Summary

 

Left hemisphere lateralization for language

The brain is divided into two parts the right hemisphere and left hemisphere, each part has its own functions that influence the way we learn, feel and perceive things around us. Language develops on the left side of the brain, that is helped by Wernicke’s area is responsible for the comprehension of speech and Broca’s area is related to the production of speech. If this area is damaged there is a difficulty in expressing and understanding language.

Brain plasticity

The child’s brain is a brain sensitive to learning, development, and emotional experience. Thanks to the experiences of the child will shape their brain, making connections between neurons and dominance, this skill is called Brain plasticity.

Brain plasticity is moldable, meaning that throughout life, there is a need to maintain a continuous learning discipline. As in the developing infant, the key to developing new connections is environmental enrichment that relies on sensory (visual, auditory, tactile, smell) and motor stimuli. The more sensory and motor stimulation a person receives, the more likely they will be to recover from brain trauma.

Critical period

Children do not require explicit language instruction, but they do need exposure to language to develop normally. The critical-age hypothesis asserts that language is biologically based and that the ability to learn a native language develops within a fixed period, from birth to middle childhood. During this critical period, language acquisition proceeds easily, swiftly, and without external intervention. After this period, the acquisition of grammar is difficult and, for most individuals, never fully achieved. Children deprived of language during this critical period show atypical patterns of brain lateralization.

Linguistic savants

There are many cases of people with intellectual disabilities who, despite their disabilities in some areas, are remarkably talented in others. Such people are referred to as savants, they can possess great skills in mathematics, music, art and the more. Until recently, most such savants have been reported to be linguistically handicapped. They may be good copycats who can repeat like parrots, but they show little creative language skills. But there are also cases of language savants, who have learned the grammar of their own language and other languages, though they lack other non-lingual skills.

Specific Language Impediment

Children who have difficulty acquiring or developing language, taking into account that they have not suffered any brain injury or have no disability are called children with Specific ­Language Impairment (SLI). They have problems with the use of function words such as articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs. They also have difficulties with inflectional suffixes on nouns and verbs such as markers of plurality or tense.

Genetic basis of language

Studies of genetic disorders also show that a cognitive area may develop normally with abnormal development in other areas, and they also highlight the strong biological basis of language. Children with Turner syndrome have normal language and advanced reading skills along with serious nonlinguistic cognitive deficits. Similarly, studies of the language of children and adolescents with Williams syndrome show a unique behavioral profile, where some language functions seem relatively preserved against visual and spatial cognitive deficits and moderate retardation. In addition, developmental dyslexia and SLI also appear to have a genetic basis. And recent studies of Klinefelter syndrome show quite selective syntactic and semantic deficits alongside intact intelligence.