Language acquisition following hemidecortication: Linguistic superiority of the left over the right hemisphere |
| |
Authors: | Maureen Dennis Harry A. Whitaker |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada;2. Department of Psychology, University of Rochester USA |
| |
Abstract: | The language development of three 9- and 10-year-old children possessing only a right or a left hemisphere was studied. Surgical removal of one brain half antedated the beginning of speech, so each child has acquired speech and language with only one hemisphere. Different configurations of language skill have developed in the two isolated hemispheres: phonemic and semantic abilities are similarly developed but syntactic competence has been asymmetrically acquired. In relation to the left, the right brain half is deficient in understanding auditory language, especially when meaning is conveyed by syntactic diversity; detecting and correcting errors of surface syntactic structure; repeating stylistically permuted sentences; producing tag questions which match the grammatical features of a heard statement; determining sentence implication; integrating semantic and syntactic information to replace missing pronouns; and performing judgments of word interrelationships in sentences. Language development in an isolated right hemisphere, even under seizure-free conditions, results in incomplete language acquisition. |
| |
Keywords: | Address reprint requests to Dr. Maureen Dennis Research Associate Hospital for Sick Children 555 University Avenue Toronto Ont. Canada M5G 1X8. |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |