BACKGROUND While it is clearly admitted that normal behavioural development is determined by the interplay of genetic and environmental influences, this is much less the case for psychiatric disorders for which more emphasis has been given in the past decades on biological determinism. Thus, previous studies have shown that Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) were not affected by parental style. ...

This paper describes a novel approach to the simulation of language disorders, based upon the notion of a multi-network architecture—a set of autonomous neural networks which have been linked in some manner to perform a complex function that cannot readily be performed by any one network alone. The merits of this approach have been assessed by mapping a neuropsychological model of single-word l...

The 'rapid temporal processing' and the 'temporal sampling framework' hypotheses have been proposed to account for the deficits in language and literacy development seen in specific language impairment and dyslexia. This paper reviews these hypotheses and concludes that the proposed causal chains between the presumed auditory processing deficits and the observed behavioural manifestation of the...

A major task across infancy is the creation and tuning of the acoustic maps that allow efficient native language processing. This process crucially depends on ongoing neural plasticity and keen sensitivity to environmental cues. Development of sensory mapping has been widely studied in animal models, demonstrating that cortical representations of the sensory environment are continuously modifie...

Mastery of language can be a struggle for some children. Amongst those that succeed in achieving this feat there is variability in proficiency. Cognitive scientists remain intrigued by this variation. A now substantial body of research suggests that language acquisition is underpinned by a child's capacity for statistical learning (SL). Moreover, a growing body of research has demonstrated that...

OBJECTIVE To aid health professionals, especially pediatricians, in the diagnosis and prevention of language and learning disorders. SOURCES OF DATA Review of the relevant literature published in the past 5 years (MEDLINE and textbooks). SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS Multiple variables, among them neurological diseases, may be related to the etiology of language and learning disorders. CONCLUSI...

Event-related brain potentials were examined in 6 to 8-year-old children with primary language disorder before and after a 5-week narrative-based language intervention. Participants listened to sentences ending with semantically congruous or incongruous words. By comparison with typical controls, the children with primary language disorder exhibited no pretreatment differences in their N400 res...

Post-stroke language disorders are frequent and include aphasia, alexia, agraphia and acalculia. There are different definitions of aphasias, but the most widely accepted neurologic and/or neuropsychological definition is that aphasia is a loss or impairment of verbal communication, which occurs as a consequence of brain dysfunction. It manifests as impairment of almost all verbal abilities, e....

background symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (asd) are commonly observed in children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd). these symptoms might underlie social and functional impairment in such children. the existing classification systems do not allow for diagnosing both conditions in children. objectives this study aimed to assess the presence of asd in a hospita...