Phonology and syntax in French children with SLI: A longitudinal study

Maillart and Parisse found out that French children with specific language impairment (SLI) presented strong difficulties in phonology when compared with normally‐developing children matched by MLU (NLD). Some of the youngest children from this study were followed to provide developmental information about their language deficit. Children were tested again in the same way as before (free spontaneous production) and matched by MLU against other NLD children. The previous phonological analysis was extended to include syntax as well as phonology. Percentage of words correct was computed for both phonology and syntax. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed with children's age as covariate. Results showed a significant difference between SLI and NLD children for phonology but not for syntax. There was a trend that showed that the difference between SLI and NLD children tended to increase with age. The same analysis was performed separately for 9 frequent syntactic categories for phonology and for syntax. A significant difference was found for prepositions, nouns, subject pronouns, and verbs in phonology. Effects were found for determiners and prepositions in syntax. As well as confirming the importance of phonological difficulties in SLI, our results call for a developmental theory of phonological and syntactic deficits in SLI, where differences between SLI and NLD grow with age and where there is a timing difference between phonology (earlier) and syntax (later).     

Phonology and syntax in French children with SLI: a longitudinal study

Maillart and Parisse found out that French children with specific language impairment (SLI) presented strong difficulties in phonology when compared with normally-developing children matched by MLU (NLD). Some of the youngest children from this study were followed to provide developmental information about their language deficit. Children were tested again in the same way as before (free spontaneous production) and matched by MLU against other NLD children. The previous phonological analysis was extended to include syntax as well as phonology. Percentage of words correct was computed for both phonology and syntax. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed with children's age as covariate. Results showed a significant difference between SLI and NLD children for phonology but not for syntax. There was a trend that showed that the difference between SLI and NLD children tended to increase with age. The same analysis was performed separately for 9 frequent syntactic categories for phonology and for syntax. A significant difference was found for prepositions, nouns, subject pronouns, and verbs in phonology. Effects were found for determiners and prepositions in syntax. As well as confirming the importance of phonological difficulties in SLI, our results call for a developmental theory of phonological and syntactic deficits in SLI, where differences between SLI and NLD grow with age and where there is a timing difference between phonology (earlier) and syntax (later).     

Abnormal dynamics of language in schizophrenia

Language could be conceptualized as a dynamic system that includes multiple interactive levels (sub-lexical, lexical, sentence, and discourse) and components (phonology, semantics, and syntax). In schizophrenia, abnormalities are observed at all language elements (levels and components) but the dynamic between these elements remains unclear. We hypothesize that the dynamics between language elements in schizophrenia is abnormal and explore how this dynamic is altered. We, first, investigated language elements with comparable procedures in patients and healthy controls. Second, using measures of reaction time, we performed multiple linear regression analyses to evaluate the inter-relationships among language elements and the effect of group on these relationships. Patients significantly differed from controls with respect to sub-lexical/lexical, lexical/sentence, and sentence/discourse regression coefficients. The intercepts of the regression slopes increased in the same order above (from lower to higher levels) in patients but not in controls. Regression coefficients between syntax and both sentence level and discourse level semantics did not differentiate patients from controls. This study indicates that the dynamics between language elements is abnormal in schizophrenia. In patients, top-down flow of linguistic information might be reduced, and the relationship between phonology and semantics but not between syntax and semantics appears to be altered.     

Linguistic deficits in the acute phase of stroke

Background and Purpose For the diagnosis of aphasia early after stroke, several screening tests are available to support clinical judgment.None of these tests enables the clinician to assess the underlying linguistic deficits, i. e. semantic, phonological and syntactic deficits, which provides indispensable information for early therapeutic decisions. The ScreeLing was designed as a screening test to detect semantic, phonological and syntactic deficits. The ScreeLings sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in detecting aphasia and semantic, phonological and syntactic deficits were determined.Methods The ScreeLing was validated in an acute stroke population against a combined reference diagnosis of aphasia (aphasia according to at least two of the following measures:ne urologists judgment, linguists judgment, Tokentestscore). The three ScreeLing subtests were validated in the aphasic population against the presence or absence of a semantic, phonological and/or syntactic deficit according to an experienced clinical linguist.Results From a consecutive series of 215 stroke patients, 63 patients were included. The ScreeLing was an accurate test for the detection of aphasia (0.92),with a sensitivity of 86% and specificity of 96%. Sensitivity of subtests was 62 % for semantics, 54 % for phonology and 42 % for syntax. Specificity was 100 % for semantics and phonology and 80 % for syntax, and accuracy 0.84 for semantics, 0.87 for phonology and 0.64 for syntax.Conclusions The ScreeLing is an accurate test that can be easily administered and scored to detect aphasia in the first weeks after stroke. Furthermore, the ScreeLing is suitable for revealing underlying linguistic deficits, especially semantic and phonological deficits.     

Recovery of aphasia after stroke: a 1-year follow-up study

Semantics, phonology, and syntax are essential elements of aphasia diagnosis and treatment. Until now, these linguistic components have not been specifically addressed in follow-up studies of aphasia recovery after stroke. The aim of this observational prospective follow-up study was to investigate semantic, phonological, and syntactic recovery in aphasic stroke patients. In addition, we investigated the recovery of verbal communication and of aphasia severity. We assessed 147 aphasic patients at 1, 2, and 6 weeks, 3 and 6 months, and 1 year after stroke with the ScreeLing, a screening test for detecting deficits on the three main linguistic components, the aphasia severity rating scale (ASRS), a measure of verbal communication, and the Token test, a measure of aphasia severity. We investigated the differences in scores between the six time points with mixed models. Semantics and syntax improved up to 6 weeks (p < 0.001) after stroke, and phonology up to 3 months (p ≤ 0.001). ASRS improved up to 6 months (p < 0.05) and the Token test up to 3 months (p < 0.001). We conclude that in aphasia after stroke, various linguistic components have a different recovery pattern, with phonology showing the longest period of recovery that paralleled aphasia severity, as measured with the Token test. The improvement of verbal communication continues after the stabilization of the recovery of the linguistic components.     

Approach to functional magnetic resonance imaging of language based on models of language organization

Functional MR imaging (fMRI) has been a useful tool in the evaluation of language both in normal individuals and patient populations. The purpose of this article is to use various models of language as a framework to review fMRI studies. Specifically, fMRI language studies are subdivided into the following categories: word generation or fluency, passive listening, orthography, phonology, semantics, and syntax.     

Language impairment in dementia of the Alzheimer type: a hierarchical decline?

OBJECTIVE: Progressive memory impairment is the primary cognitive feature of Alzheimer's disease. Systematic attention to progressive language impairment is under-appreciated. The purpose of this article is to apply the semiotic language framework to organize the disparate findings on language impairment in DAT. METHOD: The semiotic system is hierarchical, going from simple to more complex units of language, with the hierarchical ranks of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics. This language hierarchy is used as an organizing tool to provide a context for the discrete data on language decline in DAT. Studies relating to language impairment in DAT were identified through an exhaustive computerized search (Medline and Psych Info Database) of available literature spanning the last forty years in which 615 references were examined. Papers were selected for review if reference were made to any one or more of the language parameters of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or to any components or indicators of these parameters, such as sound production, naming, grammar, sentence processing, verbal comprehension in Alzheimer patients. RESULTS: There appears to be an overall relation between language decline and complexity of language both across and within the hierarchical ranks. There also appears to be an associated negative relation between sequence in language development and language decline. Language forms learned last in the sequence of language development are the most complex and appear to be first to deteriorate. CONCLUSIONS: The decline of language in DAT appears to be hierarchical in nature. Further understanding of this hierarchical language decline depends in part on nosologic clarification and subtyping of DAT.     

Electric brain responses reveal gender differences in music processing

The present study investigates gender differences in the functional organization of the brain for music processing. In the language domain, males appear to have greater left hemisphere control than females. Despite some overlap of neural structures and processes for the perception of music and language, gender differences of musical functions have so far not been reported. Data sets of three previous music experiments with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were pooled and re-analyzed. Results demonstrate that an electrophysiological correlate of music-syntactic processing (ERAN, or music-syntactic MMN) is generated bilaterally in females, and with right hemispheric predominance in males. The present findings indicate that gender differences for the analysis of auditory information are not restricted to processes in the linguistic domain such as syntax, semantics, and phonology.     

Prevalence of unsuspected language disorders in a child psychiatric population

Nonretarded 5- to 12-year-old consecutive referrals to a child psychiatric outpatient clinic underwent a routine systematic language assessment. The assessment battery comprised standardized measures of the receptive and expressive components of syntax, semantics, and phonology. Standardized behavior rating scales also were completed by parents. Of the children referred solely for a psychiatric problem, 28% had a moderate or severe language disorder that previously had not been suspected or diagnosed. These children differed from a comparison group of children with both psychiatric and language disorders in that they were younger and more likely to have an externalizing behavioral problem. The findings indicate that there is a sizeable proportion of children whose language disorders are overlooked possibly because of their disruptive behavior. This suggests the need for routine screening of language in child psychiatric populations.     

Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment: distinct syntactic profiles?

Recent work exploring syntax in developmental dyslexia (DD) has identified morphosyntactic deficits, striking parallelisms between children with DD and specific language impairment (SLI). The question remains open if the underlying causes for such deficits are related to difficulties in phonology, which is affected in DD, or to working memory, as has been previously reported for SLI. We focus on the production of third person accusative clitic pronouns (ACC3) and of homophonous definite determiners in French-speaking children with DD and SLI as well as typically developing (TD) controls. If syntactic complexity modulates performance of DD children, as has already been shown for SLI, we predict children with DD to perform significantly worse on ACC3 compared to definite determiners, which are homophonous but syntactically simpler. In addition, if impairment in ACC3 stems from phonology or working memory difficulties, we expect ACC3 performance in both clinical groups to relate to performance on non-word repetition or forward/backward digit spans. We studied 2 groups of 21 children and adolescents, with DD and SLI (7–15 years) and age-matched TD controls. Results reveal significant weaknesses with ACC3 in DD and SLI groups compared to TD controls, but no difficulty for homophonous definite determiners, confirming a deficit relating specifically to syntactic complexity. As for links to phonology and working memory, a single correlation emerged between ACC3 and the backward digit span in SLI, but not in DD, suggesting different underlying sources for syntactic deficits in these populations. Clinical implications of these results are discussed.     

Schizophrenia and the structure of language: the linguist's view

Patients with schizophrenia often display unusual language impairments. This is a wide ranging critical review of the literature on language in schizophrenia since the 19th century. We survey schizophrenic language level by level, from phonetics through phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. There are at least two kinds of impairment (perhaps not fully distinct): thought disorder, or failure to maintain a discourse plan, and schizophasia, comprising various dysphasia-like impairments such as clanging, neologism, and unintelligible utterances. Thought disorder appears to be primarily a disruption of executive function and pragmatics, perhaps with impairment of the syntax-semantics interface; schizophasia involves disruption at other levels. Phonetics is also often abnormal (manifesting as flat intonation or unusual voice quality), but phonological structure, morphology, and syntax are normal or nearly so (some syntactic impairments have been demonstrated). Access to the lexicon is clearly impaired, manifesting as stilted speech, word approximation, and neologism. Clanging (glossomania) is straightforwardly explainable as distraction by self-monitoring. Recent research has begun to relate schizophrenia, which is partly genetic, to the genetic endowment that makes human language possible.     

Jargon dyslexia in an individual with semantic dementia: further evidence for task-specificity in phonological output

We report a patient with semantic dementia who demonstrated a very unusual dyslexia. He had a global loss of conceptual knowledge in the context of a fluent dysphasia and intact syntax. However, he did not have the surface dyslexia which is typical of semantic dementia; rather his reading impairment was characterized by speech production errors resulting in multiple neologisms. In a series of experiments it was established that input phonological and input orthographical processing were intact as was output phonology for naming and propositional speech. We demonstrate that our patient has a task-specific phonological deficit and we argue that reading and propositional speech rely upon dissociable phonological output systems. Thus we corroborate our earlier evidence of task-specific phonological output stores (Crutch and Warrington, 2001). We also document a greater difficulty with comprehending the written than the spoken word. We account for this pattern of performance in terms of our patient's attempting to read by the indirect phonological route, as with other semantic dementia patients, but suggest that this process is overridden by the task-specific speech production deficit.     

Localization of language function in the brain

Since the first report of an aphasic patient by Paul Broca, the localization of brain function has been disputed for 150 years. In lesion studies, double dissociation has been a key concept to show the localization of particular cognitive functions. The advancement of non-invasive brain imaging methods enables us to investigate the brain activities under well-controlled conditions, further promoting the studies on the localization of the cognitive functions, including language function. Brain imaging studies, together with subtraction and correlation analyses, have accumulated evidence that syntax, phonology, and sentence comprehension are separately processed by modules in different cortical regions. More specifically, it has been clarified that the module for syntax localizes in the left lateral premotor cortex and the opercular/triangular parts of the left inferior frontal gyrus. This modular structure further suggests that aphasia is interpreted as deficits in either syntactic or phonological processing. Therefore, the classical model of contrasting speech production and comprehension should be updated. According to theoretical linguistics, on the other hand, the recursive computation of syntactic structures is an essential feature of human language faculty. One direction of research would be to contrast human beings and animals for the abilities of processing symbolic sequences. Another direction is to clarify that the human brain is indeed specialized in language processing, which can be revealed by well-controlled language tasks and functional imaging techniques. Here we will review recent studies that demonstrate the existence of grammar center in the left frontal cortex. The future studies in the neuroscience of language will eventually elucidate the cortical localization of language function in a more precise way, i.e., what is really computed in the human brain.     

Dynamic processing in the human language system: synergy between the arcuate fascicle and extreme capsule

The production and comprehension of human language is thought to involve a network of frontal, parietal, and temporal cortical loci interconnected by two dominant white matter pathways. These two white matter bundles, often referred to as the dorsal and ventral processing tracts, are hypothesized to have markedly different language functions. The dorsal tract is thought to process phonological processing, while the ventral tract is considered to abet semantics. This proposed functional differentiation of tracts is similar to the ventral and dorsal dichotomy proposed for the visual and auditory systems. The present study evaluated this characterization of the language system in the context of various components involved in its function. Twenty-four chronic stroke patients completed a battery of 10 language tests designed to measure performance on the comprehension and production of phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax. The patients also completed diffusion MRI scanning. Lesions were confined to the left hemisphere, but the size and location of the insult varied so that patients had damage to a single tract, both tracts, or neither tract. Individual FA maps were generated, and focal areas of hypointensity served as markers of white matter damage. Whole-brain voxel-by-voxel correlations revealed that only phonological and semantic tasks fit into the dual-stream model, while syntax and morphology involved both pathways. ROI analyses of the arcuate fascicle and extreme capsule supported this finding. These data suggest that natural language function is more likely to reflect a synergistic system rather than a segregated dual-stream system.     

