This document summarizes research on the relationship between language and the brain. It discusses that language is localized primarily to the left hemisphere of the brain, with Broca's area controlling speech production and Wernicke's area involved in comprehension. Different types of aphasia can occur depending on where lesions are located. Imaging technologies like MRI and PET scans have helped researchers further understand language representation and lateralization in the brain.

1. Brain and Language
Reported by: Alice Carrillo,RMT , LPT

2. Topics
The Human Brain
The Autonomy of
Language
Language and Brain
Development
Review
Exercises

3. The Human
Brain

4. The Human Brain
Cortex
Cerebral
Hemispheres
Corpus Callosum
-”gray matter” and is responsible for
decision making
-one on the right and one on the left
and is joined together by
-allows the communication of the two
hemispheres

5. If you point with your
right hand,
the left hemisphere
is responsible
to your action.

6. Where is Language located in the brain ???
Where is Language located in brain ???
Where is Language located in the brain ???

7. • Proposed the theory of Localization
• Language is located in the frontal
lobes of the brain
• “organology”later known as
phrenology
Practice of determining:
Personality traits and intellectual capacities
by examining the “bumps” on the skull
Franz Joseph Gall

8. Johann Spurzheim
• Introduced phrenology to AmericaLocated directly under the eye

9. Aphasia

10. Paul Broca
• Proposed that language is localized to the
left hemisphere of the brain (Broca’s area)
• Claimed that we speak with the left
hemisphere
• Based on a study of his patient who suffered
deficits after brain injury to the left frontal lobe
Broca’s Aphasia

11. Carl Wernicke
Another type of Aphasia that occurred in patients with
lesions in the areas of the left hemisphere temporal
lobe (Wernicke’s Area)
Wernicke’s Aphasia

12. • Loss of fluency and articulation
• Inability to repeat complex sentences
• Impaired comprehension of complex sentences
•Effortless, melodic speech
•Unintelligible content due to
word and phoneme choice
errors (phonemic paraphasias)
•Loss of repetition
Broca’s Aphasia
Wernicke’s Aphasia

13.  Most notable characteristic of Broca’s Aphasia is that it is agrammatic which
means that it lacks articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and
typically remove inflections such as the past tense suffix – ed or the third
person singular verb ending –s.
Example:
DOCTOR: Could you tell me what you have been doing in the hospital?
PATIENT:Yes, sure. Me go, er, uh, P.T. none o’cot, speech…two
times…read….r…ripe…rike…uh write…practice….get…ting….better
DOCTOR: And have you been going home on weekends?
PATIENT: Why, yes….Thursday uh….uh..no…Friday…Bar…ba…ra…wife…and
oh car…drive…purpike…you know…rest…and TV.

15.  Wernicke’s Aphasia produce speech with good intonation and syntax, but their
language is often semantically incoherent.
Example: A patient replied to a question about his health with:
PATIENT: I felt worse because I can no longer keep in mind from the minds of the
minds to keep me from my mind and up to the ear which can be to find among
ourselves.
 Wernicke’s area have difficulty naming objects presented to them.
Example: A patient described a fork as a “needle for a schedule”
 Severe Wernicke’s aphasia is called Jargon Aphasia

17. People with Wernicke’s Aphasia
1.There is under a horse a new sidesaddle.
2. In girls we see many happy days.
3. I’ll challenge a new bike.
4. I surprise no new glamour.

18. Deaf Aphasics - Deaf patients with lesions in
Broca’s area show language
deficit like those of hearing
patients such as:
Severely dysfluent
Agrammatic sign production
- Deaf patients with lesions in
Wernicke’s area have fluent but often
semantically incoherent sign
language filled with made-up signs.

19. I want a
table to sit
on.
Jargon Aphasia

20. Other Language Disorders:
Developmental Dyslexics Acquired Dyslexics

21. The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT) means that
you rarely find the word you wanted to say. Many
aphasics suffer from severe anomia. Anomia is the
inability to find the word you wish to speak.

22. SLISpecific Language Impairment
Children with SLI have problems with the use of function words such as
articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs.
Examples: “Meowmeow chase mice.”
“Show me knife.”
“It not long one.”

23. Linguistically handicapped savants
-15-20 languages, and can
translate them quickly with few
errors in English
Christopher

24. Laura
She can produce complex sentences with multiple
phrases and sentences with other sentences inside
them, but she cant read nor write.
Laura: “ He was saying that lost my
battery-powered watch that I loved,
and She does painting, this really
good friend of the kids who I went
to school with and really loved, and
I was like 15 or 19 when I started
moving out of home….”

25. CT scans and Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI)
-Can reveal lesions shortly after the
damage occurs
Positron Emission Topography (PET) Scan and
functional MRI (fMRI) scans provide images of the
brain in action.
Noninvasive brain
recording technologies
are use to locate brain lesions or to
identify the language regions of the
brain.

26. Magnetic Encephalography (MEG)
Measures magnetic fields
in the living brain and
show us how the healthy
brain reacts particular
linguistic stimuli.
*The results of these studies reaffirm that language resides in specific
areas of the left hemisphere

27. Brain Plasticity and Lateralization in Early Life
Left Hemisphere
( right side)
Right Hemisphere
left side
A one week old
gugugu
babbling

28. is a very rare neurosurgical procedure in which one cerebral
hemisphere (half of the brain) is removed, disconnected, or disabled.
Hemispherectomy
Children who undergo left
hemispherectomy show
specific linguistic deficits,
while other cognitive
abilities remain intact.

29. having the corpus
callosum severed or
absent eliminates
the main connection
between the two
hemispheres of the
brain
Split-Brain

30. Dichotic listening
Is an experimental
method that uses auditory
signals to observe the
behavior of the individual
hemispheres of the brain.

31. The Critical
Period

32. Critical-age hypothesis
States that there is a
window of opportunity
between birth and
middle childhood for
learning a first
language.

33. Such behavior is not the result of conscious
decision, external teaching, or intensive
practice, but appears to be a mature
determined schedule that is universal across
the species.

34. EXERCISES

35. The following sentences spoken by aphasic patients were collected and analyzed
by Dr. Harry Whitaker. In each case, state how the sentences deviates from normal
non-aphasic language.
1. Mike and Peter is happy.
2. Bill and John likes hot dogs.
3. Is there three chairs in this room?
4. In girls we see many happy days.
5. Proliferate is a complete time about a word
that is correct.

36. The following utterances were made either by Broca’s Aphasics or Wernicke’s
Aphasics. Indicate which is which by telling “B” or “W”.
1. Goodnight and in the pansy I can’t say but into a flipdoor
you can see it.
2. Well…sunset…uh….horses nine, no, uh, two, tails want
swish.
3. Oh,… if I could I would, and a sick old man disflined a
sinter, minter.
4. Words….words….words…two, four, sic, eight,…blaze am
he.