SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Language”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

[Concerning specific language impairment: intelligibility in expressive language].

BACKGROUND: 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. METHOD AND PATIENTS: 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. RESULTS: 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.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Thinking out loud: an exploration of problem-solving language in preschoolers with and without language impairment.

This study investigates the use of language while engaged in solving a complex spatial problem. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been reported to lag behind age peers in certain cognitive tasks, despite normal range non-verbal intelligence test scores. It was hypothesized that these delays could reflect some failure to employ language to direct and facilitate thought. Dyads of preschool children were taped during a three-dimensional construction task. Task-relevant utterances were then coded for function and addressee. The speech of six children with SLI, aged 4;10, was compared with that of two control groups, one matched by age, the other by language level. The SLI group used less problem-solving speech and fewer modal expressions than their age peers. Not all differences were statistically significant, but the pattern of findings indicated that what differences did occur were due to overall reductions in the amount of speech rather than any specific failure to use language as a tool of thought. Correlations between the use of problem-solving speech and a measure of cognitive style indicated clear group differences. For children in the control groups, greater use of private speech was associated with greater cognitive efficiency; for children in the SLI group the relationship was in the opposite direction, greater use of private speech being associated with less cognitive efficiency. In all three groups, problem-solving speech could be addressed either to partner or to self, although some individual preferences were observed. The findings, while preliminary, suggest new directions for studies of cognitive deficits in children with SLI. They also indicate the importance of including socially directed utterances, and controls for language proficiency, in future research on private speech.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Anatomic distribution of cortical language sites in the basal temporal language area in patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy.

In evaluation for surgical treatment of intractable psychomotor seizures originating in the language-dominant left mesiotemporal region, subdural grid electrodes were placed in 29 patients over the temporoparietal cortex and over the basotemporal region. In 13 patients, cortical stimulation of the basotemporal region showed interference with language processing. The most anterior border of the basotemporal language area began 1.1 cm posterior to the anterotemporal tip, and the most posterior margin of the language region was located 6.1 cm posterior to the temporal tip. The most lateral and the most mesial border were located 1.4 and 5.9 cm, respectively, from the lateral edge of the temporal lobe. The region in which language disturbance could be elicited included the inferior temporal gyrus, the fusiform (lateral and medial occipitotemporal) gyrus, and the parahippocampal gyrus. The basotemporal area most consistently involved with language function was the fusiform gyrus (60% of affected electrodes), followed by the inferotemporal (30%), and the parahippocampal (10%) gyri.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Vowel perception by adults and children with normal language and specific language impairment: based on steady states or transitions?

The current investigation studied whether adults, children with normally developing language aged 4-5 years, and children with specific language impairment, aged 5-6 years identified vowels on the basis of steady-state or transitional formant frequencies. Four types of synthetic tokens, created with a female voice, served as stimuli: (1) steady-state centers for the vowels [i] and [ae]; (2) voweless tokens with transitions appropriate for [bib] and [baeb]; (3) "congruent" tokens that combined the first two types of stimuli into [bib] and [baeb]; and (4) "conflicting" tokens that combined the transitions from [bib] with the vowel from [baeb] and vice versa. Results showed that children with language impairment identified the [i] vowel more poorly than other subjects for both the voweless and congruent tokens. Overall, children identified vowels most accurately in steady-state centers and congruent stimuli (ranging between 94%-96%). They identified the vowels on the basis of transitions only from "voweless" tokens with 89% and 83.5% accuracy for the normally developing and language impaired groups, respectively. Children with normally developing language used steady-state cues to identify vowels in 87% of the conflicting stimuli, whereas children with language impairment did so for 79% of the stimuli. Adults were equally accurate for voweless, steady-state, and congruent tokens (ranging between 99% to 100% accuracy) and used both steady-state and transition cues for vowel identification. Results suggest that most listeners prefer the steady state for vowel identification but are capable of using the onglide/offglide transitions for vowel identification. Results were discussed with regard to Nittrouer's developmental weighting shift hypothesis and Strange and Jenkin's dynamic specification theory.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Children creating core properties of language: evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua.

A new sign language has been created by deaf Nicaraguans over the past 25 years, providing an opportunity to observe the inception of universal hallmarks of language. We found that in their initial creation of the language, children analyzed complex events into basic elements and sequenced these elements into hierarchically structured expressions according to principles not observed in gestures accompanying speech in the surrounding language. Successive cohorts of learners extended this procedure, transforming Nicaraguan signing from its early gestural form into a linguistic system. We propose that this early segmentation and recombination reflect mechanisms with which children learn, and thereby perpetuate, language. Thus, children naturally possess learning abilities capable of giving language its fundamental structure.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Language functional magnetic resonance imaging in preoperative assessment of language areas: correlation with direct cortical stimulation.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the usefulness of preoperative language functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), by correlating fMRI data with intraoperative cortical stimulation results for patients with brain tumors. METHODS: Naming and verb generation tasks were used, separately or in combination, for 14 right-handed patients with tumors in the left hemisphere. fMRI data obtained were analyzed with SPM software, with two standard analysis thresholds (P < 0.005 and then P < 0.05). The fMRI data were then registered in a frameless stereotactic neuronavigational device and correlated with direct brain mapping results. We used a statistical model with the fMRI information as a predictor, spatially correlating each intraoperatively mapped cortical site with fMRI data integrated in the neuronavigational system (site-by-site correlation). Eight patients were also studied with language fMRI postoperatively, with the same acquisition protocol. RESULTS: We observed high variability in signal extents and locations among patients with both tasks. The activated areas were located mainly in the left hemisphere in the middle and inferior frontal gyri (F2 and F3), the superior and middle temporal gyri (T1 and T2), and the supramarginal and angular gyri. A total of 426 cortical sites were tested for each task among the 14 patients. In frontal and temporoparietal areas, poor sensitivity of the fMRI technique was observed for the naming and verb generation tasks (22 and 36%, respectively) with P < 0.005 as the analysis threshold. Although not perfect, the specificity of the fMRI technique was good in all conditions (97% for the naming task and 98% for the verb generation task). Better correlation (sensitivity, 59%; specificity, 97%) was achieved by combining the two fMRI tasks. Variation of the analysis threshold to P < 0.05 increased the sensitivity to 66% while decreasing the specificity to 91%. Postoperative fMRI data (for the cortical brain areas studied intraoperatively) were in accordance with brain mapping results for six of eight patients. Complete agreement between pre- and postoperative fMRI studies and direct brain mapping results was observed for only three of eight patients. CONCLUSION: With the paradigms and analysis thresholds used in this study, language fMRI data obtained with naming or verb generation tasks, before and after surgery, were imperfectly correlated with intraoperative brain mapping results. A better correlation could be obtained by combining the fMRI tasks. The overall results of this study demonstrated that language fMRI could not be used to make critical surgical decisions in the absence of direct brain mapping. Other acquisition protocols are required for evaluation of the potential role of language fMRI in the accurate detection of essential cortical language areas.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

College teachers' perceptions of English language characteristics that identify English language learning disabled deaf students.

Deaf individuals typically experience English language difficulties at all levels of linguistic knowledge. Hearing individuals with English language learning disabilities (LD) can exhibit the same kinds of English language difficulties as deaf individuals. Although the existence of deaf individuals who also have LD has long been recognized, no definite criteria for identifying them exist, partly because of the confounding effects of deafness and LD on English language development. Despite the confound, previous surveys suggest that teachers believe atypical English-language behavior is a potential diagnostic marker for LD in deaf individuals. In the present study, a survey solicited the intuitions of experienced teachers and tutors of English to deaf college students regarding the degree of difficulty deaf students with and without LD might be expected to have in dealing with 30 specific English language phenomena. Spelling knowledge and a variety of English discourse, lexical syntactic, and morphological phenomena emerged as candidates for further study as potential markers of LD in the deaf population.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Bioacoustics of human whistled languages: an alternative approach to the cognitive processes of language.

Whistled languages are a valuable heritage of human culture. This paper gives a first survey about a new multidisciplinary approach to these languages. Previous studies on whistled equivalents of languages have already documented that they can provide significant information about the role of rhythm and melody in language. To substantiate this, most whistles are represented by modulations of frequency, centered around 2000 Hz (+/- 1000 Hz) and often reach a loudness of about 130 dB (measured at 1m from the source). Their transmission range can reach up to 10 km (as verified in La Gomera, Canary Island), and the messages can remain understandable, even if the signal is deteriorated. In some cultures the use of whistled language is associated with some "talking musical instruments" (e.g. flutes, guitars, harps, gongs, drums, khens). Finally, whistles as a means of conveying information have some analogues in the animal kingdom (e.g. some birds, cetaceans, primates), providing opportunities to compare the acoustic characteristics of the respective signals. With such properties as a reference, the project reported here has two major tasks: to further elucidate the many facets of whistled language and, above all, help to immediately stop the process of its gradual disappearance.

Acoustics↗

PubMed1991

Early second language acquisition: a comparison of the linguistic output of a pre-school child acquiring English as a second language with that of a monolingual peer.

Two pre-school children were recorded at regular intervals over a 9-month period while playing freely together. One child was acquiring English as a second language, whilst the other was a monolingual English speaker. The sociolinguistic domain was such that the children were likely to be motivated to communicate with each other in English. A variety of quantitative measures were taken from the transcribed data, including measures of utterance type, length, type-token ratios, use of auxiliaries and morphology. The child for whom English was a second language was found to be well able to interact on equal terms with his partner, despite being somewhat less advanced in some aspects of English language development by the end of the sampling period. Whilst he appeared to be consolidating his language skills during this time, his monolingual partner appeared to be developing rapidly. It is hoped that normative longitudinal data of this kind will be of use in the accurate assessment of children from dual language backgrounds, who may be referred for speech and language therapy.

Child Language↗

PubMed1997

The interaction of language and thought in children's language acquisition: a crosslinguistic study.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the potential interaction of conceptual representations and linguistic systems in the process of language acquisition. Language-thought interactions were studied in 80 American, 48 Finnish and 48 Polish preschool children. The research focused on the conceptual and linguistic development of space and time. The spatial and temporal conceptual tasks were designed to measure the transition from experimental to inferential knowledge of space/time representations. In the linguistic domain, comprehension and production tests were used to evaluate the children's capacity to understand mono- and bi-referential location in space and time, where mono-referential location involves a single referent object/event with intrinsic properties (e.g. in/on or past/non-past), and bi-referential location requires two or more referent objects/events and relative perspective (e.g. deictic front/back or before/after). The conceptual and linguistic tests revealed significant changes during the period from two to five years of age, and measures of conceptual development were correlated with measures of linguistic development. As spatial and temporal representations became more structured, children were able to move from mono- to bi-referential location. In a comprehension test, we discovered an interaction of language by dimension. Finnish children found spatial distinctions relatively easy and Polish children found temporal distinctions relatively easy. This interaction was expected on the basis of the relative complexity of the morpho-syntactic coding in the spatial and temporal systems of the two languages. However, the argument relating the timing of acquisition to the transparency versus opacity of the linguistic systems was not supported by the English language comparison. Finally, the Finnish children were relatively better able to accomplish the spatial conceptual tasks as compared to the Polish children. This finding is consistent with a developmental concept of linguistic relativity. In general, the research indicates that spatial and temporal linguistic systems and representational knowledge interact during development with the influence occurring in both directions.

Child↗

PubMed2004

The relationship of language and emotion regulation skills to reticence in children with specific language impairment.

This study examined the relationship between emotion regulation, language ability, and reticent behavior in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typical peers. Participants included 43 children with SLI and 43 typically developing children, for a total sample of 86 participants. Children were selected from 2 age ranges: 5-8 years and 9-12 years. The Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; A. Shields and D. Cicchetti, 1997, 1998) and the Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS; C. H. Hart and C. C. Robinson, 1996) were completed by each child's teacher to provide measures of emotion regulation and reticence, respectively. The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; E. Carrow-Woodfolk, 1999) was administered to provide a measure of language ability. A regression analysis including all participants indicated that the emotion regulation scores and the CASL scores were significant predictors of the reticence scores, accounting for 43% of the variance. Group-specific analyses were then conducted to determine whether the 2 predictor scales differentially predicted reticence based on language and age groups. None of the tests exceeded the.05 level, indicating that there was no significant difference in predictive power on the 2 factors in question.

Case-Control Studies↗

PubMed1996

The use of spontaneous language measures as criteria for identifying children with specific language impairment: an attempt to reconcile clinical and research incongruence.

Criteria for identification of children as specifically language impaired (SLI) vary greatly among clinicians and researchers. Standardized psychometric discrepancy criteria are more restrictive and perhaps less sensitive to language impairment than is clinical judgment based on a child's language performance in naturalistic contexts. This paper examines (a) differences in groups of preschool children clinically diagnosed as SLI who were and were not identified as SLI through standard psychometric discrepancy criteria, and (b) the validity of quantitative measures of mean length of utterance (MLU), syntax, and pragmatics derived from a spontaneous language sample as criteria for discriminating clinically diagnosed preschoolers from normally developing preschoolers. Spontaneous language data indicated that children clinically identified as SLI produced a significantly higher percentage of errors in spontaneous speech than normal children whether they met psychometric discrepancy criteria or not. Logistic regression analysis indicated that a combination of MLU, percent structural errors, and chronological age was the optimal subset of variables useful for predicting a clinical diagnosis of SLI. This combined criterion captured a larger proportion of the clinically identified SLI children than even the best psychometric discrepancy criteria.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Different school placements following language unit attendance: which factors affect language outcome?

The study compared the outcomes of two groups of children who were attending language unit provision at 7 years of age. Of 242 children in the original study, 62 (28%) transferred to mainstream school placements at age 8 years. These children were then closely matched to children still attending language unit provision at this age using measures of non-verbal IQ, expression and comprehension. These two groups of children were compared on outcome at 11 years in the areas of language skill, non-verbal IQ and social behaviour. Teacher/speech-language therapist opinions of placement were also examined as factors affecting outcome. Results show that children who moved to mainstream provision at 8 years were more likely to be attending mainstream at 11 years, although the majority received extra support. No further differences were evident in outcome according to placement type. However, there was a main effect of teacher/therapist opinion on outcome--children whose teachers were not entirely happy with the 8-year placement performed more poorly at 11 years on language measures. There were no differences on any other measures. The findings suggest that follow-on placements for children attending language units need to be more closely in line with teacher's opinions and that more flexibility needs to be evident in school placement policy in order that appropriate educational settings can be arranged.

Child↗

PubMed1975

Personality organization and language behavior: the imprint of psychological differentiation on language behavior in varying communication conditions.

The language behavior of field-independent (F-D) clinically normal, verbally resourceful femal college students was examined in three different communication conditions: Dialogue, Warm (vissually supportive) monologue, and Cold (visually nonsupportive and stressful) Monologue. F-I and F-D Ss produced similar amounts of the different types of language behavior evaluated in each of the three communicative conditions. However, they differed with respect to verbal output and length of sentence "packaging" unit in Monologue conditions. F-D Ss talked considerably less but at the same time produced different types of grammatically more elaborate language behavior in Warm and Cold Monologue compared to their Dialogue language behavior. F-I Ss talked considerably more but also showed a type of language autonomy. The pattern of language behavior which characterized F-I speech in Dialogue remained the same in both Monologue conditions.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Infant artificial language learning and language acquisition.

