Electrical brain responses in language-impaired children reveal grammar-specific deficits.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Scientific and public fascination with human language have included intensive scrutiny of language disorders as a new window onto the biological foundations of language and its evolutionary origins. Specific language impairment (SLI), which affects over 7% of children, is one such disorder. SLI has received robust scientific attention, in part because of its recent linkage to a specific gene and loci on chromosomes and in part because of the prevailing question regarding the scope of its language impairment: Does the disorder impact the general ability to segment and process language or a specific ability to compute grammar? Here we provide novel electrophysiological data showing a domain-specific deficit within the grammar of language that has been hitherto undetectable

SUBMITTER: Fonteneau E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2268250 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature