2. Communication
There are 3 elements in this exchange,
and all must be present:
1. Message
2. Message must be expressed
3. Message must be understood
3.
4. Speech and Language
Speech is the motor act of
communicating by articulating verbal
expression
Language is the knowledge of a
symbol system used for interpersonal
communication.
5. Four domains of language
Phonology
Grammar
Semantics
Pragmatics
6. Phonology
The ability to produce and
discriminate the specific sounds of a
given language.
Its unit, the phoneme, is characterized
by distinctive features.
Babies start discriminating phonemes
during the first few months of life, and
they produce them soon after.
7. Phonology
Phonological receptivity is pluripotential
at birth
Starts to decay at around 10 months
Reaches a rather general inability to
acquire native phonology by
preadolescence
8. Grammar
The underlying rules that organize
any specific language.
The combinatorial rules that most native
speakers of a language recognize as
acceptable for that language and that
allow a native speaker an infinite array
of generative possibilities.
11. Lexicon
Lexical entries are organized in the
mental dictionary according to well-
defined rules
Allows the young child to acquire a
peak average of 10 new words per day.
By 24 months the average child knows
50 words.
12. Lexicon Growth
The subsequent
exponential growth
makes it difficult to
determine
vocabulary size with
exactitude.
13. Environmental factors
predicting large vocabularies
Reading and discussing children's stories
The quality of dinner table conversations
Large mother-produced number of words
Higher socioeconomic status (SES)
Being the firstborn ( Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998 )
Quantity and sophistication of mother's
vocabulary ( Snow, 1998 ).
15. Sub domains of Pragmatics
Rules of conversation (turn-taking, topic
maintenance, conversational repair)
Politeness
Narrative and extended discourse
The implementation of communicative
intents
16. Pragmatic disorders
Little variety in language use
May say inappropriate or unrelated
things during conversations
May tell stories in a disorganized way
Can often make demands, ask
questions, and greet people
Has trouble organizing language to talk
about what happened in the past.
17. Pragmatic disorders
Appear to pull topics out of the air
May not use statements that signal a
change in topic, such as "That reminds
me."
Peers may avoid having conversations
with such a child.
Can lower social acceptance.
19. Continue…..
By age 3, most
normal children
have mastered the
basic structures of
their native
language
20. Language acquisition
Occurs with uniformity and rapidity
Supports the hypothesized existence of
innate, genetically determined Universal
Grammars
Recently proposed a combination of
traditional learning and innate language
modules.
21. Disfluencies in Children
Almost all children go through a stage
of frequent disfluency
usually between the ages of 2 and 5.
Speech is produced easily in spite of
the disfluencies.
22. Etiology of Speech & Language
Disorders
Mental retardation
Hearing loss
Maturation delay
(developmental
language delay)
Expressive
language disorder
(developmental
expressive aphasia)
Bilingualism
Psychosocial
deprivation
Autism
Elective mutism
Receptive aphasia
Cerebral palsy
23. Overview of major types of
speech disordersspeech disorders
Definitions vary, but
generally agree that
speech disorders involve
deviations of sufficient
magnitude to interfere
with communication.
They draw attention to
the speaking act and
away from the message
24. 1. Fluency Disorders
Speech is characterized by repeated
interruptions, hesitations, or repetitions
Stuttering is by far the most well-
known fluency disorder
25. 1. Stuttering
Flow of speech is abnormally
interrupted by repetitions, blocking, or
prolongations of sounds, syllables,
words, or phrases
Very familiar, but actually quite rare –
only 1-5% of the population.
Articulation disorders actually occur
much more frequently than stuttering
26. Stuttering -- Causes
Still a mystery
Three perspectives:
1. Symptom of emotional
disturbance
2. Result of biological
makeup
3. Learned response
27. Stuttering
Disorder of speech fluency that
interrupts the forward flow of speech.
All individuals are disfluent at times
Differentiated by the kind and amount of
the disfluencies
30. Characteristics
Tense pauses, hesitations, and/or no
sound between words
Speech that occurs in spurts
as the child tries to initiate or maintain
voice
Variability in stuttering behavior
depending on the speaking situation
31. Related behaviors
tense muscles in the lips, jaw, and/or
neck
tremor of the lips, jaw, and/or tongue
foot tapping
eye blinks
head turns
32. 2. Articulation disorders
This is the largest category of all
speech problems
DSM-IV calls these “phonological
disorders.”
“abnormal speech-sound production,
characterized by inaccurate or
otherwise inappropriate execution of
speaking”
33. 2. Articulation disorders
Great majority are functional articulation
disorders
Might represent as much as 80% of the
speech disorders diagnosed by speech
clinicians
Must be very careful to distinguish true
problems from delay.
E.g., r, s, th problems may largely disappear
naturally after 5 years of age
35. 3. Voice disorders
Unusual or abnormal acoustical
qualities in the sounds made when a
person speaks
Very little research here
What is a “normal” sounding voice?
Nasality, hoarseness, breathiness
37. 4. Delayed speech
Failure to develop speech at the
expected age
Somewhat subjective
Usually associated with other
maturational delays
May also be associated with a hearing
impairment, mental retardation,
emotional disturbance, or brain injury
Often the result of environmental
deprivation
38. Epidemiology of Speech Delay
Common childhood problem
Affects 3 to 10 percent of children.
3-4X more common in boys than in
girls.
39. Most common causes of speech
delay
Mental retardation
Hearing loss
Maturation delay
40. Overview of major types of
language disorderslanguage disorders
Need to understand normal language
and prelanguage development
See Table 10.1 on 320
May involve comprehension
(understanding) or expression in
written or spoken language
These are very complex to diagnose
and treat
42. Language disordersLanguage disorders
1. Expressive language disorders
2. Receptive language disorders
3. Aphasia – loss of the ability to speak
or comprehend language because of
an injury or developmental
abnormality in the brain
44. EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE DISORDER
Normal intelligence
Normal hearing
Good emotional relationships
Normal articulation skills.
Comprehension of speech is
appropriate to the age of the child
46. EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE DISORDER
The child is at risk for language-based
learning disabilities (dyslexia).
May use gestures to supplement their
limited verbal expression .
47. Maturation Delay vs. Expressive
Language Disorder?
The late bloomer will
eventually develop
normal speech
The child with an
expressive language
disorder will not do
so without
intervention.
48. Maturation Delay vs. Expressive
Language Disorder?
It is sometimes difficult, if not
impossible, to distinguish at
an early age a late bloomer
from a child with an
expressive language disorder.
49. BILINGUALISM
A bilingual home
environment may
cause an apparent
temporary delay in
the onset of both
languages.
50. BILINGUALISM
The bilingual child's comprehension of
the two languages is normal for a child
of the same age.
Usually becomes proficient in both
languages before the age of five years.
51. Interference or transfer
An English error due to the direct
influence of the primary language
structure.
This is a normal phenomenon
52. Silent period
Common second-language acquisition
phenomenon
Often very quiet, speaking little
Focus on understanding the new
language
The younger the child, the longer the
silent period tends to last.
54. Benefits of Bilingualism
Children who are fluent bilinguals
actually outperform monolingual
speakers on tests of metalinguistic skill.
55. Benefits of Bilingualism
Our world is shrinking and business
becomes increasingly international
Children who are fluent bilingual
speakers are potentially a tremendously
valuable resource for the U.S.
economy.
56. Language Disorders
Egyptians reported
speech loss after
blow to head 3000
years ago
Broca (1861) finds
damage to left inferior
frontal region (Broca’s
area) of a language
impaired patient, in
postmortem analysis
57. Language Disorders
In language disorders
90-95% of cases, damage is to the left
hemisphere
5-10% of cases, to the right hemisphere
Wada test is used to determine the
hemispheric dominance
Sodium amydal is injected to the carotid artery
First to the left and then to the right
58.
59. Language Disorders
Paraphasia:
Substitution of a word by a sound, an incorrect
word, or an unintended word
Neologism:
Paraphasia with a completely novel word
Nonfluent speech:
Talking with considerable effort
Agraphia:
Impairment in writing
Alexia:
Disturbances in reading
60. Three major types of Aphasia
Rosenzweig: Table 19.1, p. 615
Borca’s aphasia
Nonfluent speech
Wernicke’s aphasia
Fluent speech but unintelligible
Global aphasia
Total loss of language
Others: Conduction, Subcortical, Transcortical
Motor/Sensory (see also Kandel, Table 59-1)
62. Broca’s Aphasia
Brodmann 44, 45
Lesions in the left inferior frontal region
(Broca’s area)
Nonfluent, labored, and hesitant speech
Most also lost the ability to name persons or
subjects (anomia)
Can utter automatic speech (“hello”)
Comprehension relatively intact
Most also have partial paralysis of one side of
the body (hemiplegia)
If extensive, not much recovery over time
63. Wernicke’s
Aphasia
Brodmann 22, 30
Lesions in posterior of the left superior
temporal gyrus, extending to adjacent parietal
cortex
Fluent speech
But contains many paraphasias
“girl”-“curl”, “bread”-“cake”
Syntactical but empty sentences
Cannot repeat words or sentences
Unable to understand what they read or hear
Usually no partial paralysis
65. Wernicke-Geschwind Model
2. Repeating a written word
Angular gyrus is the gateway from visual cortex to
Wernicke’s area
This is an oversimplification of the issue:
not all patients show such predicted behavior (Howard,
1997)
66. Sign Languages
Full-fledged languages, created by hearing-
impaired people (not by Linguists):
Dialects, jokes, poems, etc.
Do not resemble the spoken language of the same
area (ASL resembles Bantu and Navaho)
Pinker: Nicaraguan Sign Language
Another evidence of the origins of language (gestures)
Most gestures in ASL are with right-hand, or
else both hands (left hemisphere dominance)
Signers with brain damage to similar regions
show aphasia as well
67. Signer Aphasia
Young man, both spoken and sign language:
Accident and damage to brain
Both spoken and sign languages are affected
Deaf-mute person, sign language:
Stroke and damage to left-side of the brain
Impairment in sign language
3 deaf signers:
Different damages to the brain with different
impairments to grammar and word production
68. Spoken and Sign Languages
Neural mechanisms are similar
fMRI studies show similar activations for
both hearing and deaf
But in signers, homologous activation
on the right hemisphere is unanswered
yet
69. Dyslexia
Problem in learning to read
Common in boys and left-handed
High IQ, so related with language only
Postmortem observation revealed anomalies
in the arrangement of cortical cells
Micropolygyria: excessive cortical folding
Ectopias: nests of extra cells in unusual location
Might have occurred in mid-gestation, during
cell migration period
70. Acquired Dyslexia = Alexia
Disorder in adulthood as a result of
disease or injury
Deep dyslexia (pays attn. to wholes):
“cow” -> “horse”, cannot read abstract
words
Fails to see small differences (do not read
each letter)
Problems with nonsense words
Surface dyslexia (pays attn. to details):
Nonsense words are fine
Suggests 2 different systems:
One focused on the meanings of whole
words
71. Electrical Stimulation
Penfield and Roberts (1959): During epilepsy
surgery under local anesthesia to locate
cortical language areas, stimulation of:
Large anterior zone:
stops speech
Both anterior and posterior temporoparietal cortex:
misnaming, impaired imitation of words
Broca’s area:
unable comprehend auditory and visual semantic
material,
inability to follow oral commands, point to objects, and
understand written questions
72. Studies by Ojemann et al.
Stimulation of the brain of an English-Spanish
bilingual shows different areas for each
language
Stim of inferior premotor frontal cortex:
Arrests speech, impairs all facial movements
Stim of areas in inferior, frontal, temporal,
parietal cortex:
Impairs sequential facial movements, phoneme
identification
Stim of other areas:
lead to memory errors and reading errors
Stim of thalamus during verbal input:
increased accuracy of subsequent recall
73. Williams Syndrome
Caused by the deletion of a dozen genes from
one of the two chromosomes numbered 7
Shows dissociation between language and
intelligence, patients are:
Fluent in language
But cannot tie their shoe laces, draw images, etc.
Developmental process is altered:
Number skills good at infancy, poor at adulthood
Language skills poor at infancy, greatly improved in
adulthood
74. Lateralization of the Brain
Human body is asymmetrical: heart,
liver, use of limbs, etc.
Functions of the brain become
lateralized
Each hemisphere specialized for
particular ways of working
Split-brain patients are good examples
of lateralization of language functions
75. Lateralization of functions
(approximate)
Left-hemisphere:
Sequential analysis
Analytical
Problem solving
Language
Right-hemisphere:
Simultaneous analysis
Synthetic
Visual-Spatial skills
Cognitive maps
Personal space
Facial recognition
Drawing
Emotional functions
Recognizing emotions
Expressing emotions
Music
76. Split-brain
Epileptic activity spread from one hemisphere
to the other thru corpus callosum
Since 1930, such epileptic treated by
severing the interhemispheric pathways
At first no detectible changes (e.g. IQ)
Animal research revealed deficits:
Cat with both corpus callosum and optic chiasm
severed
Left-hemisphere could be trained for
symbol:reward
Right-hemisphere could be trained for inverted
symbol:reward
77. Left vs. Right Brain
Pre and post operation studies showed that:
Selective stimulation of the right and left hemisphere
was possible by stimulating different parts of the body
(e.g. right/left hand):
Thus can test the capabilities of each hemisphere
Left hemisphere could read and verbally communicate
Right hemisphere had small linguistic capacity:
recognize single words
Vocabulary and grammar capabilities of right is far less
than left
Only the processes taking place in the left hemisphere
could be described verbally
Editor's Notes
Remember Bernard Shaw's word ghoti with the gh from laugh, the o from women and the ti from nation and pronounced 'fish'?
