ERP and behavioral evidence for interaction/cascade between central (linguistic) and peripheral (motor) processes during word handwriting

International audienceModels of handwritten language production make a distinction between central (access to semantic, orthographic and phonological information) and peripheral (allographic and gesture planning) processes (see van Galen, 1991; Rapp, 2002). Though, this is still a matter of debate whether these central and peripheral modules are processed in a cascaded or in a serial way (Delattre, Barry & Bonin, 2006; Damian & Stadthagen-Gonzalez, 2009). In the same view, another question still debated is ”do central and peripheral processes ‘interact’ in handwritten word production compared to oral naming”

Neuropsycholinguistic Perspectives on Language Cognition: Essays in honour of Jean-Luc Nespoulous

International audienceThis book brings together experts from the fields of linguistics, psychology and neuroscience to explore how a multidisciplinary approach can impact on research into the neurocognition of language. International contributors present cutting-edge research from cognitive and developmental psychology, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics and computer science, and discuss how this contributes to neuropsycholinguistics, a term coined by Jean-Luc Nespoulous, to whom this book is dedicated.Chapters illustrate how researchers with different methods and theoretical backgrounds can contribute to a unified vision of the study of language cognition. Reinterpreting neuropsycholinguistics through the lens of each research field, the book demonstrates important attempts to adopt a comprehensive view of speech and language pathology.Divided into three sections the book covers:◦linguistic mechanisms and the architecture of language ◦the relationship between language and other cognitive processes◦the assessment of speech and language disabilities and compensatory mechanisms.Neuropsycholinguistic Perspectives on Language Cognition presents a unique contribution to cognitive science and language science, from linguistics to neuroscience. It will interest academics and scholars in the field, as well as medical researchers, psychologists, and speech and language therapists

Disfluency patterns in Alzheimer’s disease and Frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Disfluencies may reflect various mechanisms: word finding difficulties, planning strategies, inter- individual cognitive variability, etc. In the current paper, we examined disfluency production in patients with behavioural variant of Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (bvFTLD), compared to patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and healthy older adults. We showed that bvFTLD participants have lower speech rate and produce more incomplete utterances. However, those measures were not correlated with language abilities. On the contrary, AD participants did not differ from healthy controls on disfluency production, but discourse measures were correlated with participants’ lexical-semantic impairment. This provides evidence for different disfluency patterns in AD and FTLD, and a distinct role of disfluencies, depending on the population

évolex: à la croisée du TAL et de la psycholinguistique

International audienc

The “handwriting brain”: a motor/linguistic network with specialized “writing-specific” areas?

International audienceSince the first lesion studies from the late nineteenth century until the advent of functional neuroimaging, the uncovering of the cerebral substrates of written production raised the question of the existence of a “writing center” in the brain. A number of neuroimaging studies with healthy subjects have highlighted a broad network of brain areas, some being involved in linguistic processing or in motor control of handwriting, and some playing a “writing-specific” role. Those studies also reported inconsistent results, probably resulting from the diversity of methodologies used. In order to clear up discrepancies, we conducted a meta-analysis of 18 neuroimaging studies involving written language production (using the ALE method). We were thereby able to identify a network of 12 cortical and subcortical areas, mainly on the left hemisphere. Three areas were considered as primarily writing-specific (left SFS/MFG area, left IPS/SPL area, right cerebellum) while the others were more related to non-specific motor (M1/SM1, SMA, thalamus and putamen) or linguistic processes (vPM, PITC) (Planton, Jucla, Roux & Démonet, 2013). We then aim at testing the functional specificity to handwriting of the identified areas with a specific focus on the lateralization of brain response. To do so, we conducted an fMRI experiment in which written naming was compared to drawing and to oral spelling. We extracted BOLD activity within 4 volumes of interests (and their right - or left- counterpart), based on the coordinates from the meta-analysis work (left SFS, left IPS, left vPM, right cerebellum), and compared it across tasks. Results showed that the hypothesis of specificity is questioned when focusing only on the intensity of activation, and that taking into account the inter-hemispheric balance can be an effective way to understand the functional contribution of each of these areas within the whole writing process (Planton, Péran, Longcamp, Démonet & Jucla, in prep)

The “handwriting brain”: a motor/linguistic network with specialized “writing-specific” areas?