Development of brain mechanisms for processing orthographic and phonologic representations

Developmental differences in the neurocognitive networks for lexical processing were examined in 15 adults and 15 children (9- to 12-year-olds) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The lexical tasks involved spelling and rhyming judgments in either the visual or auditory modality. These lexical tasks were compared with nonlinguistic control tasks involving judgments of line patterns or tone sequences. The first main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children during the cross-modal lexical tasks in a region proposed to be involved in mapping between orthographic and phonologic representations. The visual rhyming task, which required conversion from orthography to phonology, produced greater activation for adults in the angular gyrus. The auditory spelling task, which required the conversion from phonology to orthography, also produced greater activation for adults in the angular gyrus. The greater activation for adults suggests they may have a more elaborated posterior heteromodal system for mapping between representational systems. The second main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children during the intra-modal lexical tasks in the angular gyrus. The visual spelling and auditory rhyming did not require conversion between orthography and phonology for correct performance but the adults showed greater activation in a system implicated for this mapping. The greater activation for adults suggests that they have more interactive convergence between representational systems during lexical processing.     

Update on the language disorders of individuals on the autistic spectrum

Inadequate language is a defining feature of the autism spectrum disorders (autism). Autism is a behaviorally and dimensionally defined developmental disorder of the immature brain that has a broad range of severity and many etiologies, with multiple genes involved. Early studies, which focused on the language of verbal children on the autistic spectrum, emphasized aberrant features of their speech such as unusual word choices, pronoun reversal, echolalia, incoherent discourse, unresponsiveness to questions, aberrant prosody, and lack of drive to communicate. Persistent lack of speech of some individuals was attributed to the severity of their autism and attendant mental retardation rather than possible inability to decode auditory language. Clinical study of unselected children with autism indicated that the language deficits of preschoolers fall into two broad types, perhaps with subtypes, those that involve reception and production of phonology (sounds of speech) and syntax (grammar), and those that do not but involve semantics (meaning) and pragmatics (communicative use of language, processing, and production of discourse). Except for the preschoolers' universally deficient pragmatics and comprehension of speech, many of their language deficits parallel those of non-autistic preschoolers with developmental language disorders. There is now biological support for the clinical observation that young autistic children are language disordered as well as autistic. Recent electrophysiological studies disclose auditory input abnormalities in lateral temporal cortex even in verbal individuals on the autistic spectrum. Severe receptive deficits for phonology enhance the risk for epilepsy. Genetic studies indicate that linkage to chromosome 7q31-33 is limited to families with evidence for phonologic impairment as well as autism. Clearly, social and cognitive disorders alone provide an inadequate explanation for the range of language deficits in autism.     

Non-word repetition: an investigation of phonological complexity in children with Grammatical SLI

We investigate whether children with Grammatical Specific Language Impairment (G-SLI) are also phonologically impaired and, if so, what the nature of that impairment is. We focus on the prosodic complexity of words, based on their syllabic and metrical (stress) structure, and investigate this using a novel non-word repetition procedure, the Test of Phonological Structure (TOPhS). Participants with G-SLI (aged 12-20 years) were compared to language-matched, typically developing children (aged 4-8 years). The results reveal that, in contrast to the controls, the accuracy with which the G-SLI group repeated non-words decreased as prosodic complexity increased, even in non-words with only one- and two-syllables. The study indicates that, in G-SLI, complexity deficits in morphology and syntax can extend to prosodic phonology. The study highlights the importance of taking into account prosodic complexity in phonological assessment and the design of non-word repetition procedures.     

Genetics and language: a neurobiological perspective on the missing link (-ing hypotheses)

The paper argues that both evolutionary and genetic approaches to studying the biological foundations of speech and language could benefit from fractionating the problem at a finer grain, aiming not to map genetics to "language"-or even subdomains of language such as "phonology" or "syntax"-but rather to link genetic results to component formal operations that underlie processing the comprehension and production of linguistic representations. Neuroanatomic and neurophysiological research suggests that language processing is broken down in space (distributed functional anatomy along concurrent pathways) and time (concurrent processing on multiple time scales). These parallel neuronal pathways and their local circuits form the infrastructure of speech and language and are the actual targets of evolution/genetics. Therefore, investigating the mapping from gene to brain circuit to linguistic phenotype at the level of generic computational operations (subroutines actually executable in these circuits) stands to provide a new perspective on the biological foundations in the healthy and challenged brain.