Role In Cognitive Development Research Articles

The metalinguistic and metarepresentational attitude of early bilingual children: A study on definitional skills

Aims and objectives: Definitional skill is the ability to define words using canonical formats. This skill requires lexical, morpho-syntactic, and pragmatic abilities, as well as metalinguistic attitude. Bilingualism has a crucial role in cognitive development, especially in promoting metareflective competencies. The relationship between bilingualism and definitional skills is a very under investigated topic. The aim of this study is to explore in the same sample of bilingual children how they define words in both languages. Methodology: Thirty early bilingual minority language children (age range 7–16 years) were administered a definition task (Co.De.Scale). They were asked to define words both in their native language, Romanian (L1), and their second language, Italian (L2). Data and analysis: Data were analyzed via mixed-method effects. Furthermore, we were also interested in studying if there were any differences in the answer proportions per definitional level (from 0 to 6) between Italian and Romanian. Findings: The results showed the production of better definitions in L2 compared with L1. The finding is readable in the light of the different settings where the two languages are used: home/family for L1 versus at school/non-family contexts for L2. Originality: This is the first study to show the role of both educational school settings and language dominance in promoting development of formal definitional skills. More specifically, it is worth stressing the relevance to study this topic in minority language bilingual children. Implications: Given the lower performance of minority language bilingual children in defining in their native language L1, a crucial educational objective could be enhancing the definitional skills in L1, designing ad hoc interventions that boost formal instruction. In turn, this would favor more inclusion and the exploitation of the minority language children, as well as more intercultural integration, thus enhancing language minority cultures.

Sociocultural Theory in Early Childhood Education

Early childhood education (ECE) is pivotal for children's development, with Lev Vygotsky and Urie Bronfenbrenner's sociocultural theory stressing social interactions and family engagement. Sociocultural principles advocate for tailored learning within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and emphasize language's role in cognitive development. However, ECE faces challenges like funding shortages and staff turnover, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sociocultural theory suggests collaborative partnerships to address these issues, stressing educator-student and family-school connections. It also advocates for community involvement to bridge financial gaps and highlights the importance of professional development for teachers. Family participation is crucial, recognizing diverse family influences and educational styles. Sociocultural theory promotes inclusive practices accommodating diverse needs, temperaments, and learning styles, fostering creativity, problem-solving, and socialization in ECE settings. Early childhood education (ECE) is pivotal for children's development, with Lev Vygotsky and Urie Bronfenbrenner's sociocultural theory stressing social interactions and family engagement. Sociocultural principles advocate for tailored learning within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and emphasize language's role in cognitive development. However, ECE faces challenges like funding shortages and staff turnover, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sociocultural theory suggests collaborative partnerships to address these issues, stressing educator-student and family-school connections. It also advocates for community involvement to bridge financial gaps and highlights the importance of professional development for teachers. Family participation is crucial, recognizing diverse family influences and educational styles. Sociocultural theory promotes inclusive practices accommodating diverse needs, temperaments, and learning styles, fostering creativity, problem-solving, and socialization in ECE settings.

The Role of Maternal Secretor Status and Human Milk Oligosaccharides on Early Childhood Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Breast milk is the gold standard of infant nutrition, delivering nutrients and bioactive molecules as needed to support optimal infant growth and cognitive development. Increasing evidence links human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) to these early childhood development milestones. Aims: To summarize and synthesize the evidence relating to HMOs and infant brain development, physical growth, and cognitive development. In addition, HMO concentrations in secretor and nonsecretor mothers were compared via a meta-analysis. Study Design: A systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out in accordance with the PRISMA statement. This review used three databases (PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) and was limited to English-language articles published between 2000 and June 30, 2023. Results: The initial searches yielded 245 articles, 27 of which were included in the systematic review and 12 in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis revealed a substantial between-study heterogeneity, I2 = 97.3%. The pooled effect was 0.21 (95% CI: -0.41 to 0.83; p = 0.484), indicating that secretors had higher HMO concentrations, although this difference was not statistically significant. At one month of age, 2'FL, 3FL, and 3'SL play an important role in brain maturation and thus play a critical role in cognitive development. Secretors produce higher concentrations of 2'FL and 3'SL, explaining the benefits to infants of secretor mothers. Growth velocity was correlated to fucosylated and sialylated HMO concentrations, with lower concentrations linked to stunting. Conclusions: According to evidence from the systematically reviewed articles, HMOs are essential for a child's early development, but the extent to which they have an impact depends on maternal secretor status.

A REVIEW ON FACTORS AFFECTING MEDHA (INTELLIGENCE) IN CHILDREN

Intelligence encompasses the capacity for critical thinking, learning from experiences, problem-solving, and adapting to new situations. The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) serves as a metric to gauge human intelligence derived from standardised tests or subtests designed for this purpose. In Ayurveda, this cognitive ability aligns with the concept of Medha (intelligence), involving a comprehensive understanding of existing knowledge, combining elements such as buddhi (intellective faculty), smriti (recollecting memory), and dhriti (grasping power). In contemporary scientific terms, these components collectively represent IQ. It is crucial to recognise that achieving a high IQ is influenced by various factors, including prenatal conditions (maternal nutrition and health), events during birth, postnatal circumstances, environment, and daily routines. Optimal IQ in children requires consistent attention to the mother's nutrition from the perinatal period up to early childhood, considering the prenatal, natal, and postnatal environments. Proper monitoring, coupled with adequate food and healthcare for the mother, can contribute to achieving optimal IQ in the child. Nutrition plays a vital role in cognitive development during early childhood, influencing brain growth and intellect. Unfortunately, parents often overlook this critical factor. Certain elements, such as nimitta (cause and effect knowledge), rupa grahanat (form recognition), sadrishyat (similarity understanding), saviparyaat (contrast comprehension), sattvaanubhandha (mind concentration), abhyasat (practice), gyanayogaat (metaphysical knowledge attainment), and punah srutaat (sequential partial communication), contribute to good memory. The impairment of indriya (sensory organs) can lead to a deficiency in knowledge. Therefore, a holistic approach that considers prenatal, natal, and postnatal factors, coupled with proper nutrition and healthcare, is crucial for fostering optimal intelligence and cognitive development in children.

Exploring the Impact of Sensory Activities on the Development of Entrepreneurial Spirit in Children

This article explores the impact of sensory activities on fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in children. Sensory activities, involving exercises that stimulate a child’s senses, play a crucial role in cognitive development and can lay the groundwork for entrepreneurial skills. The article emphasizes how these activities enhance creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities - key components of an entrepreneurial mindset. It discusses how engaging in sensory play, arts and crafts, music, and nature walks not only provides immediate enjoyment but also develops traits like resilience, adaptability, and innovative thinking in children. By promoting a sense of curiosity and exploration, sensory activities contribute to building an entrepreneurial mindset from an early age. This approach is vital in preparing children for the complexities and demands of the future, equipping them with skills necessary for success in an ever-evolving global landscape.

Understanding the Impact of Deviant Peer Association on Dual Systems Model Development: Testing the Moderating Role of ADHD.

Recent research has indicated that deviant peers may play a role in cognitive development. This is particularly the case for the dual systems model, a key framework for understanding engagement in antisocial behavior during adolescence and emerging adulthood. However, limited research has examined how preexisting mental health concerns may moderate these relationships. This study used the Pathways to Desistance data to examine attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a moderator of the relationships between deviant peer association and dual systems model constructs. Generalized estimating equations were used to test these relationships. Results indicated that deviant peer association and the presence of ADHD both predicted increased sensation-seeking and lower impulse control. ADHD significantly moderated the relationship between deviant peer association and impulse control, indicating a weaker impact of deviant peer association on impulse control among participants with ADHD. No significant interaction was observed for the relationship between deviant peer association and sensation-seeking.