International audienceSince the first lesion studies from the late nineteenth century until the advent of functional neuroimaging, the uncovering of the cerebral substrates of written production raised the question of the existence of a “writing center” in the brain. A number of neuroimaging studies with healthy subjects have highlighted a broad network of brain areas, some being involved in linguistic processing or in motor control of handwriting, and some playing a “writing-specific” role. Those studies also reported inconsistent results, probably resulting from the diversity of methodologies used. In order to clear up discrepancies, we conducted a meta-analysis of 18 neuroimaging studies involving written language production (using the ALE method). We were thereby able to identify a network of 12 cortical and subcortical areas, mainly on the left hemisphere. Three areas were considered as primarily writing-specific (left SFS/MFG area, left IPS/SPL area, right cerebellum) while the others were more related to non-specific motor (M1/SM1, SMA, thalamus and putamen) or linguistic processes (vPM, PITC) (Planton, Jucla, Roux & Démonet, 2013). We then aim at testing the functional specificity to handwriting of the identified areas with a specific focus on the lateralization of brain response. To do so, we conducted an fMRI experiment in which written naming was compared to drawing and to oral spelling. We extracted BOLD activity within 4 volumes of interests (and their right - or left- counterpart), based on the coordinates from the meta-analysis work (left SFS, left IPS, left vPM, right cerebellum), and compared it across tasks. Results showed that the hypothesis of specificity is questioned when focusing only on the intensity of activation, and that taking into account the inter-hemispheric balance can be an effective way to understand the functional contribution of each of these areas within the whole writing process (Planton, Péran, Longcamp, Démonet & Jucla, in prep)

Aspects phonologiques, orthographiques et lexico-sémantiques du traitement du langage (production orale versus écrite chez l adulte et protocole d intervention dans les dyslexies du développement - études comportementales et par la méthode des potentiels évoqués)

TOULOUSE2-BUC Mirail (315552102) / SudocSudocFranceF

Speech disfluencies in children with developmental dyslexia: how do they differ from typical development?

Background. Disfluency is a multifactorial concept that can be linked to several of the language production levels, both in typical and atypical populations. In children, the language system is still developing and few studies have explored disfluency patterns. In Typical Development (TD) in particular, studies have shown discrepancies according to the language being considered. In neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Developmental Dyslexia, it is still unclear whether the pattern of disfluency is similar to TD children. Aims. Our study had two objectives. First, we analyzed the type of disfluencies and their evolution in French children aged 8 to 12 years old. Second, we compared the pattern of disfluency in DD and TD, and tested whether these difficulties were correlated with reading difficulties. Methods & Procedures. 25 children with DD and 21 children with TD aged from 8 to 12.6 years were compared based on an autobiographical oral narrative. Seven types of disfluencies were coded: part-word repetitions; repetitions of monosyllabic words; other types of repetitions (words and phrases); filled pauses; revisions-substitutions; revisions-additions; abandoned utterances. We compared the proportion of each disfluency in DD and TD. Spearman correlations were then performed between disfluencies, reading performances and age. Outcomes and Results. Our results showed that both DD and TD children mainly produced filled pauses, repetitions of monosyllabic words, and substitutions. In both groups, children had a high rate of disfluency (>10%). Correlations with reading performance were significant in the TD group only. Conclusions & Implications. Our study showed that DD in not characterized by a specific pattern of disfluency, and the type of disfluencies produced was stable in children aged from 8 to 12 years old. In contrast to other languages, our study suggest that French-speaking children have a high rate of disfluency. In other words, disfluency should be interpreted with caution in DD, given that TD children also have a high rate of disfluency. It seems important to adapt the pathological threshold of disfluency to the language being spoken, in order to avoid an overestimation of the prevalence of these deficits in French-speaking children

Remediation Effects on N170 and P300 in Children with Developmental Dyslexia

This study aimed at investigating the ERP correlates (N170 and P300 components) of a multimodal training program focused in dyslexia. ERPs were obtained from 32 electrodes in 24 French children with developmental dyslexia (mean age 10 years 7 months) during a visual lexical decision task. All the children received two intensive two-month evidence-based training programs: one based on phonemic awareness and the other on visual and orthographic processing in a cross-over design. Ten control children matched on chronological age were also tested. We showed dissociation between N170, P300 and behavioral improvement. In the dyslexic group, P300 amplitude decreased for non-words and words as the latter yielded performance improvement. In the control group, the same effect was observed for pseudo-words. At the same time, the opposite pattern occurred for the N170 latency, which was shortened for pseudo-words and pseudo-homophones in the dyslexic group and for words in the typically achieving children. We argue that training might modulate cortical activity in dyslexic children in a visual word recognition task. Considering the well-known implication of P300 in attentional processes, our results reflect the strong link between reading skill improvement after remediation and visual attentional process maturation