ERP correlates of processing native and non-native language word stress in infants with different language outcomes

The early acquisition of native language prosody is assumed to ease infants’ language development. In a longitudinal setting we investigated whether the early processing of native and non-native language word stress patterns is associated with children’s subsequent language skills. ERP data of 71 four- and five-month-old infants were retrospectively grouped according to children’s verbal performance in a language test at 2.5 years. Children who displayed age-adequate expressive language skills later in development showed both an early and a late negative mismatch response (MMR) when processing the native language stress pattern as deviant in a passive oddball design. Children with poor language skills later in development did not show these negativities. Both groups displayed an infant-specific positive MMR to the non-native language deviant. This positivity was enhanced and prolonged in children who showed poor language skills later in development as compared to children who showed normal language skills. The results indicate that variability in expressive language development has precursors in infants’ ERP correlates of word stress processing.

from Cortex

Impairment of verbal recollection following ischemic damage to the right anterior hippocampus

Damage to the left medial temporal lobe (MTL) leads to an impairment of verbal recognition memory, affecting both the process of conscious recollection and familiarity-based recognition. Neuroimaging evidence, on the other hand, suggests a bilateral MTL contribution to verbal recollection. We investigated verbal recognition memory in three patients with focal ischemic lesions to the right MTL. The dual-process signal detection model and the process-dissociation procedure were applied to assess the contributions of recollection and familiarity to recognition memory. Compared to a group of 27 healthy age-matched controls, patients were impaired at recollection while familiarity was intact, and this effect was found for both estimation procedures. Detailed single-case analyses confirmed this pattern in two of the three right MTL patients. The findings suggest that, when task demands are high, as during recollective recognition, the right anterior hippocampus may also contribute to verbal recollection, thereby confirming neuroimaging evidence of a joint involvement of the left and the right MTL in verbal recollection.

from Cortex

Phonological dyslexia and dysgraphia: Cognitive mechanisms and neural substrates

To examine the validity of different theoretical assumptions about the neuropsychological mechanisms and lesion correlates of phonological dyslexia and dysgraphia, we studied written and spoken language performance in a large cohort of patients with focal damage to perisylvian cortical regions implicated in phonological processing. Despite considerable variation in accuracy for both words and non-words, the majority of participants demonstrated the increased lexicality effects in reading and spelling that are considered the hallmark features of phonological dyslexia and dysgraphia. Increased lexicality effects were also documented in spoken language tasks such as oral repetition, and patients performed poorly on a battery of phonological tests that did not involve an orthographic component. Furthermore, a composite measure of general phonological ability was strongly predictive of both reading and spelling accuracy, and we obtained evidence that the continuum of severity that characterized the written language disorder of our patients was attributable to an underlying continuum of phonological impairment. Although patients demonstrated qualitatively similar deficits across measures of written and spoken language processing, there were quantitative differences in levels of performance reflecting task difficulty effects. Spelling was more severely affected than reading by the reduction in phonological capacity and this differential vulnerability accounted for occasional disparities between patterns of impairment on the two written language tasks. Our findings suggest that phonological dyslexia and dysgraphia in patients with perisylvian lesions are manifestations of a central or modality-independent phonological deficit rather than the result of damage to cognitive components dedicated to reading or spelling. Our results also provide empirical support for shared-components models of written language processing, according to which the same central cognitive systems support both reading and spelling. Lesion–deficit correlations indicated that phonological dyslexia and dysgraphia may be produced by damage to a variety of perisylvian cortical regions, consistent with distributed network models of phonological processing.

from Cortex

Where (in the brain) do semantic errors come from?

Conclusion
Our study shows that semantic errors arising from damage to distinct cognitive processes reflect dysfunction of different brain regions.

from Cortex

Cochlear Americas Hosts Celebration 2009 For Cochlear Implant Recipients And Their Families

Cochlear Americas, the world’s leader in advanced hearing technologies, brings together cochlear implant recipients and their families for the third Cochlear Celebration on March 26-29 in Anaheim, California.

from Medical News Today.com

Reconstruction of Congenital Microtia-Atresia: Outcomes With the Medpor/Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid-Approach

The Medpor/BAHA dual plastic-otologic approach to microtia-atresia has produced excellent cosmetic results and hearing outcomes, which compare favorably to traditional microtia-atresia repair. This is a 2-stage aesthetic and functional protocol with an acceptably low rate of complications, which safely and efficiently achieves both aesthetic and functional goals.

from the Annals of Plastic Surgery

Voice and Swallowing After Laryngopharyngectomy and Free Ileocolic Flap Reconstruction for Hypopharyngeal Cancer

Sixteen patients with hypopharyngeal carcinoma who underwent laryngopharyngectomy had immediate reconstruction with a free ileocolic flap to restore voice and swallowing. All patients had satisfactory voice production and swallowing in the early postoperative stage. Maintaining adequate tension and decreasing redundancy of the transferred colon prevented food pooling and provided smooth, rapid swallowing. A wedge resection of the subserosa of the ileocecal valve to increase the intraluminal pressure helped prevent food reflux and provide good phonation. Although this modified technique yielded good initial results, both voice and swallowing deteriorated after concurrent chemoradiotherapy, possibly because of radiation injury to the transferred bowel.

from the Annals of Plastic Surgery

ERP Evaluation of Auditory Sensory Memory Systems in Adults with Intellectual Disability

Abstract
Auditory sensory memory stage can be functionally divided into two subsystems; transient-detector system and permanent feature-detector system (Ntnen, 1992). We assessed these systems in persons with intellectual disability by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) N1 and mismatch negativity (MMN), which reflect the two auditory subsystems, respectively. Added to these, P3a (an ERP reflecting stage after sensory memory) was evaluated. Either synthesized vowels or simple tones were delivered during a passive oddball paradigm to adults with and without intellectual disability. ERPs were recorded from midline scalp sites (Fz, Cz, and Pz). Relative to control group, participants with the disability exhibited greater N1 latency and less MMN amplitude. The results for N1 amplitude and MMN latency were basically comparable between both groups. IQ scores in participants with the disability revealed no significant relation with N1 and MMN measures, whereas the IQ scores tended to increase significantly as P3a latency reduced. These outcomes suggest that persons with intellectual disability might own discrete malfunctions for the two detector systems in auditory sensory-memory stage. Moreover, the processes following sensory memory might be partly related to a determinant of mental development.

from the International Journal of Neuroscience

The role of attribution beliefs, motivation and strategy use in Chinese fifth-graders’ reading comprehension

Conclusions: These findings suggest that the Chinese children who considered intelligence and ability as controllable were more likely to be intrinsically motivated to learn to read and to use various reading strategies to tackle problems when constructing meaning from text, resulting in a better understanding of text. However, as all the participants in the present study came from one Hong Kong primary school, caution should be exercised in generalising the findings of the present study to all Chinese primary students.

from Educational Research

What are the causes of the attention deficits observed in children with dyslexia?

Abstract
Dyslexic children often show attention problems at school, but it is not clear the nature of their impairments. The aim of this study was to analyze whether verbal processing artefacts could mediate attention deficits. Forty-seven children (22 dyslexics and 25 controls), aged between 7 to 12, were assessed through an ADHD rating scale and a battery of tasks tapping different attentional processes (selective, sustained, executive, and orienting). Phonological measures were used as covariates. Children with dyslexia showed attentional impairments (using both rating scales and neuropsychological tasks); however their performance was significantly affected by phonological performance. In conclusion, dyslexics may be inattentive at school because they are slow processors, in particular when they are presented with verbal stimuli.

from Child Neuropsychology

Do the hands have it? The facilitation effects of arm and hand gesture on word retrieval in aphasia

Conclusions: Gesture production is multifunctional for people with aphasia. People with mild aphasia, who have the majority of their linguistic resources still accessible, are likely to experience facilitation from gesture production, and hence gesture treatment maybe an appropriate and potent therapy focus. Some individuals with severe language impairment are capable of using many rich, communicative gestures. Such gesture expression should be explored as a viable component of a “total communication” therapeutic approach for those individuals.

from Aphasiology

Although promising in terms of reliability, additional evidence of validity is required before the Finnish version of the Voice Activity and Participation Profile can be confidently applied in the clinical context 1

This Article does not have an abstract.

from Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention

Changes in neuropsychological functioning following temporal lobectomy in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

Discussion: The results of this study suggest that temporal lobectomy does not harm the neuropsychological functioning of patients with intractable TLE and that it improves cognitive functions of the contralateral hemisphere.

from Neurological Research

Sublexical, lexical and supralexical information in speaking: current insights and directions in language production research

Abstract
We summarise research on language production that is based on presentations given at the Fourth International Workshop on Language Production (Mnster, Germany, September 2007). The individual contributions to this special issue cover language production in its full width: from processes and information types involved in formulation (Ziegler, Cholin & Levelt; Damian & Dumay), via lexical competition and selection (Abdel Rahman & Melinger; Mahon & Caramazza) to the interplay between conceptualisation and gesturing (Kita).

from Language and Cognitive Processes

Increasing Levels of Semantic Verbal Fluency in Elderly English Adults

Abstract
Analyses incorporating large independent population-based samples and identical measures are needed to investigate recent trends in cognitive function. Nationally representative independent cohorts of community living individuals in England aged 65 years or older from the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study in 1991 (n = 9458) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in 2002 (n = 5196) were compared. East Cambridgeshire participants aged 65-69 years in 1991 (n = 680) were also compared to an independent cohort examined in 1996 (n = 600). Semantic verbal fluency, as measured by the animal naming neuropsychological test, increased by 1.1 extra words a minute in England between 1991 and 2002 (95% CI 0.9, 1.3). A similar increase was also observed in East Cambridgeshire. Levels of semantic verbal fluency appear to have increased in the older English population, which may help to buffer the aging population from future increases in dementia.

from Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition