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PubMed2003

Dyslexia and music: measuring musical timing skills.

Over the last few decades, a growing amount of research has suggested that dyslexics have particular difficulties with skills involving accurate or rapid timing, including musical timing skills. It has been hypothesised that music training may be able to remediate such timing difficulties, and have a positive effect on fundamental perceptual skills that are important in the development of language and literacy skills (Overy, 2000). In order to explore this hypothesis further, the nature and extent of dyslexics' musical difficulties need to be examined in more detail. In the present study, a collection of musical aptitude tests (MATs) were designed specifically for dyslexic children, in order to distinguish between a variety of musical skills and sub-skills. 15 dyslexic children (age 7-11, mean age 9.0) and 11 control children (age 7-10, mean age 8.9) were tested on the MATs, and their scores were compared. Results showed that the dyslexic group scored higher than the control group on 3 tests of pitch skills (possibly attributable to slightly greater musical experience), but lower than the control group on 7 out of 9 tests of timing skills. Particular difficulties were noted on one of the tests involving rapid temporal processing, in which a subgroup of 5 of the dyslexic children (33%) (mean age 8.4) was found to account for all the significant error. Also, an interesting correlation was found between spelling ability and the skill of tapping out the rhythm of a song, which both involve the skill of syllable segmentation. These results support suggestions that timing is a difficulty area for dyslexic children, and suggest that rhythm skills and rapid skills may need particular attention in any form of musical training with dyslexics.

Auditory Perception↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Hospitalization and premature surgeries; language and psychism: a report of 2 cases].

BACKGROUND: mutual influences between body, psychism and language. AIM: The purpose of this work was to analyze the possible connections between hospital internations and surgeries, to which children were submitted at their earliest life years, as well as subsequent language and psychic adversities. METHOD: It is a qualitative/clinical research, of a descriptive/interpretative nature, carried out through the longitudinal analysis of two clinical case studies with small children of approximately three years of age, whose families had co-occurrent complaints: surgeries and premature hospital internations (as a consequence of organical diseases) and subsequent language disorders. Clinical material was analyzed under a theorical perspective, articulating psychoanalytical and speech therapy theories, based on clinical practice. RESULTS: In both cases, speech therapy symptoms decreased progressively as the organic disorders gained space during therapeutic dialogues (between speech therapist and patient), as well as in home-circle narratives. This promoted modifications/surpasses of the language symptoms presented by the patients. CONCLUSION: The organic birth of the studied children was not concomitant to their symbolic birth, thus creating a gap between them. This gap is derived from the lack of compatibility between the development of corporal scheme and subjective processes. The symbolic effects suffered by parents due to the birth of children who are radically divergent from what was expected was devastating, making it impossible for parents to conceive their babies symbolically. After the violent impact of disappointment, these children remained being interpreted by their parents. This created a disturbance in the functioning of language and in the psychism of these children. Thus, unconsciously, parents were only able to represent their children based on the place that was originally given to them: the place of disease.

Child Development↗

PubMed2003

[Morita therapy in cultural context].

East is characterized by concepts of transcendence of ego structure, equality of mind to body and psychic structure of emptiness or nothingness. West is on the other hand characterized by concepts of ego strength, superiority of mind to body and psychic structure of fullness. Namely in the East ego is not strengthened but dispersed into relationships of a person with other persons, animated and in-animated others. There is no differentiation between mind and body. Also there is a traditional way of reaching a psychic state of emptiness or nothingness which is found in Zen-Buddhism. However in the West nothingness or emptiness has only negative meaning. West has also linear way of thinking that one lives by developing oneself towards God as progress whereas East has circular way of thinking like Nietzches word, "Eternal repeat of the sameness". Such traditional concepts of Eastern culture are reflected on our Japanese language. For example we would like to omit subject and object and propose to go to drink something, tea or coffee. We would like to keep the ambiguity in our expression so that we could avoid harming the others who actually wanted to go with us. Morita Therapy is based on the Eastern culture and has such cultural backgrounds. Indicated are the patients who have a tendency to be hypochondriacal and called "shinkeishitu". These patients have namely strong fear of death and also at the same time strong wish to live a full life. However the fear of death predominate and suppress the desire to live a full life which produces several neurotic symptoms like simple phobia, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc. For such patients we do absolute bed rest in order to let the patients discern the natural process of their inner self through paradoxical setting of lying down for 7 days that is usually unnatural. Patients are prescribed to lie down in bed except eating, face-washing and keeping hygiene. The bed rest induces at first boredom which would bring about paradoxically desire to live a full life. Also in the following work therapy period patients would not fixate their attention inwards, namely to their symptoms but learn to pay attention towards outwards even though they have still symptoms. In the body action we could acknowledge changes of our inner perception that is also possessed by other persons, other animated creatures and in-animated creatures as a form of "Inter-perceptivity". We do not only perceive the atmosphere established between us and others but also between us and outer nature. Patients learn that anxiety is not to be eliminated but to be accepted as it is. So we just accept and do "nothing" to eliminate anxiety. We address that Morita Therapy is not only indicated for "shinkeishitu" personality but also for other anxiety based disorders, such as cancer patients, traumatized patients, etc.

Anxiety Disorders↗

PubMed2006

Conservation as virtue: a scientific and social process for conservation ethics.

Most scientists take ethical arguments for conservation as given and focus on scientific or economic questions. Although nature conservation is often considered a just cause, it is given little further consideration. A lack of attention to ethical theory raises serious concerns for how conservation scientists conceive and practice ethics. I contrast two common ways scientists approach ethics, as demonstrated in the writings of Stephen Jay Gould and E. O. Wilson. Gould casts severe doubt as to whether any ethics are possible from science, whereas Wilson proposes science as the only path to ethics. I argue these two methods ultimately limit popular support for conservation and offer Alasdair MacIntyre's "virtue ethics" as an alternative. Unlike Gould and Wilson, MacIntyre provides an ethical theory that reconciles scientific inquiry and social traditions. Recent studies of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States affirm MacIntyre's claims and provide important insights for conservation today. These accounts argue that social solidarity and political success against segregation were possible only as rooted in the particular language, logic, and practices of a robust cultural tradition. If correct, conservation science should attend to several questions. On what basis can conservation achieve widespread cultural legitimacy? What are the particular social currencies for a conservation ethic? What role does science play in such a scheme? MacIntyre's careful positioning of scientific and social traditions provides a hopeful ethical direction for conservation.

Bioethical Issues↗

PubMed1996

Generating 'tiger' as an animal name or a word beginning with T: differences in brain activation.

Positron emission tomography was used to investigate differences in regional cerebral activity during word retrieval in response to different prompts. The contrast of semantic category fluency and initial letter fluency resulted in selective activation of left temporal regions; the reverse contrast yielded activation in left frontal regions (BA44/6). A further comparison between types of category fluency demonstrated a more anterior temporal response for natural kinds and more posterior activation for manipulable manmade objects. These results support behavioural data suggesting that category fluency is relatively more dependent on temporal-lobe regions, and initial letter fluency on frontal structures; and that categorical word retrieval is not a uniformly distributed function within the brain. This is compatible with the category-specific deficits observed after some focal lesions.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Psychoimmuno-neuroendocrinology: An integrative approach to modern philosophy in medicine and psychology.

The immune system is now seen to be closely integrated with other physiological circuits, such as the central nervous system (CNS) and the neuroendocrine system. There is also an increasing amount of evidence that this integrated circuit is bidirectional and both systems exert a reciprocal effect on each other. We have always stressed the interdisciplinary nature of the science where disciplines and sciences such as medicine, biochemistry, genetics, psychology, human ethology, etc. meet and undergo a process of "cross-fertilization." We also have stressed the indivisibility of the somatic and psychological processes in the indivisible continuum of human life from its very beginning and the inseparability of the development and functions of the central nervous system and the immunological and neuroendocrine processes. This transdisciplinary and integrative aspect of sciences and their entree in the twenty-first century is the true vision for our common efforts. Integration means also amalgamation, assimilation, blending, combining, incorporation, unification and harmony. This last mentioned, harmony, should be stressed and underlined specifically: a harmony between different views and approaches, between different methods and methodologies, different theories and practices. In order to undertake such a challenge, a new scientific theory and a common language is required, a language that would be understood across disciplines and would be able to assist in getting beyond semantic problems. The bridge between the immune system, neuroendocrinology and the rest of the central nervous system opens the gateway to more common understanding and acceptance across the disciplines. It is an umbrella for the endeavor that unites various scientific fields in their attempt to elucidate the processes of experience involved from the earliest stages of human life. This integration does cross over the different disciplines and diagnostic systems. It attaches theoretical and applied fields, basic research and clinical experience throughout the whole continuity of human life from conception and onwards. Integrated Psychoimmuno-Neuroendocrinology represents a unique opportunity for the primary prevention of psychological, emotional and physical disorders.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1998

The development of gesture and speech as an integrated system.

Children, even at the one-word stage of language development, spontaneously produce gestures along with their speech, just as adults do. Although there appears to be a brief period prior to the onset of two-word speech during which gesture and speech do not form a well-integrated system, the ability to coordinate gesture and speech to convey a single message--and to "read" others' gestures with their speech to comprehend a message--develops early and is maintained throughout life. Gesture-speech combinations deliver a coherent message to the listener despite the fact that they consist of two different modalities of expression. According to McNeill (1992; Chapter One), this coherence is possible because gesture and speech share a common cognitive representation; that is, before the communication unfolds, gesture and speech are part of a single idea. As expression proceeds the message is parsed, with most information channeled into speech but some information channeled into gesture. Speech conveys information in a segmented, combinatorial format, whereas gesture conveys information in a global, mimetic format (see Goldin-Meadow, McNeill, and Singleton, 1996). Thus gesture and speech need not, and in fact often do not, convey the same information within a single utterance. Because gesture and speech form a unified system, mismatches between them can be a source of insight into the cognitive state of the speaker. And, indeed, it turns out that in both the young, one-word speaker and the older child (and possibly adults as well; Perry and Elder, 1996), a difference--or mismatch--between the information conveyed in gesture and the information conveyed in speech can signal readiness for cognitive growth. Whether the actual production of gesture-speech mismatches contributes to cognitive growth is an open question. That is, does the act of expressing two different pieces of information across modalities but within a single communicative act improve a child's ability to transpose that knowledge to a new level and thus express those pieces of information within a single modality? More work is needed to investigate whether the act of producing gesture-speech mismatches itself facilitates transition. Even if it turns out that the production of gesture-speech mismatches has little role to play in facilitating cognitive change, mismatch remains a reliable marker of the speaker's potential for cognitive growth. As such, an understanding of the relationship between gesture and speech may prove useful in clinical settings. For example, there is some evidence that children with delayed onset of two-word speech fall naturally into two groups: children who eventually achieve two-word speech, albeit later than the norm (that is, late bloomers), and children who continue to have serious difficulties with spoken language and may never be able to combine words into a single string (Feldman, Holland, Kemp, and Janosky, 1992; Thal, Tobias, and Morrison, 1991). Observation of combinations in which gesture and speech convey different information may prove a useful clinical tool for distinguishing, at a relatively young age, children who will be late bloomers from those who will have great difficulty mastering spoken language without intervention (see Stare, 1996, for preliminary evidence that the relationship between gesture and speech in children with unilateral brain damage correlates with early versus late onset of two-word combinations. In sum, for both speakers and listeners, gesture and speech are two aspects of a single process, with each modality contributing its own unique level of representation. Gesture conveys information in the global, imagistic form for which it is well suited, and speech conveys information in the segmented, combinatorial fashion that characterizes linguistic structures. The total representation of any message is therefore a synthesis of the analog gestural mode and the discrete speech mode. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

Child Development↗

PubMed2006

What this construction needs is generalized.

What is the nature of the knowledge that readers acquire as they learn to comprehend a novel construction in their native language? This question was explored in two experiments that examined the extent to which readers who learn a new construction are able to extend it to sentence contexts other than the one in which it initially appeared. Readers were trained on the needs construction ("The meal needs cooked given that dinner is in an hour") and then were presented with examples of the construction in a different sentential context ("John thinks that what the meal needs is cooked given that dinner is in an hour"). The results show that readers have little difficulty comprehending the needs construction in the new context, even when the construction is used with a different verb. These findings are discussed with respect to theories of structural priming and sentence processing.

Attention↗

PubMed1992

Age of acquisition, not word frequency, affects object naming, not object recognition.

Word frequency is widely believed to affect object naming speed, despite several studies in which it has been reported that frequency effects may be redundant upon age of acquisition. We report, first, a reanalysis of data from the study by Oldfield and Wingfield (1965), which is standardly cited as evidence for a word frequency effect in object naming; then we report two new experiments. The reanalysis of Oldfield and Wingfield shows that age of acquisition is the major determinant of naming speed, and that frequency plays no independent role when its correlation with other variables is taken into account. In Experiment 1, age of acquisition and phoneme length proved to be the primary determinants of object naming speed. Frequency, prototypicality, and imageability had no independent effect. In Experiment 2, subjects classified objects into two semantic categories (natural or man-made). Prototypicality and semantic category were the only variables to have a significant effect on reaction time, with no effect of age of acquisition, frequency, imageability, or word length. We conclude that age of acquisition, not word frequency, affects the retrieval and/or execution of object names, not the process of object recognition. The locus of this effect is discussed, along with the possibility that words learned in early childhood may be more resistant to the effects of brain injury in at least some adult aphasics than words learned somewhat later.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Voice perception: Sex, pitch, and the right hemisphere.

The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined the neurophysiological processing of voice information. The impact of the major acoustic parameters as well as the role of the listener's and the speaker's gender were investigated. Male and female, natural, and manipulated voices were presented to 16 young adults who were asked to judge the naturalness of each voice. The hemodynamic responses were acquired by a 3T Bruker scanner utilizing an event-related design. The activation was generally stronger in response to female voices as well as to manipulated voice signals, and there was no interaction with the listener's gender. Most importantly, the results suggest a functional segregation of the right superior temporal cortex for the processing of different voice parameters, whereby (1) voice pitch is processed in regions close and anterior to Heschl's Gyrus, (2) voice spectral information is processed in posterior parts of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and areas surrounding the planum parietale (PP) bilaterally, and (3) information about prototypicality is predominately processed in anterior parts of the right STG. Generally, by identifying distinct functional regions in the right STG, our study supports the notion of a fundamental role of the right hemisphere in spoken language comprehension.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1995

On the nature of the phonological output planning processes involved in verbal rehearsal: evidence from aphasia.

This paper describes the performance of an aphasic patient, R.W., in producing the sounds of words and in verbal rehearsal. R.W. showed evidence of retained abilities to access aspects of the forms of spoken words but made numerous phonemic paraphasias in single word production tasks. He did not show features of dysarthria or apraxia of speech. This pattern indicates that his deficit affected a process that plans the phonological forms of spoken words. R.W.'s performances in short-term memory and metalinguistic tasks involving single words were consistent with impaired rehearsal functions. The pattern of results indicates that rehearsal requires planning of the phonological forms of spoken items and suggests that activating entries in the phonological output lexicon is not adequate to permit rehearsal to proceed normally.

Aphasia↗

PubMed1994

A constraint-based lexicalist account of the subject/object attachment preference.

When a noun phrase could either be the object of the preceding verb or the subject of a new clause or a sentence complement, readers and listeners show a strong preference to parse the noun phrase as the object of the verb. This can result in clear garden paths for sentences such as The student read the book was stolen and While the student read the book was stolen. Even when the verb does not permit a noun phrase complement, some processing difficulty is still found. This has led some theorists to propose models in which initial attachments are lexically blind, with lexical information subsequently used as a filter to evaluate and revise initial analyses. In contrast, we show that these results emerge naturally from constraint-based lexicalist models. We present a modeling experiment with a simple recurrent network that was trained to predict upcoming complements for a sample of verbs taken from the Penn Treebank corpus. The model exhibits an object bias and it also shows effects of verb frequency which are similar to those found in the psycholinguistic literature.

Cognition↗

PubMed1999

Training American listeners to perceive Mandarin tones.

Auditory training has been shown to be effective in the identification of non-native segmental distinctions. In this study, it was investigated whether such training is applicable to the acquisition of non-native suprasegmental contrasts, i.c., Mandarin tones. Using the high-variability paradigm, eight American learners of Mandarin were trained in eight sessions during the course of two weeks to identify the four tones in natural words produced by native Mandarin talkers. The trainees' identification accuracy revealed an average 21% increase from the pretest to the post-test, and the improvement gained in training was generalized to new stimuli (18% increase) and to new talkers and stimuli (25% increase). Moreover, the six-month retention test showed that the improvement was retained long after training by an average 21% increase from the pretest. The results are discussed in terms of non-native suprasegmental perceptual modification, and the analogies between L2 acquisition processes at the segmental and suprasegmental levels.

Adult↗

PubMed1985

Evaluation and treatment planning for patients with cleft lip and cleft palate.

The Oral-Facial and Communicative Disorders Program of the University of North Carolina has provided comprehensive diagnostic evaluation and inpatient and outpatient treatment for patients with cleft lip, cleft palate, and related problems for 22 years. A major aspect of the program is the initial diagnostic evaluation of patients and long-term follow-up evaluation of the results of treatment. The Oral-Facial and Communicative Disorders Program acts as both a consultant in providing requested information to referring professionals and agencies and also as a multi- and interdisciplinary treatment center. The nature of the evaluation process and the manner in which findings and recommendations are agreed upon in order that a comprehensive and coherent treatment plan can be established has been presented. It has been stressed that the needs of the patient can best be met by representatives from disciplines important to the diagnosis and management of patients with cleft lip and cleft palate who can meet together, and after discussion and negotiation arrive at a consensus for every aspect of treatment that is required, as well as a time that is most desirable for each patient.

Child↗

PubMed2005

Resonance Character of Hydrogen-bonding Interactions in Water and Other H-bonded Species.

