The role of language in mathematical development: evidence from children with specific language impairments

A sample (n=48) of eight-year-olds with specific language impairments is compared with age-matched (n=55) and language matched controls (n=55) on a range of tasks designed to test the interdependence of language and mathematical development. Performance across tasks varies substantially in the SLI group, showing profound deficits in production of the count word sequence and basic calculation and significant deficits in understanding of the place-value principle in Hindu-Arabic notation. Only in understanding of arithmetic principles does SLI performance approximate that of age-matched-controls, indicating that principled understanding can develop even where number sequence production and other aspects of number processing are severely compromised.     

Language comprehension vs. language production: age effects on fMRI activation

Normal language acquisition is a process that unfolds with amazing speed primarily in the first years of life. However, the refinement of linguistic proficiency is an ongoing process, extending well into childhood and adolescence. An increase in lateralization and a more focussed productive language network have been suggested to be the neural correlates of this process. However, the processes underlying the refinement of language comprehension are less clear. Using a language comprehension (Beep Stories) and a language production (Vowel Identification) task in fMRI, we studied language representation and lateralization in 36 children, adolescents, and young adults (age 6-24 years). For the language comprehension network, we found a more focal activation with age in the bilateral superior temporal gyri. No significant increase of lateralization with age could be observed, so the neural basis of language comprehension as assessed with the Beep Stories task seems to be established in a bilateral network by late childhood. For the productive network, however, we could confirm an increase with age both in focus and lateralization. Only in the language comprehension task did verbal IQ correlate with lateralization, with higher verbal IQ being associated with more right-hemispheric involvement. In some subjects (24%), language comprehension and language production were lateralized to opposite hemispheres.     

The Early Intellectual Careers of Bakhtin and Herzen: Towards a Philosophy of the Act

The article explores common ground shared by Alexander Herzen's `Dilettantism in Science' (1843) and Mikhail Bakhtin's `Towards a Philosophy of the Act' (1919) in the context of the Russian intellectual tradition as a whole. The primary aim is to explore in many ways, perhaps, unlikely affinities between two very different writers in the early stage of their careers. The secondary aim is to explore identifiably `Russian' motifs which may be said to call into question conventional typologies of Russian thought based on the progressive/conservative divide.     

Processing of non-canonical word-order: A case-series on lesion-induced reorganized language and age-effects in typical development

Complex grammatical structures are mastered late in language acquisition. We studied age-effects on performance in object topicalization in 48 typically developing German-speaking participants (aged 8–30 years) and in five patients (children and adolescents) with lesion-induced atypical language representation. Production was tested by a sentence repetition task, comprehension by an acting out task. Three topicalized conditions with differing disambiguation (agreement, case, and case plus agreement) were contrasted with canonical control sentences.     

Relations among language exposure, phonological memory, and language development in Spanish-English bilingually developing 2-year-olds

The relation of phonological memory to language experience and development was investigated in 41 Spanish-English bilingual first language learners. The children’s relative exposure to English and Spanish and their phonological memory for English- and Spanish-like nonwords were assessed at 22 months of age, and their productive vocabulary and grammar in both languages were assessed at 25 months of age. Phonological memory for English-like nonwords was highly correlated with that for Spanish-like nonwords, and each was related to vocabulary and grammar in both languages, suggesting a language-general component to phonological memory skill. In addition, there was evidence of language-specific benefits of language exposure to phonological memory skill and of language-specific benefits of phonological memory skill to language development.     

Screen media and language development in infants and toddlers: An ecological perspective

The abilities to understand and use language represent two of the most important developmental competencies that children must master during the first 3 years of life. Over the past decade, screen media content directed at infants and toddlers has dramatically increased. As a result, infants’ and toddlers’ time spent with media has also notably increased (i.e., 1–2 h per day). At present, there is limited empirical knowledge regarding how screen media influence infants’ and toddlers’ language development. In this review, we contend that infants and toddlers are capable of learning from screen media. This learning is dependent upon the confluence of three distinct but interrelated factors: attributes of the child; characteristics of the screen media stimuli; and the varied environmental contexts surrounding the child’s screen media use. To examine these interrelated factors, we have adopted an ecological framework in which a young child’s language skills develop from the reciprocal transactions between the child and the broader environmental contexts in which a child is situated or operates. Screen media effects are dependent on the degree to which media content resembles infants’ and toddlers’ real-life experiences including the use of simple stories and familiar objects or routines. Repeated exposure also helps infants and toddlers learn both the format and the content of screen media and can even ameliorate negative effects associated with viewing particular content. Finally, the presence of a competent co-viewer appears to boost babies’ language learning from screen media, much like the ways these processes facilitate learning in live scenarios.     

Early language and the development of children's reading skills

There is considerable agreement that vocabulary plays a central role in reading acquisition, but there is less agreement about whether this association is direct or indirect through phonological and print-related knowledge. Longitudinal data from 77 African-American children were analyzed to examine the relationship between language skills, phonological knowledge and print processing skills at pre-kindergarten and kindergarten with reading at pre-kindergarten through second grade. Analyses indicated that home and child care experiences were related to reading indirectly through language and that language and phonological knowledge were both directly related to acquisition of reading skill. This study of African-American children and previous studies of lower- and middle-income children indicate both language and phonological skills play an important role in children becoming successful readers, and that experiences at home and in child care during in early childhood play a role in the acquisition of reading through their enhancement of early language and phonological skills.     

Thinking meta-theoretically about the role of internalization in the development of body dissatisfaction and body change behaviors

Internalization of societal standards of physical attractiveness (i.e., internalization of the thin ideal for women and internalization of the mesomorphic ideal for men) is a widely studied and robust risk factor for body dissatisfaction and maladaptive body change behaviors. Substantial empirical research supports internalization as both a mediator and a moderator of the relation between societal influences and body dissatisfaction. In this paper, a primer on mediation and moderation is followed by a review of literature and discussion of the extent to which internalization can theoretically fulfill the roles of both mediation and moderation. The literature review revealed a stark contrast in research design (experimental versus non-experimental design) when alternate conceptualizations of internalization are adopted. A meta-theoretical, moderated mediation model is presented. This model integrates previous research and can inform future empirical and clinical endeavors.     

The relationship between motor development,gestures and language production in the second year of life: A mediational analysis

This longitudinal study investigated the relationships between motor, gestural and linguistic abilities using two parent report instruments. Motor skills at 12 months significantly correlated with language production at 16, 20 and 23 months, but these associations were mediated by the use of representational gestures.     

Sympathy and callousness: The impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims

When donating to charitable causes, people do not value lives consistently. Money is often concentrated on a single victim even though more people would be helped, if resources were dispersed or spent protecting future victims. We examine the impact of deliberating about donation decisions on generosity. In a series of field experiments, we show that teaching or priming people to recognize the discrepancy in giving toward identifiable and statistical victims has perverse effects: individuals give less to identifiable victims but do not increase giving to statistical victims, resulting in an overall reduction in caring and giving. Thus, it appears that, when thinking deliberatively, people discount sympathy towards identifiable victims but fail to generate sympathy toward statistical victims.     

The bimodal bilingual brain: effects of sign language experience

Bimodal bilinguals are hearing individuals who know both a signed and a spoken language. Effects of bimodal bilingualism on behavior and brain organization are reviewed, and an fMRI investigation of the recognition of facial expressions by ASL-English bilinguals is reported. The fMRI results reveal separate effects of sign language and spoken language experience on activation patterns within the superior temporal sulcus. In addition, the strong left-lateralized activation for facial expression recognition previously observed for deaf signers was not observed for hearing signers. We conclude that both sign language experience and deafness can affect the neural organization for recognizing facial expressions, and we argue that bimodal bilinguals provide a unique window into the neurocognitive changes that occur with the acquisition of two languages.     

The cerebellum: Its role in language and related cognitive and affective functions

The traditional view on the cerebellum as the sole coordinator of motor function has been substantially redefined during the past decades. Neuroanatomical, neuroimaging and clinical studies have extended the role of the cerebellum to the modulation of cognitive and affective processing. Neuroanatomical studies have demonstrated cerebellar connectivity with the supratentorial association areas involved in higher cognitive and affective functioning, while functional neuroimaging and clinical studies have provided evidence of cerebellar involvement in a variety of cognitive and affective tasks. This paper reviews the recently acknowledged role of the cerebellum in linguistic and related cognitive and behavioral–affective functions. In addition, typical cerebellar syndromes such as the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS) and the posterior fossa syndrome (PFS) will be briefly discussed and the current hypotheses dealing with the presumed neurobiological mechanisms underlying the linguistic, cognitive and affective modulatory role of the cerebellum will be reviewed.     

