Forms of disorders of communicative abilities in children with landau- kleffner's syndrome

Landau-Klefner-ov sindrom ili dečja stečena afazija sa epilepsijom je retka bolest sa ishodom koji je veoma teško predvideti. Neke studije izveštavaju da se u najvećem broju slučajeva događa kompletni oporavak jezičkih funkcija, dok druge studije daju podatke da se jezički problemi produžavaju i do odraslog doba. Cilj ovog rada je da se utvrde oblici poremećaja jezičkih funkcija kod ove dece u predškolskom i ranom osnovnoškolskom periodu. Istraživanjem je obuhvaćeno 14 dece sa Landau-Kleffnerovim sindromom uzrasta od 3 do 9 godina. Primenjeni su testovi za procenu verbalnih i neverbalnih komunikativnih sposobnosti: Skala rane socijalne komunikacije (ESCS), Rejnelova razvojna jezička skala, Bostonski test nominacije, Test pamćenja brojeva, Test prepričavanja priče, Token test i Test verbalne fluentnosti. Rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da se prema obliku razgradnje jezičkih funkcija mogu izdvojiti dve grupe dece. Prvoj grupi pripadaju deca koja su kompletno ili gotovo kompletno izgubila sposobnost govora i kod koje u toku trogodišnjeg praćenja nije došlo do oporavka jezičkih sposobnosti, a drugu grupu čine deca kod kojih je došlo do delimične ili potpune razgradnje jezika, ali je na kraju trogodišnjeg praćenja uočen oporavak jezičkih funkcija.Landau-Klefner syndrome or childhood acquired aphasia with epilepsy is a rare disease with an outcome that is very difficult to predict. Some studies report that in most cases there is a complete recovery of language functions, while other studies report that language problems persist into adulthood. The aim of this paper is to determine the forms of language function disorders in these children in preschool and early elementary school. The research included 14 children with Landau-Kleffner syndrome aged 3 to 9 years. Tests were applied to assess verbal and non-verbal communicative abilities: Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS), Raynell's Developmental Language Scale, Boston Nomination Test, Number Memory Test, Story Retelling Test, Token Test and Verbal Fluency Test. The results of the research show that two groups of children can be distinguished according to the form of breakdown of language functions. The first group includes children who have completely or almost completely lost the ability to speak and who did not recover their language abilities during the three-year follow-up, and the second group consists of children who had a partial or complete breakdown of the language, but at the end of the three-year follow-up it was observed recovery of language functions

Cognitive advantages of immersion education after 1 year:Effects of amount of exposure

Previous studies with bilingual children have shown that the nature of their second-language instruction has an effect on the development of their cognitive abilities. The aim of this study was to determine whether children who acquire a second language in two different immersion programs for a period of 1 year show advantages in executive functions and to examine how the amount of daily exposure affects executive functions. A group of Serbian speaking second-grade children exposed to the second language for about 5 h each day (high exposure group, HEG) and a low exposure group (LEG) exposed to the second language for about 1.5 h each day were compared with an age-matched control group (CG) of monolingual peers on working memory, inhibition, and shifting. Significant group differences were found for working memory, with the HEG performing better than the CG and LEG even after controlling for individual differences in terms of age and intelligence. The three groups did not differ in terms of inhibition and overall shifting abilities, although the control group had a marginally significant advantage on one of the two shifting tasks. Our findings extend previous research by demonstrating that the amount of daily exposure is a significant factor affecting executive functions in early immersion programs for second-language acquisition. In addition, they show that early intensive second-language acquisition can be advantageous for performance on tasks that require a higher level of executive control

Cross-linguistic adaptations of The Comprehensive Aphasia Test: Challenges and solutions

Comparative research on aphasia and aphasia rehabilitation is challenged by the lack of comparable assessment tools across different languages. In English, a large array of tools is available, while in most other languages, the selection is more limited. Importantly, assessment tools are often simple translations and do not take into consideration specific linguistic and psycholinguistic parameters of the target languages. As a first step in meeting the needs for comparable assessment tools, the Comprehensive Aphasia Test is currently being adapted into a number of languages spoken in Europe. In this article, some key challenges encountered in the adaptation process and the solutions to ensure that the resulting assessment tools are linguistically and culturally equivalent, are proposed. Specifically, we focus on challenges and solutions related to the use of imageability, frequency, word length, spelling-to-sound regularity and sentence length and complexity as underlying properties in the selection of the testing material

Noun and verb knowledge in monolingual preschool children across 17 languages: Data from cross-linguistic lexical tasks (LITMUS-CLT)

This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations

Imageability ratings across languages

Imageability is a psycholinguistic variable that indicates how well a word gives rise to a mental image or sensory experience. Imageability ratings are used extensively in psycholinguistic, neuropsychological, and aphasiological studies. However, little formal knowledge exists about whether and how these ratings are associated between and within languages. Fifteen imageability databases were cross-correlated using nonparametric statistics. Some of these corresponded to unpublished data collected within a European research network-the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (COST IS1208). All but four of the correlations were significant. The average strength of the correlations (rho = .68) and the variance explained (R (2) = 46%) were moderate. This implies that factors other than imageability may explain 54% of the results. Imageability ratings often correlate across languages. Different possibly interacting factors may explain the moderate strength and variance explained in the correlations: (1) linguistic and cultural factors; (2) intrinsic differences between the databases; (3) range effects; (4) small numbers of words in each database, equivalent words, and participants; and (5) mean age of the participants. The results suggest that imageability ratings may be used cross-linguistically. However, further understanding of the factors explaining the variance in the correlations will be needed before research and practical recommendations can be made

Relationship between social interaction bids and language in late talking children

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between language development and the frequency of social interaction (SI) behaviours during language acquisition in late-talking (LT) children who exhibit delays in expressive vocabulary development but have age-appropriate cognitive skills.Method: The research consists of a longitudinal study with a first test followed by two re-tests 5 months apart, in which LT children were compared to 5-months-younger typically-developing (TD) children.Result: Data showed that LT children performed significantly fewer initiation of SI behaviours, but no differences between groups in responding to SI behaviours were observed. Furthermore, LT children who have lower language comprehension scores initiate social interaction more frequently.Conclusion: The results showed that LT children seem to be less active in starting social interaction and participation, but, once they get involved, they respond similarly to TD children of comparable expressive language competence. Additionally, the correlation pattern between the frequency of SI behaviours and language functions showed that LT toddlers with more prominent receptive language delay are more interested in initiating interaction with their partner, thus suggesting that they need a partner's scaffolding to overcome this lack

Developmental relationship between language and joint attention in late talkers

The article examines the relationship between expressive and receptive language and joint attention (JA) bids during language acquisition in late-talking children. The research was designed to be a longitudinal study with a first test followed by two retests every five months fora period of 10 months, in which we compared late-talking(LT) children aged 26 months (N=25) to a group of five-month-younger typically developing (TD) children (N=25). The results showed that LT children did not differ from TD children in frequency of JA bids at any time point. However, in contrast to TD children, in which a positive relationship between JA bids of high levels and language function was found, in the LT group, JA bids were not related to language comprehension and production. These data indicate that TD children use nonverbal and verbal means jointly for communication purposes, whereas LT children switch between nonverbal and verbal means in concrete communicational acts. The results are discussed within the development of language as a semiotic functional framework

Comparison of the recovery patterns of language and cognitive functions in patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits and in patients with aphasia following a stroke

In this study we investigated the recovery patterns of language and cognitive functions in patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits and in patients with aphasia following a stroke. The correlation of specific language functions and cognitive functions was analyzed in the acute phase and 6 months later. Significant recovery of the tested functions was observed in both groups. However, in patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits the degree of recovery of most language functions and some cognitive functions was higher. A significantly greater correlation was revealed within language and cognitive functions, as well as between language functions and other aspects of cognition in patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits than in patients with aphasia following a stroke. Our results show that patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits have a different recovery pattern and a different pattern of correlation between language and cognitive functions compared to patients with aphasia following a stroke. Learning outcomes: (1) Better understanding of the differences in recovery of language and cognitive functions in patients who have suffered strokes and those who have experienced traumatic brain injury. (2) Better understanding of the relationship between language and cognitive functions in patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits and in patients with aphasia following a stroke. (3) Better understanding of the factors influencing recovery

Оценка вербалного ученија и запоминанија у детеј с частичној епилепсиеј

Since children with partial epilepsy show specific cognitive deficiencies, manifested s um m a r y by difficulties in reading, writing and counting, we decided to jocus on the examination ojverbal learning and retention, the processes which arefundamentaljor the acquisition oj teaching contents. As intelectual abilities oj children with partial epilepsy are usually preserved, our aim was to injorm teachers and educators about disturbances and difficulties that epilepsy may cause in some individuals. ln our research one oj the aims was to establish eventual correlation between the mentioned abilities and a laterally positioned epilepsy centre. Ray's audioverbal learning test was used to assess the levels oj short- and long-termed verbal memories, and to obtain the learning curve. The data analysis showed that children with partial epilepsy achieved significantly lower results compared with a control group oj healthy respondents. The lateralization oj the epilepsy centre had negative influence on the test results

Grammatical Gender and Mental Representation of Object: The Case of Musical Instruments

A body of research shows that grammatical gender, although an arbitrary category, is viewed as the system with its own meaning. However, the question remains to what extent does grammatical gender influence shaping our notions about objects when both verbal and visual information are available. Two experiments were conducted. The results obtained in Experiment 1 have shown that grammatical gender as a linguistic property of the pseudo-nouns used as names for musical instruments significantly affects people's representations about these instruments. The purpose of Experiment 2 was to examine how the representation of musical instruments will be shaped in the presence of both language and visual information. The results indicate that the co-existence of linguistic and visual information results in formation of concepts about selected instruments by all available information from both sources, thus suggesting that grammatical gender influences nonverbal concepts' forming, but has no privileged status in the matter