Hydrogen bonding underlies the structure of water and all biochemical processes in aqueous medium. Analysis of modern ab initio wave functions in terms of natural bond orbitals (NBOs) strongly suggests the resonance-type "charge transfer" (CT) character of H-bonding, contrary to the widely held classical-electrostatic viewpoint that underlies current molecular dynamics (MD) modeling technology. Quantum cluster equilibrium (QCE) theory provides an alternative ab initio-based picture of liquid water that predicts proton-ordered two-coordinate H-bonding patterns, dramatically different from the ice-like picture of electrostatics-based MD simulations. Recent X-ray absorption and Raman scattering experiments of Nilsson and co-workers confirm the microstructural two-coordinate picture of liquid water. We show how such cooperative "unsaturated" ring/chain topologies arise naturally from the fundamental resonance-CT nature of B:cdots, three dots, centeredHA hydrogen bonding, which is expressed in NBO language as n(B)-->sigma(AH)(*) intermolecular delocalization from a filled lone pair n(B) of the Lewis base (B:) into the proximal antibond sigma(AH)(*) of the Lewis acid (HA). Stabilizing n(O)-->sigma(OH)(*) orbital delocalization, equivalent to partial mixing of resonance structures H(2)O:cdots, three dots, centeredHOH H(3)O(+) cdots, three dots, centered(-):OH, is thereby seen to be the electronic origin of general enthalpic and entropic propensities that favor relatively small cyclic clusters such as water pentamers W(5c) in the QCE liquid phase. We also discuss the thermodynamically competitive three-coordinate clusters (e.g., icosahedral water buckyballs, W(24)), which appear to play a role in hydrophobic solvation phenomena. We conclude with suggestions for incorporating resonance-CT aspects of H-bonding into empirical MD simulation potentials in a computationally tractable manner.

Hydrogen Bonding↗

PubMed1998

Central auditory processing disorder in school-aged children: a critical review.

The rationale to evaluate for central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) in school-aged children is based on the assumption that an auditory-specific perceptual deficit underlies many learning problems including specific reading and language disabilities. A fundamental issue in this area is whether convincing empirical evidence exists to validate this proposition. Herein, we consider the issue of modality specificity by examining the extent to which reading, language, and attention disorders in school-aged children involve perceptual dysfunctions limited to a single sensory modality. Difficulty in validating CAPD as a diagnostic label is due in large part to use of the unimodal inclusive framework, which has biased the diagnosis to favor sensitivity of test results over documenting the specificity of the deficit. Indeed, empirical research documenting modality-specific auditory-perceptual dysfunction in this population is scarce. Therefore, the existing literature on this topic has not clarified the "true" nature of the problem, and has left many questions about this disorder unanswered. It is argued that demonstrating modality specificity is one way to rule out supramodal disorders as explanations for observed dysfunction. Multimodal perceptual testing is one logical approach to help clarify this area of investigation.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

PubMed1994

Philosophy, biology and mental disorder.

The biological model has become the touchstone for our thinking on mental disorder. The success of this model has relegated opposing views to the sidelines. Philosophers have been considering the nature of mind for well over 2500 years, and their speculations may provide a useful antidote to the creeping reductionism and materialism inherent in simple biology. The emphasis in philosophical theories is on the nature of the mental and the structuring role of the mind in our construction of reality. This paper focuses on three philosophers, Kant, Heidegger and Husserl, and their contribution to our understanding of the nature of psychopathology. The biological theory is re-examined from the differing perspectives offered, and some of the assumptions on which it is based are subjected to criticism. The emphasis, found in the philosophical theories, on the mental as opposed to the physiological aspects of the mind, is considered to be more germane to the practical and therapeutic concerns of those who must deal with the dis-ease of mental disorder.

Biological Psychiatry↗

PubMed2004

The evolution of dysgraphia in Alzheimer's disease.

Evidence from recent studies suggests that writing may be an aspect of cognition capable of identifying impairments specific to patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). The precise nature and progression of the writing disorder, however, remains unclear. The current study assessed the central and peripheral aspects of writing among a sample of minimal, mild and moderate AD patients and a group of healthy elderly controls on a narrative description task. Comparisons of the two groups indicated that AD patients suffer from a primary impairment at the semantic level. Even those in the minimal stages of the disease could be differentiated from controls on measures of word finding and information conveyed. This semantic impairment was coupled with a secondary milder impairment in phonological processing. The prevalence of phonological errors increased, but no shift in error type (plausible/implausible) was identified as the disease progressed. In addition to the central impairments, patients evinced damage at the peripheral level. In the more severe stages, patients experienced more problems with letter formation and stroke placement and tended to rely upon the more simplistic writing form of print. The writing impairment in AD is multi-componential in nature and follows the pattern of cortical deterioration reported in the brains of AD patients.

Aged↗