Grammatical language impairment and the specificity of cognitive domains: relations between auditory and language abilities

Grammatical-specific language impairment (G-SLI) in children, arguably, provides evidence for the existence of a specialised grammatical sub-system in the brain, necessary for normal language development. Some researchers challenge this, claiming that domain-general, low-level auditory deficits, particular to rapid processing, cause phonological deficits and thereby SLI. We investigate this possibility by testing the auditory discrimination abilities of G-SLI children for speech and non-speech sounds, at varying presentation rates, and controlling for the effects of age and language on performance. For non-speech formant transitions, 69% of the G-SLI children showed normal auditory processing, whereas for the same acoustic information in speech, only 31% did so. For rapidly presented tones, 46% of the G-SLI children performed normally. Auditory performance with speech and non-speech sounds differentiated the G-SLI children from their age-matched controls, whereas speed of processing did not. The G-SLI children evinced no relationship between their auditory and phonological/grammatical abilities. We found no consistent evidence that a deficit in processing rapid acoustic information causes or maintains G-SLI. The findings, from at least those G-SLI children who do not exhibit any auditory deficits, provide further evidence supporting the existence of a primary domain-specific deficit underlying G-SLI.     

Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning

This paper investigates possible influences of the lexical resources of individual languages on the spatial organization and reasoning styles of their users. That there are such powerful and pervasive influences of language on thought is the thesis of the Whorf-Sapir linguistic relativity hypothesis which, after a lengthy period in intellectual limbo, has recently returned to prominence in the anthropological, linguistic, and psycholinguistic literatures. Our point of departure is an influential group of cross-linguistic studies that appear to show that spatial reasoning is strongly affected by the spatial lexicon in everyday use in a community (e.g. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1993). Linguistic and nonlinguistic coding of spatial arrays: explorations in Mayan cognition (Working Paper No. 24). Nijmegen: Cognitive Anthropology Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics; Cognitive Linguistics 6 (1995) 33). Specifically, certain groups customarily use an externally referenced spatial-coordinate system to refer to nearby directions and positions ("to the north") whereas English speakers usually employ a viewer-perspective system ("to the left"). Prior findings and interpretations have been to the effect that users of these two types of spatial system solve rotation problems in different ways, reasoning strategies imposed by habitual use of the language-particular lexicons themselves. The present studies reproduce these different problem-solving strategies in speakers of a single language (English) by manipulating landmark cues, suggesting that language itself may not be the key causal factor in choice of spatial perspective. Prior evidence on rotation problem solution from infants (e.g. Acredolo, L.P. (1979). Laboratory versus home: the effect of environment on the 9-month-old infant's choice of spatial reference system. Developmental Psychology, 15 (6), 666-667) and from laboratory animals (e.g. Restle, F. (1975). Discrimination of cues in mazes: a resolution of the place-vs.-response question. Psychological Review, 64, 217-228) suggests a unified interpretation of the findings: creatures approach spatial problems differently depending on the availability and suitability of local landmark cues. The results are discussed in terms of the current debate on the relation of language to thought, with particular emphasis on the question of why different cultural communities favor different perspectives in talking about space.     

Finding one's meaning: a test of the relation between quantifiers and integers in language development

We explored children’s early interpretation of numerals and linguistic number marking, in order to test the hypothesis (e.g., Carey (2004). Bootstrapping and the origin of concepts. Daedalus, 59-68) that children’s initial distinction between one and other numerals (i.e., two, three, etc.) is bootstrapped from a prior distinction between singular and plural nouns. Previous studies have presented evidence that in languages without singular-plural morphology, like Japanese and Chinese, children acquire the meaning of the word one later than in singular-plural languages like English and Russian. In two experiments, we sought to corroborate this relation between grammatical number and integer acquisition within English. We found a significant correlation between children’s comprehension of numerals and a large set of natural language quantifiers and determiners, even when controlling for effects due to age. However, we also found that 2-year-old children, who are just acquiring singular-plural morphology and the word one, fail to assign an exact interpretation to singular noun phrases (e.g., a banana), despite interpreting one as exact. For example, in a Truth-Value Judgment task, most children judged that a banana was consistent with a set of two objects, despite rejecting sets of two for the numeral one. Also, children who gave exactly one object for singular nouns did not have a better comprehension of numerals relative to children who did not give exactly one. Thus, we conclude that the correlation between quantifier comprehension and numeral comprehension in children of this age is not attributable to the singular-plural distinction facilitating the acquisition of the word one. We argue that quantifiers play a more general role in highlighting the semantic function of numerals, and that children distinguish between numerals and other quantifiers from the beginning, assigning exact interpretations only to numerals.     