The Development of Flexible Problem Solving: An Integrative Approach.

Flexible problem solving, the ability to deal with currently goal-irrelevant information that may have been goal-relevant in previous, similar situations, plays a prominent role in cognitive development and has been repeatedly investigated in developmental research. However, this research, spanning from infancy to the school years, lacks a unifying framework, obscuring the developmental timing of flexible problem solving. Therefore, in this review paper, previous findings are gathered, organized, and integrated under a common framework to unveil how and when flexible problem solving develops. It is showed that the development of flexible problem solving coincides with increases in executive functions, that is, inhibition, working memory and task switching. The analysis of previous findings shows that dealing with goal-irrelevant, non-salient information received far more attention than generalizing in the presence of goal-irrelevant, salient information. The developmental timing of the latter can only be inferred from few transfer studies, as well as executive functions, planning and theory of mind research, to highlight gaps in knowledge and sketch out future research directions. Understanding how transfer in the presence of seemingly relevant but truly irrelevant information develops has implications for well-balanced participation in information societies, early and lifespan education, and investigating the evolutionary trajectory of flexible problem solving.

Network evolution of regional brain volumes in young children reflects neurocognitive scores and mother’s education

The maturation of regional brain volumes from birth to preadolescence is a critical developmental process that underlies emerging brain structural connectivity and function. Regulated by genes and environment, the coordinated growth of different brain regions plays an important role in cognitive development. Current knowledge about structural network evolution is limited, partly due to the sparse and irregular nature of most longitudinal neuroimaging data. In particular, it is unknown how factors such as mother’s education or sex of the child impact the structural network evolution. To address this issue, we propose a method to construct evolving structural networks and study how the evolving connections among brain regions as reflected at the network level are related to maternal education and biological sex of the child and also how they are associated with cognitive development. Our methodology is based on applying local Fréchet regression to longitudinal neuroimaging data acquired from the RESONANCE cohort, a cohort of healthy children (245 females and 309 males) ranging in age from 9 weeks to 10 years. Our findings reveal that sustained highly coordinated volume growth across brain regions is associated with lower maternal education and lower cognitive development. This suggests that higher neurocognitive performance levels in children are associated with increased variability of regional growth patterns as children age.

Working memory based early intervention program for gifted preschoolers: an effectiveness study

In the literature, it has been shown that working memory, which plays an important role in cognitive development of preschool children and is a concept intertwined with cognitive activities, can be improved. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of early intervention programs for improving working memory on the working memory performance of gifted children in the pre-school period. In the study, pre-test post-test experimental design of unequal groups of quasi-experimental designs was used. While an early intervention program to improve working memory was applied to the experimental group, the control group did not benefit from this training. The study group of the research consisted of a total of 67 children. The data collection tools used in the study consisted of three groups: scales for identifying and typical development, the scale for determining effectiveness of the early intervention program, and scales to determine the social validity of the study. The quantitative findings showed that the early intervention program developed improved the working memory performance of both gifted and typically developing children. In addition, the students who participated in the study and their parents and teachers found the early intervention program useful. It was observed that the study provided social validity.

Discourse acquisition along with the early and preschool age

Numerous studies in language acquisition have been revealed that oral discourse plays a crucial role in cognitive development and communicative development and has an impact on the so-called narrative mind, social intelligence, autobiographic memory, and personal identity. The paper is devoted to the main patterns and mechanisms of the acquisition of oral personal discourse along with the early and preschool age. The paper includes the following sub-topics: conversation acquisition, personal narrative and fictional story acquisition, relations between different genres of personal discourse, and cognitive prerequisites for the acquisition of personal discourse. The paper is based on the meta-analysis of numerous studies covering various fields of science (psychology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistics) and decades of scientific investigations in child development. The main issues discussed in the paper are acquisition and development of interaction structure (the skills necessary to initiate and to close a conversation); acquisition and development of conversation structure (the skills necessary for turn-taking and topic continuation); acquisition and development of some metadiscursive skills necessary for successful communication (e.g. to acknowledge communication breakdowns in a proper way); acquisition and development of some pragmatic skills necessary for successful communication (e.g. to modify speech characteristics according to the social role and status of the interlocutor and the context of the communication, to produce relevant speech acts); acquisition and development of narrative structure (story structure, episode completeness, internal state terms); and acquisition and development of narrative cohesion and coherence. The given issues are discussed from the perspective of the biological age and linguistic, communicative, and cognitive development.

Residential and school green and blue spaces and intelligence in children: The Generation XXI birth cohort

Green and blue spaces have numerous health benefits. It has been hypothesized that contact with these spaces can have an important role in cognitive development, because it provides children with unique stimuli that can help develop curiosity, creativity, awareness, and control. This study aimed to estimate the association between exposure to green and blue spaces and the various measures of intelligence quotient (IQ) among children from Porto Metropolitan Area (Portugal).This investigation used data from the Generation XXI birth cohort. Exposure was assessed by Geographic Information Systems using vegetation indexes and measures of accessibility to urban green spaces and blue spaces in the surroundings of the residence and school, measured at 0, 4, 7 and 10 years. The outcome was the verbal, performance, and global IQ, measured using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III), administered at age 10. Associations were estimated using crude and adjusted multilevel models. The mediation role of air pollution and physical activity was quantified.This study included 3827 children. The adjusted models showed that having green spaces up to 800 m of the residence was positively associated with performance IQ (1.30 95%CI [0.26; 2.35]) and global IQ (1.27 [0.18; 2.36]). No clear associations were observed regarding accessibility to blue spaces. Physical activity appeared to have a minor mediation role.Children with urban green spaces around their residences had higher performance and global IQ. Local actors in the sectors of public health and urban planning should promote the creation of green spaces close to residential areas.

Dietary sialylated oligosaccharides in early-life may promote cognitive flexibility during development in context of obesogenic dietary intake

ABSTRACT Introduction: Oligosaccharides found in mammalian milk have shown the potential to alter brain development across multiple species. The diversity and concentration of these oligosaccharides is species-specific and varies greatly between individuals, thus understanding their role in cognitive development is warranted. We investigated the impact of early life dietary fucosylated/neutral or sialylated human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) on behaviours in tasks assessing anxiety, motivation, appetite, learning, and memory. Methods: Sixty-four female Göttingen minipigs were artificially reared from 2 weeks postnatal and provided milk replacers. The study used four groups: no additional oligosaccharides (Con), fucosylated and neutral oligosaccharides (FN, 4 g/L), sialylated oligosaccharides (SL, 0.68 g/L), or both FN and SL (FN + SL, 4 g/L) from 2 to 11 weeks postnatal. One reference group was sow-reared. Weaning occurred between 10 and 11 weeks postnatal, and thereafter an obesogenic diet was provided. Behavioral tasks were conducted over three periods: 1) 0–11 weeks; 2) 16–29 weeks; 3) 39–45 weeks. Tasks included a spatial holeboard task, open field task, exposure to a novel object, runway task, single-feed task, and home pen behaviour observation. Results: In the holeboard, the SL group demonstrated improved reference memory during reversal trials between 16-29 weeks. All groups demonstrated equivalent behavior in open field, novel object, runway, and single-feed tasks, as well as in their home pens (Ps > 0.05). Discussion: These results suggest that early life dietary intake of sialylated oligosaccharides may provide an improvement to cognition during the equivalent developmental stage of adolescence.

The Radically Embodied Conscious Cybernetic Bayesian Brain: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again.

Drawing from both enactivist and cognitivist perspectives on mind, I propose that explaining teleological phenomena may require reappraising both “Cartesian theaters” and mental homunculi in terms of embodied self-models (ESMs), understood as body maps with agentic properties, functioning as predictive-memory systems and cybernetic controllers. Quasi-homuncular ESMs are suggested to constitute a major organizing principle for neural architectures due to their initial and ongoing significance for solutions to inference problems in cognitive (and affective) development. Embodied experiences provide foundational lessons in learning curriculums in which agents explore increasingly challenging problem spaces, so answering an unresolved question in Bayesian cognitive science: what are biologically plausible mechanisms for equipping learners with sufficiently powerful inductive biases to adequately constrain inference spaces? Drawing on models from neurophysiology, psychology, and developmental robotics, I describe how embodiment provides fundamental sources of empirical priors (as reliably learnable posterior expectations). If ESMs play this kind of foundational role in cognitive development, then bidirectional linkages will be found between all sensory modalities and frontal-parietal control hierarchies, so infusing all senses with somatic-motoric properties, thereby structuring all perception by relevant affordances, so solving frame problems for embodied agents. Drawing upon the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference framework, I describe a particular mechanism for intentional action selection via consciously imagined (and explicitly represented) goal realization, where contrasts between desired and present states influence ongoing policy selection via predictive coding mechanisms and backward-chained imaginings (as self-realizing predictions). This embodied developmental legacy suggests a mechanism by which imaginings can be intentionally shaped by (internalized) partially-expressed motor acts, so providing means of agentic control for attention, working memory, imagination, and behavior. I further describe the nature(s) of mental causation and self-control, and also provide an account of readiness potentials in Libet paradigms wherein conscious intentions shape causal streams leading to enaction. Finally, I provide neurophenomenological handlings of prototypical qualia including pleasure, pain, and desire in terms of self-annihilating free energy gradients via quasi-synesthetic interoceptive active inference. In brief, this manuscript is intended to illustrate how radically embodied minds may create foundations for intelligence (as capacity for learning and inference), consciousness (as somatically-grounded self-world modeling), and will (as deployment of predictive models for enacting valued goals).

The Home Learning Environment of Primary School Children with Down Syndrome and those with Williams Syndrome.

Background and aims: Research on typically developing (TD) populations has shown that the home learning environment plays a significant role in cognitive development and learning, but very little is known about the home learning environment of children with Down syndrome (DS) or children with Williams syndrome (WS). The present study examined and compared, for the first time, the home learning environment of children diagnosed with DS and children diagnosed with WS to investigate whether different cognitive profiles were reflected in their home literacy and number experiences. Methods and procedures: Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a web-based survey from 58 parents and one foster parent of primary school children with DS (n = 35) and WS (n = 24) mostly based in the UK. The survey targeted the children’s general level of functioning and academic skills; type, format, and frequency of home learning activities; parents’ expectations for their child’s academic outcomes; parents’ attitudes towards literacy and mathematics; children’s interest towards mathematics; and the use of technology to support home learning activities. Outcomes and results: Our results showed that, overall, the home learning environment of children with DS and children with WS were similar but changed based on the child’s cognitive profile. Comparative analyses showed that parents of children with DS engaged more often in activities supporting counting than parents of children with WS, despite both groups reporting difficulties with this skill. Moreover, our results indicated that literacy-based activities occurred more often than mathematics-based activities and that the home numeracy environment was characterized by activities supporting different mathematical skills such as counting, arithmetic, and numeracy. Parents in both groups engaged with their child in both formal and informal literacy and mathematics-based activities, but informal activities occurred more often when supporting counting and number recognition skills. Conclusions and implications: The current study provides evidence that the home learning environment of children with DS and children with WS include different literacy- and mathematics-based activities and that the home learning environment changes on the basis of the child’s strengths and weaknesses. The findings are discussed in relation to previous studies and the impact on parental interventions.

He knew more than we wanted him to know: Parent perceptions about their children's sense of pediatric cancer-related financial problems.