The word unladylike consists of three morphemes and four syllables.
Morpheme breaks:
un- 'not'
lady '(well behaved) female adult human'
-like 'having the characteristics of'
None of these morphemes can be broken up any more without losing all sense of meaning. Lady cannot be broken up into "la" and "dy," even though "la" and "dy" are separate syllables. Note that each syllable has no meaning on its own.
A person who stutters may experience more fluency in the speech-language pathologist' s office than in a classroom or workplace.
There may be no difficulty making a special dinner request at home, but extreme difficulty ordering a meal in a restaurant. Conversation with a spouse may be easier, and more fluent, than that with a boss.
A person may be completely fluent when singing, but experience significant stuttering when talking on the telephone.
A person who stutters may experience more fluency in the speech-language pathologist' s office than in a classroom or workplace.
There may be no difficulty making a special dinner request at home, but extreme difficulty ordering a meal in a restaurant. Conversation with a spouse may be easier, and more fluent, than that with a boss.
A person may be completely fluent when singing, but experience significant stuttering when talking on the telephone.
1 to 6 months Coos in response to voice
6 to 9 months Babbling
10 to 11 months Imitation of sounds; says "mama/dada" without meaning
12 months
Says "mama/dada" with meaning; often imitates two- and three-syllable words
2 to ½ years
Vocabulary of 400 words, including names; two- to three-word phrases; use of pronouns; diminishing echolalia; 75% of speech understood by strangers
The primary deficit appears to be a brain dysfunction that results in an inability to translate ideas into speech.
Because this disorder is not self-correcting, active intervention is necessary
Maturation delay is a much more common cause of speech delay
Expressive language disorder accounts for only a small percentage of cases.
In Spanish, "esta casa es mas grande" means "this house is bigger."
The literal translation would be "this house is more bigger."
A Spanish-speaking child who said "this house is more bigger" would be manifesting transfer from Spanish to English.
"Me gustaria manejar-I' ll take the car!"
("I' d like to drive-I' ll take the car"). Spanish
"With my teacher, I have utang ng loob [debt of gratitude] because she has been so good to me." Filipino
During a Wada, the neuroradiologist puts one side of your brain to sleep for a few minutes. This is done by injecting sodium amobarbital (also called sodium amytal) into the right or left internal carotid artery. If the right carotid artery is injected, the right side of the brain goes to sleep and can't communicate with the left side. Once the physicians are sure that one side of your brain is asleep, the neuropsychologist shows you objects and pictures. The awake side of the brain tries to recognize and remember what it sees.
After just a few minutes, the sodium amobarbital wears off. The side that was asleep starts to wake up. Once both sides of your brain are fully awake, the neuropsychologist will ask you what was shown. If you don't remember what you saw, items are shown one at a time, and you are asked whether you saw each one before. Your responses will be recorded word-for-word.
After a delay, the other side of the brain is put to sleep. To do this, the catheter is withdrawn part of the way and threaded into the internal carotid artery on the other side. A new angiogram is done for that side of the brain. Different objects and pictures are shown, and the awake side (which was asleep before) tries to recognize and remember what it sees. Once both sides are awake again, you will be asked what was shown the second time. Then you are shown items one at a time and asked whether you just saw each item.
How long does the test take?The Wada test can vary between medical centers. In some centers, the delay between the injections is 30 to 60 minutes. Other centers test one side on one day, and test the other side the following day. Between five and twelve items are shown to each side of the brain. You may come in and leave the same day, or you may be asked to come in the day before or stay a day after.
Is the Wada safe?A Wada test is generally a safe procedure with very few risks. There is a small risk of some complications. These complications can be as minor as pain where the catheter is inserted or as serious as a potential stroke. Since the Wada involves entering arteries, there is a chance that fat inside an artery may come loose and cause a blockage in the brain, leading to a stroke. This risk of stroke is less than 1% overall. It is greater, but still relatively low, if you are older or if you have atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) or a history of high cholesterol.