PSYCH EXAM 3 - LANGUAGE

The Case of Genie

• discovered at 13

• raised in extreme social isolation and abuse

• received almost no exposure to language during childhood

After being removed from her home, Genie began learning words. However, she never fully mastered grammar or sentence structure.

This is evidence that if a child is not exposed to language early, the neurons in the left hemisphere of the brain which support these skills become pruned; proof of a critical period for language development

Learning Multiple Languages

• the older the age at immigration, the poorer the mastery of a 2nd language

• adults who learned a 2nd language at 1-3 years of age show the normal pattern of left-hemisphere activity in a test of grammatical knowledge

• those who learned the language later show more bilateral activation (increased right-hemisphere activity along with typical left activity)

Prevocal Learning

babies distinguish all phonemes (the basic sound units of language) they will later use for language

2-4 months old

Babbling

• 4-6 months old

meaningless experimental sounds preceding actual language

vocal turn taking

• 7-8 months old

basic understanding of the pragmatics of communication; back-and-forth exchange of sounds with caregivers

first words (1 yr old)

simple words associated with objects or people

Naming Explosion

• 18-24 months old

mostly “object words” (ex. car, doggie, daddy)

telegraphic speech

• 18-24 months old

two word sentences omitting all but essential words

(ex. “want cookie”)

preschool period

• 2 ½ yrs old - 5 yrs old

• longer phrases/sentences

• start to use grammatical morphemes → modifiers that give more precise meaning to words/sentences

  • adding ‘s’ for plurality

  • added ‘ed’ for past tense

  • adding prepositions (in, on) and articles (the, a)

infant-directed speech

caregiver’s communications with infants

4 melodies of infant-directed speech

1. approval

2. prohibiting

3. comfort

4. attention

semantic networks

• words that have strong associative or semantic relations from larger networks of knowledge

  • these associated words can then act as anchors that help retrieve memory of other words, concepts, or schemas

what hemisphere and what specific areas of the brain are involved in language?

the left hemisphere

Broca’s Area: responsible for language production

Wernicke’s Area: responsible for language comprehension

KE Family

The KE family had a hereditary speech and language disorder affecting about half its members.

• a mutation in FOXP2 was discovered in affected family members

• FOXP2 is involved in development of neural circuits supporting speech motor control, grammar, and sequencing.

The KE family members with abnormal variants of FOXP2 have

• reduced grey matter in Broca’s area

• functional abnormalities in Broca’s area during language tasks

• Atypical activation in Broca’s area during speech tasks.

Aphasia

a language disorder caused by brain damage (often stroke), affecting speaking, understanding, reading, or writing

Wenicke’s aphasia (receptive/fluent aphasia)

impaired language comprehension due to damage of Wernicke’s area

• difficulty understanding spoken and written speech (especially nouns and verbs)

• fluency of speech is normal; it lacks coherency and is therefore often incomprehensible to others

  • a patient describing picture of a child taking a cookie: “this and this and this and this. these things going in there like that. this one here, these two things here. and the other one here, back in this one.”

Broca’s Aphasia (expressive/non-fluent aphasia)

serious impairment in language production due to damage to Broca’s and related areas

• communication resembles telegraphic speech (i.e, simple noun verb combinations)

  • ex. “me..go..store..”