Language Development in Special Populations

These flashcards cover key vocabulary terms related to language development in special populations, including definitions and explanations.

Language deprivation

A condition where children, particularly those who are hard of hearing or deaf, do not receive accessible linguistic input, leading to negative effects on language development.

American Sign Language (ASL)

A complete, natural language that has the same linguistic properties as spoken languages and is used by the deaf community.

Visual impairment

A condition that affects the ability to see, which can impact language development and phonological skills in children.

Down Syndrome (DS)

A genetic disorder resulting in developmental delays and varying impacts on language and cognitive abilities.

Williams Syndrome (WS)

A genetic condition characterized by cognitive deficits and strengths in language and social communication.

Motherese speech

A style of speech used by adults when speaking to infants, characterized by higher pitch and exaggerated intonation, which captures infants' attention and aids language development.

Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

A condition where children exhibit significant difficulties in language skills despite having normal cognitive abilities and sensory processing.

Gesture production

Non-verbal communication methods that often precede and support verbal language development in children.

Morpheme

The smallest grammatical unit in a language, which can be a word or a part of a word (e.g., prefixes, suffixes).

Cohesive discourse

The ability to produce language that is logically connected and coherent, which can be challenging for children with visual impairments.

______________ holds that the left hemisphere is specialized for processing language from birth, whereas _______________ holds that left hemisphere is not specialized for language at birth, but language shifts there during maturation.

the invariance hypothesis; the equipotentiality hypothesis

Sign language relies on visuo-spatial rather than rapid temporal information as spoken languages do. Hickok, Bellugi & Klima (1996) examined the linguistic abilities of 23 sign-language users with unilateral brain lesions, and found the same left-hemispheric dominance for sign language as in spoken language. The figure below shows that left lesioned signers performed significantly worse than right lesioned signers on ASL production measures. Results like this suggest that _______.

the lateralization pattern of sign language systems is similar to that of spoken language

Dehaene-Lambertz et al. (2010) used fMRI to study the organization of brain activity in 24 two-month-old infants when listening to three types of stimuli (music, mother's and stranger's speech). Fig. B below represent individual brain activations averaged over the left and right clusters of activation for each of the auditory stimulus. The results here suggests evidence for _________

the infants' preference for mother's voice over a stranger's voice

The figure below reports mean length of signed utterances of Nim Chimpsky (name of a chimpanzee) and two deaf children and mean length of spoken utterances of two hearing children. Results like those reported in the figure below comparing deaf children learning a sign language and attempts to teach Chimpanzees a sign language suggest_______________

that chimps have been unable to learn the grammar of a human language.

The following scatterplot summarizes the main result of a fMRI study of language lateralization in children and adults by Szarflarski & colleagues (2006). It shows hemispheric language lateralization as a function of age in children (A – dashed line), adults (B – dotted line), and all subjects including both children and adults (C). These results suggest evidence that __________

there was an increased left hemisphere specialization over time between the ages 5 and 20 years

Hickok, Bellugi & Klima (1996) examined the linguistic abilities of 23 deaf native ASL signers who had suffered strokes that damaged portions of either their left or their right hemisphere. These researchers found that ____________ resulted in aphasia for signers just as it does for users of a spoken language. This suggests evidence for __________ dominance for sign language as in spoken language.

Left Hemisphere Damage

Dehaene-Lambertz et al. (2010) Used fMRI to study the organization of brain activity in 24 two-month-old infants when listening to three types of stimuli (music, mother's and stranger's speech). Fig. 1 below represent individual brain activations (which are averaged over the left and right clusters of activation) for each of the auditory stimulus. The results here show there is a significant left/right asymmetry for ___________________. 

both speech conditions (mother's voice & stranger's voice)

In a functional imaging study, Taylor and colleagues (2001) administered three different types of tasks: semantic (e.g., "Is 'dog' an animal?"), lexical (i.e., word form recognition, e.g., "Is 'b-u-v' an English word?"), and complex visual tasks (e.g., "Does 'A' have an enclosed space?"). Results showed that whereas lexical processes elicited primarily brain activations in left hemisphere (inferior parietal) regions, semantic processes were associated with bilateral (frontotemporal) activations. These results suggest that the right hemisphere has participated in the ______________.

semantic task