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Language Performance (language + performance)
Selected AbstractsSevere falciparum malaria and acquired childhood language disorderDEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE & CHILD NEUROLOGY, Issue 1 2006Julie A Carter BSc (Hons) MSc PhD Language disorders have been reported after severe falciparum malaria but the deficits have not been described in detail. We assessed language outcome in three groups of children aged 6 to 9 years (n=487): those previously admitted to Kilifi District Hospital, Kenya, with cerebral malaria (CM; n=152; mean age 7y 4 mo [SD 1y 1mo]; 77 males, 75 females); or those with malaria and complicated seizures (M/S; n=156; mean age 7y 4mo [SD 1y 2mo]; 72 males, 84 females); and those unexposed to either condition (n=179; mean age 7y 6mo [SD 1y 1mo]; 93 males, 86 females). Median age at hospital admission was 28 months (interquartile range [IQR] 19 to 44 mo) among children with a history of CM and 23 months (IQR 12 to 35mo) among children with a history of M/S. A battery of eight assessments covering the major facets of speech and language was used to measure language performance. Cognitive performance, neurological/motor skills, behaviour, hearing, and vision were also measured. Eighteen (11.8%) of the CM group, 14 (9%) of the M/S group, and four (2.2%) of the unexposed group were found to have a language impairment. CM (odds ratio 3.68,95% confidence interval 1.09 to 12.4, p=0.04) was associated with significantly increased odds of an impairment-level score relative to the unexposed group. The results suggest that falciparum malaria is one of the most common causes of acquired language disorders in the tropics. [source] Task-to-Task Vagal Regulation: Relations With Language and Play in 20-Month-Old ChildrenINFANCY, Issue 3 2000Patricia E. Suess In this article we report patterns of task-to-task vagal tone change across multiple language and play tasks as well as associations between these patterns of task-to-task vagal tone change and language and play performance in 20-month-old girls and boys. Although initially different in vagal tone suppression during solitary play, girls and boys exhibited similar group patterns of vagal reengagement during successive language and play tasks with their mothers and with an experimenter. In terms of individual differences, vagal suppression during solitary play and vagal reengagement during social interactive tasks predicted language and play performance. Gender differences emerged in patterns of predictive relations: Task-to-task vagal changes predicted primarily play performance in girls and language performance in boys. These findings expose the effects of social context on directional changes in task-to-task vagal tone and speak to the functional role of appropriate vagal regulation in young children's language and play performance. [source] Perception is reality: Parisian and Provençal perceptions of regional varieties of French1JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 1 2005Lawrence Kuiper Though spoken French has tended toward standardization and homogenization, stereotypes of regional language are maintained, and thrive. The present study explores speakers' perceptions of regional varieties, and relates those perceptions to linguistic security and prescriptivism in two regions: Ile de France (Paris) and Provence. Respondents from these two regions rated regional French varieties for correctness, pleasantness and difference from their own speech. The quantitative data, which is supported by interviews and a perceptual mapping task, reveals that speakers from these two regions have strikingly similar views about the region where French is most correct (Paris) and where it is most pleasant (Provence). Qualitative data from interviews and perceptual mapping show that respondent perceptions about normative language have little basis in empirical reality (i.e. language performance), but still may have a strong effect on speaker self-image. [source] Testing Vocabulary Knowledge: Size, Strength, and Computer AdaptivenessLANGUAGE LEARNING, Issue 3 2004Batia Laufer In this article, we describe the development and trial of a bilingual computerized test of vocabulary size, the number of words the learner knows, and strength, a combination of four aspects of knowledge of meaning that are assumed to constitute a hierarchy of difficulty: passive recognition (easiest), active recognition, passive recall, and active recall (hardest). The participants were 435 learners of English as a second language. We investigated whether the above hierarchy was valid and which strength modality correlated best with classroom language performance. Results showed that the hypothesized hierarchy was present at all word frequency levels, that passive recall was the best predictor of classroom language performance, and that growth in vocabulary knowledge was different for the different strength modalities. [source] Redefining functional models of basal ganglia organization: Role for the posteroventral pallidum in linguistic processing?MOVEMENT DISORDERS, Issue 11 2004Brooke-Mai Whelan PhD Abstract Traditionally the basal ganglia have been implicated in motor behavior, as they are involved in both the execution of automatic actions and the modification of ongoing actions in novel contexts. Corresponding to cognition, the role of the basal ganglia has not been defined as explicitly. Relative to linguistic processes, contemporary theories of subcortical participation in language have endorsed a role for the globus pallidus internus (GPi) in the control of lexical,semantic operations. However, attempts to empirically validate these postulates have been largely limited to neuropsychological investigations of verbal fluency abilities subsequent to pallidotomy. We evaluated the impact of bilateral posteroventral pallidotomy (BPVP) on language function across a range of general and high-level linguistic abilities, and validated/extended working theories of pallidal participation in language. Comprehensive linguistic profiles were compiled up to 1 month before and 3 months after BPVP in 6 subjects with Parkinson's disease (PD). Commensurate linguistic profiles were also gathered over a 3-month period for a nonsurgical control cohort of 16 subjects with PD and a group of 16 non-neurologically impaired controls (NC). Nonparametric between-groups comparisons were conducted and reliable change indices calculated, relative to baseline/3-month follow-up difference scores. Group-wise statistical comparisons between the three groups failed to reveal significant postoperative changes in language performance. Case-by-case data analysis relative to clinically consequential change indices revealed reliable alterations in performance across several language variables as a consequence of BPVP. These findings lend support to models of subcortical participation in language, which promote a role for the GPi in lexical,semantic manipulation mechanisms. Concomitant improvements and decrements in postoperative performance were interpreted within the context of additive and subtractive postlesional effects. Relative to parkinsonian cohorts, clinically reliable versus statistically significant changes on a case by case basis may provide the most accurate method of characterizing the way in which pathophysiologically divergent basal ganglia linguistic circuits respond to BPVP. © 2004 Movement Disorder Society [source] Genetic and environmental influence on language impairment in 4-year-old same-sex and opposite-sex twinsTHE JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY AND ALLIED DISCIPLINES, Issue 2 2004Essi Viding Background:, We investigated the aetiology of language impairment in 579 four-year-old twins with low language performance and their co-twins, members of 160 MZ twin pairs, 131 same-sex DZ pairs and 102 opposite-sex DZ pairs. Methods:, Language impairment in 4-year-olds was defined by scores below the 15th percentile on a general factor derived from an extensive language test battery. Language impairment of different degrees of severity was investigated by using multiple cut-offs below the 15th percentile. Results:, DeFries,Fulker extremes analysis indicated that language impairment as measured by the general language scale is under strong genetic influence. In addition, group differences heritability showed an increasing trend (from 38% to 76%) as a function of severity of language impairment. Although more boys are impaired than girls, incorporating opposite-sex DZ pairs into the analysis found neither quantitative nor qualitative differences between boys and girls in genetic and environmental aetiologies. Conclusions:, Language impairment at four years is heritable. This finding replicates previous research on language impairment and extends it by showing that language impairment is heritable in twins selected from a representative community sample. Despite the mean difference between boys and girls, genetic and environmental influences are quantitatively and qualitatively similar for language impairment for boys and girls. For both boys and girls, heritability appears to be greater for more severe language impairment, indicating stronger influence of genes at the lower end of language ability. [source] Plasticity of language networks in patients with brain tumors: A positron emission tomography activation studyANNALS OF NEUROLOGY, Issue 5 2001Alexander Thiel MD We investigated plasticity of language networks exposed to slowly evolving brain damage. Single subject O-15-water language activation positron emission tomography studies were analyzed in 61 right-handed patients with brain tumors of the left hemisphere, and 12 normal controls. In controls, activations were found in left Brodmann's Area (BA)44 and BA45, superior posterior temporal gyrus bilaterally, and right cerebellum. Patients additionally activated left BA46, BA47, anterior insula, and left cerebellum. Superior temporal activation was less frequent, and activations in areas other than posterior temporal gyrus were found bilaterally. Frontolateral activations within the nondominant hemisphere were only seen in patients (63%) with frontal or posterior temporal lesions. Laterality indices of frontolateral cortex showed reversed language dominance in 18% of patients. Laterality indices of the cerebellum were negatively correlated with language performance. Two compensatory mechanisms in patients with slowly evolving brain lesions are described: An intrahemispheric mechanism with recruitment of left frontolateral regions other than classic language areas; and an interhemispheric compensatory mechanism with frontolateral activation in the nondominant hemisphere. The latter one was only found in patients with frontal or posterior temporal lesions, thus supporting the hypothesis that right frontolateral activations are a disinhibition phenomenon. [source] Language and reading abilities of children with autism spectrum disorders and specific language impairment and their first-degree relativesAUTISM RESEARCH, Issue 1 2009Kristen A. Lindgren Abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are developmental disorders exhibiting language deficits, but it is unclear whether they arise from similar etiologies. Language impairments have been described in family members of children with ASD and SLI, but few studies have quantified them. In this study, we examined IQ, language, and reading abilities of ASD and SLI children and their first-degree relatives to address whether the language difficulties observed in some children with ASD are familial and to better understand the degree of overlap between these disorders and their broader phenotypes. Participants were 52 autistic children, 36 children with SLI, their siblings, and their parents. The ASD group was divided into those with (ALI, n=32) and without (ALN, n=20) language impairment. Relationships between ASD severity and language performance were also examined in the ASD probands. ALI and SLI probands performed similarly on most measures while ALN probands scored higher. ALN and ALI probands' language scores were not related to Autism Diagnostic Interview,Revised and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule algorithm scores. SLI relatives scored lowest on all measures, and while scores were not in the impaired range, relatives of ALI children scored lower than relatives of ALN children on some measures, though not those showing highest heritability in SLI. Given that ALI relatives performed better than SLI relatives across the language measures, the hypothesis that ALI and SLI families share similar genetic loading for language is not strongly supported. [source] The Genetic and Environmental Origins of Language Disability and AbilityCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2004Frank M. Spinath This study investigated whether genes affect language impairment to the same extent as they affect differences in language ability following up an earlier study of 579 four-year-old twins with low language performance and their cotwins (Viding et al., in press). The present study selected low-language twins from 6,963 pairs of twins from the Twins Early Development Study assessed for vocabulary and grammar by their parents at 2, 3, and 4 years of age. For impaired groups corresponding to the lowest scoring 5% and 10% at each age, twin concordances and model-fitting analyses indicated substantial genetic influence on the mean difference between affected children and the population (h2g), generally higher than for individual differences for the entire sample (h2). [source] Implications of family environment and language development: comparing typically developing children to those with spina bifidaCHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2009B. Vachha Abstract Introduction This study examines the effect of family environment on language performance in children with myelomeningocele compared with age- and education-matched controls selected from the same geographic region. Methods Seventy-five monolingual (English) speaking children with myelomeningocele [males: 30; ages: 7,16 years; mean age: 10 years 1 month, standard deviation (SD) 2 years 7 months] and 35 typically developing children (males: 16; ages 7,16 years; mean age: 10 years 9 months, SD 2 years 6 months) participated in the study. The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) and the Wechsler tests of intelligence were administered individually to all participants. The CASL measures four subsystems: lexical, syntactic, supralinguistic and pragmatic. Parents completed the Family Environment Scale (FES) questionnaire and provided background demographic information. Standard independent sample t -tests, chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests were used to make simple comparisons between groups for age, socio-economic status, gender and ethnicity. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to detect associations between language and FES data. Group differences for the language and FES scores were analysed with a multivariate analysis of variance at a P -value of 0.05. Results For the myelomeningocele group, both Spearman correlation and partial correlation analyses revealed statistically significant positive relationships for the FES ,intellectual,cultural orientation' (ICO) variable and language performance in all subsystems (P < 0.01). For controls, positive associations were seen between: (1) ICO and lexical/semantic and syntactic subsystems; and (2) FES ,independence' and lexical/semantic and supralinguistic tasks. Conclusions The relationship between language performance and family environment appears statistically and intuitively sound. As in our previous study, the positive link between family focus on intellectually and culturally enhancing activities and language performance among children with myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus remains robust. Knowledge of this relationship should assist parents and professionals in supporting language development through activities within the natural learning environment. [source] | ||||||||||||||||