement into mainstream educational schooling (Francis, Koch, Wyatt, & Niparko, 1999). The overwhelming emphasis on language perception in CI users has led to relative neglect of non-linguistic sound perception. Yet, the auditory world consists of many other sounds besides those of spoken language. Of all non-linguistic sounds, perception of music—particularly pitch and timbre—represents the greatest challenge for implant-mediated listening (Limb, 2006). High-level perception of music rarely is attained through conventional speech processing technology in adults or children. Recent technological advances, however, have increased the processing capabilities of modern CIs and hold great promise for music perception and quality of life for children with cochlear implants (Lassaletta et al., 2007).

Cerebral reorganization as a function of linguistic recovery in children: An fMRI study

Characterizing and mapping the relationship between neuronal reorganization and functional recovery are essential to the understanding of cerebral plasticity and the dynamic processes which occur following brain damage. The neuronal mechanisms underlying linguistic recovery following left hemisphere (LH) lesions are still unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated whether the extent of brain lateralization of linguistic functioning in specific regions of interest (ROIs) is correlated with the level of linguistic performance following recovery from acquired childhood aphasia. The study focused on a rare group of children in whom lesions occurred after normal language acquisition, but prior to complete maturation of the brain. During fMRI scanning, rhyming, comprehension and verb generation activation tasks were monitored. The imaging data were evaluated with reference to linguistic performance measured behaviorally during imaging, as well as outside the scanner. Compared with normal controls, we found greater right hemisphere (RH) lateralization in patients. However, correlations with linguistic performance showed that increased proficiency in linguistic tasks was associated with greater lateralization to the LH. These results were replicated in a longitudinal case study of a patient scanned twice, 3 years apart. Additional improvement in linguistic performance of the patient was accompanied by increasing lateralization to the LH in the anterior language region. This, however, was the result of a decreased involvement of the RH. These findings suggest that recovery is a dynamic, ongoing process, which may last for years after onset. The role of each hemisphere in the recovery process may continuously change within the chronic stage.

Cognitive profile difference between normally intelligent children with Asperger's disorder and those with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

Asperger's disorder (Asperger syndrome, AS) and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) are different subtypes of mild pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). Using the Japanese version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III), 28 AS children (mean age, 9.3 years, 24 male) were compared with 78 PDD-NOS children (mean age, 7.6 years, 64 male) with normal intelligence (IQ > or = 85), using analysis of covariance (ancova) with the chronological age of a child as a covariate. Verbal IQ tended to be higher in the AS children than in the PDD-NOS children (mean raw scores, AS vs PDD-NOS: 103.9 vs 99.6; P < 0.10), although full-scale and performance IQ did not differ significantly. Compared with the PDD-NOS children, the AS children scored significantly higher on Freedom from Distractibility index (110.1 vs 104.5; P < 0.05) consisting of Arithmetic (11.0 vs 9.9, P = 0.04) and Digit Span (12.4 vs 11.6, P = 0.051), but tended to score lower on Coding (8.5 vs 9.8, P = 0.08). The typical cognitive profile of PDD (i.e. low score on Comprehension and high score on Block Design) was shared by both groups, which may support the validity of the current diagnostic classification of PDD. Relatively better verbal ability in AS children seems to reflect their normal language acquisition in infancy, and strong numeric interest may produce the AS children's mathematical excellence over PDD-NOS children. A low score on Coding in AS children might reflect their extreme slowness, circumstantiality and/or drive for perfection.

Research on First Language Acquisition of Spanish Phonology

Abstract This paper deals with research on acquisition of Spanish phonology by young children. The beginnings of this discipline are placed within the model of Generative Grammar, at the end of the 1960s. The two main areas of phonology are considered: on the one hand segments, and certain chronological sequences of segment acquisition, and on the other hand prosody, i.e. syllables, stress, intonation and rhythm. The most important issues of acquisition research are presented, including the relationship between perception and production, the role of prosody in acquisition, underlying representations, and the dependency of morphology on prosody. The main models of the field are also discussed, namely rules, parameters and constraints. The beginnings of morphological development and its dependence on phonology are briefly discussed as well. Finally, the acquisition of Spanish phonology in bilingual contexts is also described. The paper deals exclusively with normal first language acquisition, and does not refer to speech language impaired children nor to second language acquisition.