Treatment for pediatric cancer generates costs that place sizeable demands on family finances relative to household income. Little is known about whether children sense that their cancer has created financial problems for the family. The study purpose was to describe parents' perceptions about whether their child sensed that pediatric cancer created financial problems for their family. Family Communications Theory informed our study. We used descriptive statistics and content analysis to examine parents' (n=417) responses to questions about the child's sense of pediatric cancer-related financial problems from a larger survey study. Approximately 56.2% of parents indicated that their child had no sense of the pediatric cancer-related financial problems and 44.1% indicated their child had some. Proportions of children perceived to sense these financial problems steadily increased with age grouping, while proportions perceived to have none declined. With content analysis, we identified cognitive capacity as the key child factor influencing children's sense of these problems. Influential context factors included social norms, observed changes in family routines and spending patterns, and overheard conversations between adults. Child psychological outcomes included guilt, anxiety about money, and feelings of being a burden. Pediatric oncology professionals and staff should be mindful of parent preferences about burdening children with sensitive financial information, and modify their behaviors and processes accordingly. They can also provide anticipatory guidance and psycho-education about psychological responses related to the effects of pediatric cancer on family finances and the role of cognitive development in the evolution of children's awareness of those effects.

Factors associated with cognitive developmental delay among infants attending Reproductive and Child Health clinics in Dar es salaam, Tanzania

Background; Early child cognitive development is important throughout one’s life span. It is estimated that more than 200 million children under five years of age fail to achieve full cognitive development in the world and 80% of them are in south Asia and sub-Sahara-Africa. Genetic and environmental factors play a role in early child development (ECD). Most of the ECD occurs in the first 2years of life, but largely during infancy. Malnutrition, poverty and poor health care to children have been found to have association with poor cognitive development and create a vicious cycle of poverty. This study gives the proportion and factors that are associated with infants’ cognitive developmental delay in our setting. Knowing these factors enhance early intervention to break the viscious cycle.This study aimed to determine the proportion and factors associated with cognitive developmental delay among infants attending RCH clinics in Dar es Salaam. Patients/ Material and Methods; This was a health facility based descriptive cross-sectional study conducted by using a structured data collecting tool done in three health centers in Dar es Salaam from July to December 2012. A two- stage sampling technique and Lottery were used to get the health centers. The data were analyzed using SPSS software by Pearson’s chi-square, Fisher exact test and logistic regressions. Results; A total of 350 infants were assessed for cognitive development in a period of six months. Male infants were the majority by 50.6%. Our study Participants aged 1to 12 months with a mean (SD) of 7.26 (3.43) months with their birth weight ranging from 1.3 to 4.6kg with mean (SD) of 3.11(0.50) kg. The Proportion of infants with cognitive developmental delay was 12.3%. Age of the child, caretakers and wasting were significantly associated with cognitive developmental delays even after adjusting for confounders. Infants aged less than 6months were 14 times more likely to have cognitive developmental delay compared to those aged six months and above (adjusted oddis ratio{aOR=14; 95%CI 5.3-38.3, P<0.001}). Infants cared by assistant caretakers especially during day-time, were 12 times more likely to have cognitive developmental delay compared to infants who stayed with their mothers (aOR=12.1; 95%CI 3.0-53, P=0.001). Wasted infants were 4 times more likely to have cognitive developmental delay (aOR=3.9; 95%CI 1.1-13.3, P=0.032) compared to infants with good nutritional status. Conclusion; The proportion of cognitive developmental delay among infants attending Reproductive and Child Health( RCH) clinics in Dar es Salaam was 12.3%. Young age of the child, use of other caretakers in absence of the mother, and wasting were associated with cognitive developmental delays. Infants need Mothers to spend time with them and prevention of malnutrition plays a role in cognitive development.

