Language

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Language Psychology 315 Guest Speaker Tanya L.
Lentz, M.A. May 31, 2007 June 4, 2007
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What is Language?

• Language is a code to translate thoughts into
  output and input into thoughts
• Communication with others
• Self-communication reflect, understand, explain
  and make decisions

I would rather be at the beach than study but I
should..
Of course I will go to the library with you.
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Language Development

• Soon after birth, infants can discriminate
  different phonemes and prosody of their first
  language from other languages (for review see
  Jusczyk, 1997)
• Between the ages of 11 and 13 months, children
  understand and begin to produce first words.
• Between the ages of 2 and 3 years, syntactic
  structure is acquired and 2-3 word sentences
  appear.
• Critical periods
• Some language acquisition is guaranteed up to age
  6 with proper environmental systems in place
  (e.g. exposure to language)
• From age 6 to puberty, language acquisition is
  severely compromised and after puberty, rare if
  not exposed to language.
• These developmental periods predict language
  recovery after injury to the language areas of
  the brain. If dominant language areas are damaged
  before ages 8-11, the opposite hemisphere can
  acquire language functions (Hertz-Pannier et al.,
  2002).
• However, if injury occurs at generalized impairment of both verbal and
  nonverbal cognitive functioning may occur. This
  suggests, at
  occurs, it occurs at a cost to cognitive
  functioning. This may be a result of
  overcrowding while functions are still
  developing (for review see Anderson et al., 2001)

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Language Lateralization

• Lateralization
• The left hemisphere is dominant for language in
  90 of right-handed individuals and 70 of
  left-handed individuals (Knecht et al., 2000)
• Left-handed individuals tend to recover language
  functions faster after injury than right-handed
  individuals as a result (Satz, 1979)

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Components of Language
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History of Neurolinguistics
3000 B.C. Observations of disorders of language
appear in Pharaonic medical papyrus
texts. 1727 A.D. Disorders of language are
represented in neurology texts such as
Wepfers compendium. Early 19th Century Period of
intense interest in the brain localization of
language functions via phrenology (e.g. Gall)
and medical research (e.g. Bouilland). 1824
Alexander Hood postulated expressive language
functions and correlated them to frontal lobe
functions. He described a lexical-phonological
level, phonological- articulatory level and a
motor level. 1836 Marc Dax presents 40 cases
with clinical and anatomical correlations
showing the relationship of the left
hemisphere to language. 1860s Pierre Paul Broca
writes series of papers on aphemia which
correlated the inferior frontal gyrus to
expressive language.
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• 1866 Theodor von Meynert publishes An Anatomical
  Analysis of a Case of Speech Disturbance, a
  paper describing a patient with sensory aphasia.
• 1869 Henry Bastian publishes paper describing a
  network model of language that encompasses oral
  and written language.
• 1874 Carl Wernicke publishes The Symptom Complex
  of Aphasia, a paper
• that separates comprehension out from other
  language functions and
• relates comprehension back to neuroanatomy.
• 1885 Ludwig Lichtheim publishes diagrams of the
  Lichtheim Model which depicts that connection
  between the language centers of the brain.
• 1926 Sir Henry Head develops comprehensive series
  of tests for aphasic patients.
• Kurt Goldstein publishes The Organism which
  described his view of aphasia and observations
  from WWI soldiers with brain injury.
• 1965 Norman Geschwind describes tertiary
  associations areas linking auditory and visual
  word forms. This is combined with Wernickes and
  Lichtheims theories to form Wernicke-Lichtheim-G
  eschwind Model

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Wernicke-Lichtheim-Geschwind Model
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Aphasia

• Definition a disturbance of language formation
  and comprehension caused by localized brain
  dysfunction
• Must be differentiated from disorders of
  attention, memory or thought that may cause
  impaired reception, organization or errors in
  language.
• Must also be differentiated from motor disorders
  that may cause mutism, dysarthria or dysphonia.
• Most common causes are traumatic brain injury or
  stroke. Others include tumors, degenerative
  dementias, demyelinating disorders and
  infections.

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Diagnosing Aphasia

• Testing Language Function
• Fluency
• Paraphasia
• Comprehension
• Repetition
• Naming
• Reading
• Writing
• Prosody

National Aphasia Association
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Brocas Aphasia
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Wernickes Aphasia
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Conduction Aphasia
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Global Aphasia
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Transcortical Motor Aphasia
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Transcortical Sensory Aphasia
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Mixed Transcortical Aphasia
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Other Aphasic Conditions

• Anomic Aphasia
• Subcortical Aphasia
• Childhood Aphasia
• Primary Progressive Aphasia
• American Sign Language
• Similar patterns of aphasia occur with lesions as
  described previously.

19
Beeson, P. Rapcsak, S. (2006). The aphasias. In
P.J. Snyder, P.D. Nussbaum D.L Robins (Eds.).
Clinical Neuropsychology A Pocket Handbook for
Assessment (2nd Edition) (Chapter 18).
Washington, DC APA.
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Agraphia

• Definition the loss or impairment of writing
  ability, caused by acquired brain disease.
• Broad classifications
• Aphasic agraphia accompanies aphasia
• Nonaphasic weakness and disorders of movement,
  visusospatial function and conversion symptoms

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Aphasic Agraphia
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Nonaphasic Agraphia

• Gerstmanns syndrome
• 4 Primary Symptoms agraphia, acalculia
  (acquired loss of math skills), finger agnosia
  (inability to recognize, identify, differentiate,
  name, select, indicate or orient the individual
  fingers of own or others hands) and R-L
  disorientation.
• Associated with lesions of the left angular gyrus

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Alexia

• Definition Acquired inability to read
• Type of sensory aphasia
• Also known as word blindness, text blindness,
  visual aphasia

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CC Corpus Callosum, HHHomonymous Hemianopia,
VLOTVentrolateral Occipitotemporal Cortex Leff,
A. (2004). Alexia. Advances in Clinical
Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, Vol. 4 (3),
18-22.
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Syllabic/Logographic Languages

• Kana and Kanji system of Japanese
• Lesion and imaging data with Japanese has found
  that for writing Kana, the frontoparietal
  cortical circuit is used in conjunction with the
  left perisylvian area for spoken language
  whereas for writing Kanji, the frontoparietal
  cortical circuit is used for motor execution in
  conjunction with the left basal temporal area
  (Nakamura Knouider, 2003).
• Imaging data has found that while reading Kana,
  greater activation occurred in the middle and
  inferior occipital gyri and the deep perisylvian
  temporoparietal area whereas for reading Kanji,
  greater activation occurred in the lateral
  fusiform gyrus (Sakurai et al., 2000).

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Nonliteral Language

• What we say is not what we intend to convey
  (Van Lancker Sidtis, 2006, p. 214)
• Includes idioms, proverbs, swearing, and other
  expressions familiar to a native speaker.
• Current evidence suggests that comprehension and
  production of nonliteral information is modulated
  by a right hemisphere subcortical circuit.
  However, both hemispheres are needed for
  successful production and comprehension of
  nonliteral language (For review, see Van Lancker
  Sidtis, 2006).
• The right hemisphere is also indicated in the
  accurate perception of prosody and lexical
  aspects of visual word recognition (for review
  see Lindell et al., 2006)