The cerebellum and language: Evidence from patients with cerebellar degeneration

Clinical and imaging studies suggest that the cerebellum is involved in language tasks, but the extent to which slowed language production in cerebellar patients contributes to their poor performance on these tasks is not clear. We explored this relationship in 18 patients with cerebellar degeneration and 16 healthy controls who completed measures of verbal fluency (phonemic and semantic), word stem completion, and oral naming speed. Cerebellar patients showed significantly slower response times when naming common nouns, which correlated with their degree of motor impairment. Patients were significantly impaired on both phonemic and semantic fluency measures compared to controls (p < 0.001), even when naming speed was entered as a covariate (p = 0.03). On the word stem completion task, patients were significantly less accurate (p < 0.001), had more errors due to non-responses (p = 0.008), and were slower to respond (p = 0.036) than controls; group effects were significant for overall accuracy, but not response time, when the effects of naming speed were covaried (p = 0.014). These findings suggest that cerebellar patients’ poorer performance on language tasks cannot be explained solely by slower language production, and that the integrity of cerebellar-prefrontal loops might underlie poorer performance on measures of executive function in cerebellar patients.     

Not all disfluencies are are equal: The effects of disfluent repetitions on language comprehension

Disfluencies can affect language comprehension, but to date, most studies have focused on disfluent pauses such as er. We investigated whether disfluent repetitions in speech have discernible effects on listeners during language comprehension, and whether repetitions affect the linguistic processing of subsequent words in speech in ways which have been previously observed with ers. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to measure participants’ neural responses to disfluent repetitions of words relative to acoustically identical words in fluent contexts, as well as to unpredictable and predictable words that occurred immediately post-disfluency and in fluent utterances. We additionally measured participants’ recognition memories for the predictable and unpredictable words. Repetitions elicited an early onsetting relative positivity (100–400 ms post-stimulus), clearly demonstrating listeners’ sensitivity to the presence of disfluent repetitions. Unpredictable words elicited an N400 effect. Importantly, there was no evidence that this effect, thought to reflect the difficulty of semantically integrating unpredictable compared to predictable words, differed quantitatively between fluent and disfluent utterances. Furthermore there was no evidence that the memorability of words was affected by the presence of a preceding repetition. These findings contrast with previous research which demonstrated an N400 attenuation of, and an increase in memorability for, words that were preceded by an er. However, in a later (600–900 ms) time window, unpredictable words following a repetition elicited a relative positivity. Reanalysis of previous data confirmed the presence of a similar effect following an er. The effect may reflect difficulties in resuming linguistic processing following any disruption to speech.     

Relative contribution of perception/cognition and language on spatial categorization

This study investigated the relative contribution of perception/cognition and language-specific semantics in nonverbal categorization of spatial relations. English and Korean speakers completed a video-based similarity judgment task involving containment, support, tight fit, and loose fit. Both perception/cognition and language served as resources for categorization, and allocation between the two depended on the target relation and the features contrasted in the choices. Whereas perceptual/cognitive salience for containment and tight-fit features guided categorization in many contexts, language-specific semantics influenced categorization where the two features competed for similarity judgment and when the target relation was tight support, a domain where spatial relations are perceptually diverse. In the latter contexts, each group categorized more in line with semantics of their language, that is, containment/support for English and tight/loose fit for Korean. We conclude that language guides spatial categorization when perception/cognition alone is not sufficient. In this way, language is an integral part of our cognitive domain of space.     

“Symbol formation and the embodied self: A microgenetic case-study examination of the transition to symbolic communication in scribbling activities from 14 to 31 months of age”

In this article, a theoretical account for the early formation and production of graphic symbols is presented, along with an illustrative microgenetic case study that focuses on those key mechanisms related to the progressive formation of complex graphic schemata and on the underlying emerging transitions in the signifier-signified relation. This account proposes that the development of symbolic graphic functioning follows a series of recursive loops between action and production that gradually enable the fundamental distinction between instrumental action and perceived intentional production. Scribbling dynamics via mirroring processes push the child’s primary reactive space to be converted into the child’s interactive experiential space and in turn mapped on and gradually transformed to the “secondary-pictorial,” communicative/expressive space, which also controls its manifestation. Scribbling, then, may be the underlying basis for the emergence of the first “symbolic articulation” of an embodied action representation—“natural-symbol,” of the self and the world/other. These first undifferentiated “natural” symbols (i.e., image schemata), mostly seen as superfluous or motor devices to drawing, stand as the cornerstones of drawing symbolic development, since they function as the “missing” link between action, production, perception, visual representation, and symbol formation. In other words, scribbling, by its embodied anchor that substitutes the event/object, sustains the ability to coordinate action representations so as to become “schematized” reciprocally, initiating in turn conscious control and self-referential intentionality.