One-carbon pathway and cognitive skills in children with Down syndrome

This work investigates the role of metabolite levels in the intellectual impairment of subjects with Down syndrome (DS). Homocysteine, folate, vitamin B12, uric acid (UA), creatinine levels and MTHFR C677T genotype were analyzed in 147 subjects with DS. For 77 subjects, metabolite levels were correlated with cognitive tests. Griffiths-III test was administered to 28 subjects (3.08–6.16 years) and WPPSI-III test was administered to 49 subjects (7.08–16.08 years). Significant correlations were found among some metabolite levels and between homocysteine levels and MTHFR C677T genotype. Moreover, homocysteine, UA and creatinine levels resulted increased with age. We did not find any correlation between metabolites and cognitive test score in the younger group. Homocysteine showed statistically significant correlation with WPPSI-III subtest scores when its level is ≥ 7.35 µmol/L, remaining correlated in higher thresholds only for non-verbal area scores. Vitamin B12 showed correlations with all WPPSI-III subtest scores when its level is < 442 pg/mL. The relevance of the present findings is the detection of a specific metabolite threshold related with a better or worse cognitive score, suggesting that vitamin B12 and homocysteine may have a role in cognitive development in children with DS.

Similar use of intonation structure in early implanted children and hearing children: The case of Italian

This work presents an analysis of the intonation competence in a group of Italian children with cochlear implant (CI). Early cochlear implantation plays a crucial role in language development for children who were born deaf in that it favours the acquisition of complex aspects of language, such as the intonation structure. A story-generation task, the Narrative Competence Task, was used to elicit children’s stories. Narrations produced by 8 early implanted children and by 16 children with typically hearing (TH) (8 one-to-one matched considering the chronological age, TH-CA, and 8 considering the hearing age, TH-HA) were analysed considering intonation features (pitch accent distribution, edge tones and inner breaks). Results show that children with CI produce intonation patterns that are similar to those of both TH-CA and TH-HA control groups. Few significant differences were found only between children with CI and children matched for TH-HA in the use of rising edge tones. These results are discussed in light of the role of cognitive development in using prosody and intonation and the importance of early CI implantation. This study shows for the first time that intonation use of early implanted children is not different from that of typically developing children with the same chronological age.

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Psycholinguistics, is a branch of psychology that deals with language and cognitive development. It is primarily concerned with how the language is presented and processed in the brain. It also projects similarities between different languages, compares their history and explains the relation between two languages sharing similar history or place of origin. The term “Psycholinguistics” was first coined by American psychologist Jacob Robert Cantor in 1936 in his book “An Objective Psychology Of Grammar”, where he refers to psycholinguistics as the bridge between psychology and linguistic study. Later, it was researched on again in 1940 by Charles E. Osgood and Thomas A. Sebeok, who performed a series of experiments and concluded that psycholinguistics plays a huge role in cognitive development of children and almost all children, irrespective of any linguistic community, show the same pattern of development.

N-acetylglucosamine drives myelination by triggering oligodendrocyte precursor cell differentiation

Myelination plays an important role in cognitive development and in demyelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), where failure of remyelination promotes permanent neuro-axonal damage. Modification of cell surface receptors with branched N-glycans coordinates cell growth and differentiation by controlling glycoprotein clustering, signaling, and endocytosis. GlcNAc is a rate-limiting metabolite for N-glycan branching. Here we report that GlcNAc and N-glycan branching trigger oligodendrogenesis from precursor cells by inhibiting platelet-derived growth factor receptor-α cell endocytosis. Supplying oral GlcNAc to lactating mice drives primary myelination in newborn pups via secretion in breast milk, whereas genetically blocking N-glycan branching markedly inhibits primary myelination. In adult mice with toxin (cuprizone)-induced demyelination, oral GlcNAc prevents neuro-axonal damage by driving myelin repair. In MS patients, endogenous serum GlcNAc levels inversely correlated with imaging measures of demyelination and microstructural damage. Our data identify N-glycan branching and GlcNAc as critical regulators of primary myelination and myelin repair and suggest that oral GlcNAc may be neuroprotective in demyelinating diseases like MS.