Language Abilities of Children with Asperger Syndrome

Current diagnostic taxonomies (ICD-10, DSM-IV) emphasize normal acquisition of language in Asperger syndrome (AS). Although many linguistic sub-skills may be fairly normal in AS there are also contradictory findings. There are only few studies examining language skills of children with AS in detail. The aim of this study was to study language performance in children with AS and their age, sex and IQ matched controls. Children with AS had significantly lower scores in the subtest of Comprehension of Instructions. Results showed that although many linguistic skills may develop normally, comprehension of language may be affected in children with AS. The results suggest that receptive language processes should be studied in detail in children with AS.

Specific Language Impairment: Lexical, Semantic, and Morpho-Syntactic Aspects of Verb Acquisition

Many studies of semantic and syntactic development in normal language acquisition have focused on verb function and use, noting that the verb can contribute to the learning of grammar structure and...

Frequency of basic English grammatical structures: A corpus analysis

Many recent models of language comprehension have stressed the role of distributional frequencies in determining the relative accessibility or ease of processing associated with a particular lexical item or sentence structure. However, there exist relatively few comprehensive analyses of structural frequencies, and little consideration has been given to the appropriateness of using any particular set of corpus frequencies in modeling human language. We provide a comprehensive set of structural frequencies for a variety of written and spoken corpora, focusing on structures that have played a critical role in debates on normal psycholinguistics, aphasia, and child language acquisition, and compare our results with those from several recent papers to illustrate the implications and limitations of using corpus data in psycholinguistic research.

Cognitive and symptom profiles in Asperger’s syndrome and high‐functioning autism

Asperger syndrome (AS) and autistic disorder are two subtypes of pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), but there has been considerable debate over whether AS and autistic disorder without mental retardation (IQ > or = 70), called high-functioning autism (HFA), are distinct conditions or not. The aim of the present paper was to clarify this issue through a comparison of cognitive function and autistic symptom profiles. Based on the DSM-IV and ICD-10 definitions of language acquisition, 36 age- and IQ-balanced subjects with AS (mean age, 12.8 years; mean full-scale IQ, 98.3) were compared with 37 subjects with HFA (mean age, 12.6 years; mean full-scale IQ, 94.6) on the Japanese version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale-Tokyo Version (CARS-TV). Compared with the HFA subjects, the AS subjects scored significantly higher on Verbal IQ, Vocabulary, and Comprehension, but scored significantly lower on Coding. Although the total CARS-TV score did not differ significantly between the two groups, AS subjects scored significantly lower (i.e. less abnormal) on Verbal communication and Non-verbal communication than did the HFA subjects. A history of normal language acquisition in early childhood could predict his/her better verbal ability in mid-childhood or later. Autistic cognitive characteristics shared by both AS and HFA subjects appear to support the validity of the current diagnostic classification of PDD.

Clinical assessment of language development in children at age 3 years that were born preterm

To evaluate the influence of gestational age and birth weight on language development and neurodevelopmental outcome at age 3 years in children born preterm. Cross sectional study including 69 children followed in our developmental outpatient clinic. Patients were consecutively included at the time of the 3 years of age appointment and stratified for birth weight (<1500 grams and between 1500-2500 grams). All patients were assessed for receptive and expressive language , Denver II and Bayley II tests and clinical neurological examination. For analysis patients were divided in two groups normal language acquisition (NLA) and delay in language acquisition (DLA). NLA children had higher scores on mental and psychomotor (p=<0.01, p=0.012) indexes of Bayley II. Newborns with less than 1500 grams had lower scores on all Bayley scale at age 36 months (p=0.002, p=0.007 and p<0.001). Multivariate analysis suggests an association between gestational age (p=0.032), abnormal behavior (p<0.001) and delay in language acquisition. Denver test at 12 and 24 months of age was a good predictor of delayed receptive and expressive language at three years of age (p=<0.01 and p=<0.01). Children born prematurely with low birth weight had an increased risk of language acquisition delay, and those had also lower cognitive and behavior scores when compared to NLA.

Concerning specific language impairment: intelligibility in expressive language

Even in the age of two years toddlers with Expressive Language Impairment (SLI-E) differ regarding their phonetic inventories compared with an age-matched group developing normally. PCC-R scores of 19 children with expressive language disorder, aged between four and six years, are compared with age and sex matched controls with normal language acquisition. There are significant differences between PCC-R scores, children with expressive language disorder show lower scores than children with normal language acquisition. Age, sex and nonverbal intelligence do not influence performance measured with PCC-R. Analysis regarding early, middle and late consonants shows, that expressive language disordered children show bigger problems in aquiring late than early and middle consonants.

