Does rhythmic priming improve grammatical processing in Hungarian‐speaking children with and without developmental language disorder?

Research has described several features shared between musical rhythm and speech or language, and experimental studies consistently show associations between performance on tasks in the two domains as well as impaired rhythm processing in children with language disorders. Motivated by these results, in the current study our first aim was to explore whether a short exposure to a regular musical rhythm (i.e., rhythmic priming) can improve subsequent grammatical processing in preschool-aged Hungarian-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Second, we investigated whether rhythmic priming is specific to grammar processing by assessing priming in two additional domains: a linguistic but non-grammatical task (picture naming) and a non-linguistic task (nonverbal Stroop task). Third, to confirm that the rhythmic priming effect originates from the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm and not the negative effect of the control condition, we added a third condition, silence, for all the three tasks. Both groups of children showed better performance on the grammaticality judgment task in the regular compared to both the irregular and the silent conditions but no such effect appeared in the non-grammatical and non-linguistic tasks. These results suggest that (1) rhythmic priming can improve grammatical processing in Hungarian, a language with complex morphosyntax, both in children with and without DLD, (2) the effect is specific to grammar and (3) is a result of the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm. These results could motivate further research about integrating rhythmic priming into traditional speech-language therapy

Sustainable technology solutions for reuse of process wastewaters from fine chemical industries

In the fine chemical industries, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, production technology generates large amounts of liquid waste and industrial waste solvents. Separation of various organic substances used in industry, such as adsorbable organic halides (AOX), from industrial wastewater is an important task of environmental protection. In this work, two technologies were compared to investigate the recycling/reuse of organic material of process wastewaters. The analysis was based on real case study from fine chemical industry. The separation efficiency, operational parameters and cost analysis were carried out to examine stripping and distillation technologies. The calculation was achieved in professional flowsheet simulator environment. According to the results, it can be determined there is no significant difference in separation efficiency of wastewater output streams. However, in the case of distillation technology, the reuse of halides can be possible inside the factory, so this is the recommended procedure for environmental protection. The cost of recovery technologies is also compared with waste incineration. These calculations also demonstrate the effectiveness of the treatment methods, because with recovery technologies it is possible to obtain a reduction of up to 85% compared to incineration

Using Motor Tempi to Understand Rhythm and Grammatical Skills in Developmental Language Disorder and Typical Language Development

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show relative weaknesses on rhythm tasks beyond their characteristic linguistic impairments. The current study compares preferred tempo and the width of an entrainment region for 5- to 7-year-old typically developing (TD) children and children with DLD and considers the associations with rhythm aptitude and expressive grammar skills in the two populations. Preferred tempo was measured with a spontaneous motor tempo task (tapping tempo at a comfortable speed), and the width (range) of an entrainment region was measured by the difference between the upper (slow) and lower (fast) limits of tapping a rhythm normalized by an individual’s spontaneous motor tempo. Data from N = 16 children with DLD and N = 114 TD children showed that whereas entrainment-region width did not differ across the two groups, slowest motor tempo, the determinant of the upper (slow) limit of the entrainment region, was at a faster tempo in children with DLD vs. TD. In other words, the DLD group could not pace their slow tapping as slowly as the TD group. Entrainment-region width was positively associated with rhythm aptitude and receptive grammar even after taking into account potential confounding factors, whereas expressive grammar did not show an association with any of the tapping measures. Preferred tempo was not associated with any study variables after including covariates in the analyses. These results motivate future neuroscientific studies of low-frequency neural oscillatory mechanisms as the potential neural correlates of entrainment-region width and their associations with musical rhythm and spoken language processing in children with typical and atypical language development

A protonyelv lenyomatai afáziások beszédprodukciójában = Protolinguistic fossils in aphasic speech production

Az evolúciós nyelvészeti szakirodalomban széles körben elfogadott nézet, hogy mai modern nyelvünket egy szintaxissal nem rendelkező egyszerűbb nyelvi rendszer, a protonyelv előzte meg. Ennek jellemzőire elsősorban mai nyelvi adatokból következtethetünk. A vizsgálati módszer jogosultsága azon a feltevésen alapul, hogy a nyelv korábbi állapotainak lenyomatai (fosszíliái) megtalálhatók a mai nyelvhasználatban is, elsősorban annak valamilyen módon sérült (pidzsin beszélők, farkasgyermekek, afáziások) vagy fejletlen (majmok nyelvtanulása, gyermeknyelv) formáiban. Áttekintésem célja az afáziás nyelvi produkcióban feltételezett protonyelvi lenyomatok bemutatása. Mielőtt azonban erre rátérek, röviden felvázolom a protonyelvről alkotott két szemben álló elméletet: a szintetikus és a holisztikus nézetet. Ezt követően tárgyalom azt a kérdést, hogy a két elmélet az afáziás beszéd mely jelenségeit feltételezi protonyelvi lenyomatnak. A probléma szempontjából kiemelt fontosságúnak tartom az elméletek idegrendszeri megalapozottságát, ezért erre az aspektusra külön hangsúlyt igyekszem fektetni. | There is a generally accepted view in evolutionary linguistics that our modern language was preceded by a protolanguage. Its characteristics can be inferred from contemporary use of language. This method is based on the assumption that preceding states of language has fossils in modern language, especially in its disrupted (pidgin speakers, feral children, aphasics) or undeveloped (early child language, human language learnt by apes) forms. In my review I present aphasic symptoms which can be handled as fossils of earlier linguistic stages. Before that I introduce the two main theories about protolanguage: the synthetic and the holistic views. Then I will explore the question what aphasic phenomena these theories regard as protolinguistic fossils. I will emphasize the neurological aspects of the problem

The role of cognitive control in anaphor resolution in children with specific language impairment

We studied anaphor resolution and its relationship with cognitive control abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. In a sentence–picture verification task assessing anaphor interpretation, the SLI group was less successful than age-matched TD peers, and displayed similar performance patterns as younger TD children in previous studies. The SLI group showed weaknesses in nonlinguistic cognitive control tasks, which were associated with anaphor interpretation results. These findings are in contrast with the view that proposes a grammarspecific deficit behind anaphor resolution problems in SLI. We suggest that anaphor interpretation in this population is delayed but not atypical, and this delay can be partly explained by weaker cognitive control abilities

Is atypical rhythm a risk factor for developmental speech and language disorders?

International audienc

Regular rhythmic primes improve sentence repetition in children with developmental language disorder

Abstract Recently reported links between rhythm and grammar processing have opened new perspectives for using rhythm in clinical interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Previous research using the rhythmic priming paradigm has shown improved performance on language tasks after regular rhythmic primes compared to control conditions. However, this research has been limited to effects of rhythmic priming on grammaticality judgments. The current study investigated whether regular rhythmic primes could also benefit sentence repetition, a task requiring proficiency in complex syntax—an area of difficultly for children with DLD. Regular rhythmic primes improved sentence repetition performance compared to irregular rhythmic primes in children with DLD and with typical development—an effect that did not occur with a non-linguistic control task. These findings suggest processing overlap for musical rhythm and linguistic syntax, with implications for the use of rhythmic stimulation for treatment of children with DLD in clinical research and practice