The rapidity with which children acquire language is one of the mysteries of human cognition. A view held widely for the past 30 years is that children master language by means of a language-specific learning device. An earlier proposal, which has generated renewed interest, is that children make use of domain-general, associative learning mechanisms. However, our current lack of knowledge of the actual learning mechanisms involved during infancy makes it difficult to determine the relative contributions of innate and acquired knowledge. A recent approach to studying this problem exposes infants to artificial languages and assesses the resulting learning. In this article, we review studies using this paradigm that have led to a number of exciting discoveries regarding the learning mechanisms available during infancy. These studies raise important issues with respect to whether such mechanisms are general or specific to language, the extent to which they reflect statistical learning versus symbol manipulation, and the extent to which such mechanisms change with development. The fine-grained characterizations of infant learning mechanisms that this approach permits should result in a better understanding of the relative contributions of, and the dynamic between, innate and learned factors in language acquisition.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1980

Computer-assisted analysis of written language: assessing the written language of deaf children, II.

Two pilot studies investigated the accuracy of a computer parsing system for analyzing written language of deaf children. Study No. 1 compared the computer program (machine) with a speech-language pathologist for agreement in phrase structure analysis of a corpus of written language samples produced by deaf children. In addition to identifying the various phrase types, the proportion correct of several of the phrases was indicated. An overall score of grammatical correctness was also awarded each sample by both machine and human raters. Study No. 2 compared the computer program, the speech-language pathologist, and a linguist for agreement in parsing a subset of these language samples before and after minor corrections were made in the program. Results of the studies showed good agreement between human and machine raters.

Child↗

PubMed2005

Characteristic functional networks in high- versus low-proficiency second language speakers detected also during native language processing: an explorative EEG coherence study in 6 frequency bands.

An EEG coherence study was performed with a twofold objective: first, to scrutinize the theoretical concept of "cortical efficiency" in connection with second language (L2) acquisition and, second, to detect cooperations between cortical areas in specific frequency bands indicative for highly proficient L2 processing. Two groups differing only in their level of L2 proficiency were contrasted during presentation of natural language videos in English (L2) and German (native language, L1), with explorative coherence analysis in 6 frequency bands (0.5-31.5 Hz). The coherence brain maps revealed more pronounced and widespread increases in coherences in the alpha1-band (8-10 Hz) in low-proficiency than in the high-proficiency L2 speakers. Surprisingly, this difference was obtained also during L1 processing and corroborated for both languages by multivariate permutation tests. These tests revealed additional differences between the low- and the high-proficiency group also for coherences within the beta1- (13-18 Hz) and the beta2-band (18.5-31.5 Hz), again during L2 and L1 processing. Since the same group differences were observed during L1 and L2 processing, our high-proficiency group might have profited from a more generic advantage in language or text processing strategy. This strategic advantage was most evident at alpha1 frequencies, possibly related to a specific way of processing internal mental states (top-down processing).

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2005

Hemispheric specialization for language in children with different types of specific language impairment.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show reduced left hemisphere specialization for language and, if so, whether it is associated with a deficit in phonological encoding and a specific type of SLI (Mixed Receptive-Expressive, Expressive, Phonological). We adopted two dichotic listening paradigms, which differed in the phonological similarity of the presented words (Fused and Non-Fused dichotic words tests), as well as a phonological working memory test. Participants included 34 pre-school and school age children affected by SLI. On the dichotic tests, as a group the children with SLI showed a reduced pattern of left hemisphere specialization for language compared to age-matched normal children, with significant differences only in the Fused condition. However, the pattern of hemispheric specialization varied depending on the type of SLI, with reduced left hemisphere specialization in the Expressive type and, to a lesser extent, in the Phonological type of SLI, but not in the Receptive-Expressive type. The three subgroups also differed in phonological processing abilities and the incidence of a positive family history for language disorders: the Receptive-Expressive group performed worse on the working memory and dichotic tests and the Expressive and Phonological groups presented high frequency for familial language disorder. These results suggest that different subtypes of SLI are not different manifestations of the same underlying disorder, but represent pathological conditions that have distinct markers both at the behavioral and neurofunctional level.

Child↗