Caregiver-child interactions and their impact on children's fluency: implications for treatment.

There is a relatively strong focus in the stuttering literature on the desirability of selected alterations in parental speech and language style in the management of early stuttering. In this article, the existing research support for such recommendations is evaluated, together with relevant research from the normal language acquisition literature that bears on the potential consequences of changing parental interaction style. Recommendations with relatively stronger and weaker support are discussed. Ways in which children's communication styles and fluency may be altered through newer fluency treatment protocols are contrasted with older, more general parent advisements. Finally, directions for future research into the efficacy of recommendations made to the parents of children who stutter (CWS) are offered.

Wh-Movement in Children with Grammatical SLI: A Test of the RDDR Hypothesis

This article presents a test of the proposal that a subgroup of children with GRAMMATICAL-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT (G-SLI) have optional movement (the REPRESENTATIONAL DEFICIT FOR DEPENDENT RELATIONS (RDDR) account, van der Lely 1998) by investigating wh-movement in fifteen G-SLI subjects and twenty-four younger children matched on language abilities (LA controls). The RDDR/optional movement account predicts that G-SLI subjects would have deficits with both wH-operator and Q-feature movement and therefore would have particular problems producing object questions. We elicited 36 questions balanced for subject and object questions and WH-words (who, which, what). The G-SLI subjects were significantly impaired in producing WH-questions, showing particular difficulties with object questions in relation to the control children. The majority of G-SLI subjects (80%) evinced both wh-operator and T/Q-feature movement errors whereas only one control child (4%) did so, yet on occasion all the G-SLI subjects used appropriate movement operations to satisfy the wh-criterion. We conclude that the RDDR account whereby movement is optional is consistent with the findings of correct and incorrect wh-question formation. Thus, this first test of the RDDR account of G-SLI is supported by the findings. We discuss the possible underlying nature of a grammar that could cause such optionality, the implications for normal and impaired language acquisition, and the generalizability of the findings to other groups of children with SLI. We propose that in the face of no movement, the wh-word and, on occasion, do are merged in situ in the CP, and function as an interrogative adjunct.

Phenomena in French normal and impaired language acquisition and their implications for hypotheses on language development

Article Phenomena in French normal and impaired language acquisition and their implications for hypotheses on language development was published on April 23, 2003 in the journal Probus (volume 15, issue 1).

Abnormal brain lateralization in high-functioning autism.

Disturbances in lateral preference in autism are of interest because of their potential to shed light on brain maturational processes in this disorder. Forty-seven autistic individuals with a history of disordered early language development and 22 autistic individuals with normal early language acquisition were matched with 112 healthy individuals and compared on a standardized measure of lateral preference, the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. Autistic individuals with a history of early language disturbance showed more atypical cerebral dominance than both healthy participants and autistic individuals with normal early language skills. The data indicated maturational disturbances in establishing lateral preference rather than increased rates of left handedness. Atypical establishment of cerebral dominance may be one cause of disordered language development in autism.

Modeling language acquisition in atypical phenotypes.

An increasing number of connectionist models have been proposed to explain behavioral deficits in developmental disorders. These simulations motivate serious consideration of the theoretical implications of the claim that a developmental disorder fits within the parameter space of a particular computational model of normal development. The authors examine these issues in depth with respect to a series of new simulations investigating past-tense formation in Williams syndrome. This syndrome and the past-tense domain are highly relevant because both have been used to make strong theoretical claims about the processes underlying normal language acquisition. The authors conclude that computational models have great potential to advance psychologists' understanding of developmental deficits because they focus on the developmental process itself as a pivotal causal factor in producing atypical phenotypic outcomes.

Genetics of Childhood Disorders: XXXVII. News Flash: A Gene for Expressive Language

The ability to speak is uniquely human. Although other species are capable of communicating with each other, the use of speech is a distinguishing feature of Homo sapiens. Is it possible that this trait is determined by specific genes? This question has been debated by linguists for many decades, and both sides of the argument have vocal supporters. The recent isolation of a gene that appears to be critical for the normal acquisition of language is a remarkable achievement and important to clinicians and researchers alike.

Late plasticity for language in a child’s non‐dominant hemisphere

The ability of the right hemisphere to sustain the acquisition or the recovery of language after extensive damage to the left hemisphere has been essentially related to the age at the time of injury. Better language abilities are acquired when the insult occurs in early childhood (perinatal insults) compared with later occurrence. However, while previous studies have described the neuropsychological pattern of language development in typical cases, the neural bases of such plasticity remain unexplored. Non-invasive functional MRI (fMRI) is a unique tool to assess the neural correlates of brain plasticity through repeated studies, but the technique has not been widely used in children because of methodological limitations. Plasticity of language was studied in a boy who developed intractable epilepsy related to Rasmussen's syndrome of the left hemisphere at age 5 years 6 months, after normal language acquisition. The first fMRI study at age 6 years 10 months showed left lateralization of language networks during a word fluency task. After left hemispherotomy at age 9 years, the child experienced profound aphasia and alexia, with rapid recovery of receptive language but slower and incomplete recovery of expressive language and reading. Postoperative fMRI at age 10 years 6 months showed a shift of language-related networks to the right during expressive and receptive tasks. Right activation was seen mainly in regions that could not be detected preoperatively, but mirrored those previously found in the left hemisphere (inferior frontal, temporal and parietal cortex), suggesting reorganization in a pre-existing bilateral network. In addition, neuropsychological data of this case support the hypothesis of innately more bilateral distribution of receptive than expressive language. This first serial fMRI study illustrates the great plasticity of the child's brain and the ability of the right hemisphere to take over some expressive language functions, even at a relatively late age. It also suggests a limit for removal of the dominant hemisphere beyond the age of 6 years, a classical limit for the critical period of language acquisition.

Narration Abilities of Children With Language-Learning Disabilities in Response to Oral and Written Stimuli

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine story retelling and inference abilities in children with language-learning disabilities (LLD). There were 10 children in the LLD group and 20 who showed normal acquisition of language, 10 of whom were matched for chronological age (NACA) and 10 of whom were matched for language ability (NALA) to an LLD child. Stimuli were both orally presented (Heard Condition) and read silently (Read Condition) by the participants. Four stories were presented in each of these conditions. After each story, participants completed two tasks: retelling the story and answering questions that were either factual or that required inferencing. Generally, results indicated that children with LLD and NALA retold stories and drew inferences more poorly than NACA children regardless of stimulus presentation mode; children with LLD drew inferences best with orally presented stimuli; and children with NACA and NALA drew inferences best with stimuli presented in writing. A number of possible explanations for the differences between groups are discussed, including working memory and attending to relevant information in text, both of which are skills needed for reading comprehension. These children's difficulties in making inferences were attributed to impairments in cognitive functions. Clinically, then, teaching children with LLD to make inferences from both text and oral narratives would address impaired cognitive functions and reading comprehension abilities.

Functional Categories and Syntactic Operations in (Ab)normal Language Acquisition

This article argues in favor of the hypothesis that computational complexity determines order of acquisition of functional categories by normal children and patterns of impairment vs. relative preservation of these categories in children with Specific Language Impairment. Complexity is defined in terms of the properties of functional categories of the language the (ab)normal child is acquiring. The results of a study on present/past tense production and comprehension, carried out with children with and without Specific Language Impairment confirm the predictions of the computational complexity hypothesis. It is shown that it is easier to compute kernel functional categories than those that introduce further semantic modifications in the sentence.

Sequential Analyses, Multiple Controlling Stimuli, and Temporal Patterning in First-Language Transmission

Although inferences of causality from contingencies are problematic, as Hume argued, and are difficult to prove empirically, explanatory accounts of normal language acquisition and all remedial interventions rely on presumptions of environmental effectiveness. Careful sequential analyses of verbal behaviors can strongly corroborate dependencies by means of establishing either (a) contiguous contingencies or (b) topographical resemblances between antecedents and delayed consequences that could not be explained without assuming such dependencies. The promises, as well as the methodological and conceptual challenges, of such sequential analyses of verbal training and learning are exemplified on the basis of mother-child interactions. Concomitant variation over shorter and longer intervals, and immediate as well as lagged contingencies, are interpreted as indicators of dependency relationships. By focusing on behavioral evidence, extensive similarities or even homologies between first-language training and learning and basic behavioral principles established mostly through nonhuman research can be demonstrated. Nevertheless, expansions and innovations in the behavioral repertoire are suggested as conducive to mutual enrichment of the two fields of the experimental analysis of behavior and first-language acquisition.