Language Development and Disorders

Neural adolescent pragmatic development mirrors pragmatic differences in adulthood: an fMRI-study

This study uses fMRI to compare pragmatic brain development in adolescents and adults, finding age-related changes in specific brain regions linked to pragmatic skill.

Diffusion Neuroimaging of Speech Acquisition in Infants

This study uses diffusion MRI to show that speech acquisition in infants involves coordinated white-matter maturation across multiple systems, not just language pathways.

Cascading periods of language-related brain plasticity across early childhood

The paper uses neuroimaging data to study how plasticity in language-related brain regions changes across early childhood, finding distinct patterns of development in different brain areas.

Cortical tracking of natural speech by children with developmental language disorder (DLD): An EEG speech decoding investigation

This study investigates low-frequency cortical speech tracking in children with and without DLD using EEG, finding reduced delta-band tracking in right temporal regions in DLD children.

Language network functional connectivity in infancy predicts developmental language trajectories

The paper uses resting-state fMRI data to show that early language network functional connectivity predicts later language development trajectories in infants.

ALPARC: Artificial Languages with Phonological and Acoustic Rhythmicity Controls

ALPARC generates artificial languages with controlled phonological and acoustic rhythmicity to improve statistical learning studies by reducing confounds.

Grammar acquisition in preschool children is related to white matter maturation of the dorsal language network

The paper examines the relationship between white matter maturation in the dorsal language network and morpho-syntactic abilities in preschool children, finding that 4- to 5-year-olds show associations with both dorsal pathways, unlike 3-year-olds.

Compensatory Mechanisms in Visual Sequence Learning: An fMRI Study of Children with Developmental Language Disorder

This study uses fMRI and behavioral tasks to compare statistical learning in children with developmental language disorder and typically developing peers, finding differences in brain regions involved post-training.

Bilingual Exposure and Sex Shape Developmental Trajectories of Brain Responses to Speech-Sound Features in Infants

This study examines how bilingual exposure and sex influence neural speech encoding development in infants, finding distinct patterns in pitch and formant encoding over the first year.

Verbal Episodic Processing in Newborns

This study shows that newborns use speaker identity to form distinct verbal memories, as evidenced by neural responses to familiar words despite acoustic interference.

Statistical learning beyond words in human neonates

The paper investigates whether neonates can detect statistical regularities in speech, showing they process both phonetic and voice dimensions and respond specifically to phonetic regularities.

Infant low-frequency EEG cortical power, cortical tracking and phase-amplitude coupling predicts language a year later.

The paper replicates previous findings on infant cortical tracking of speech and shows that specific EEG features predict language outcomes at age 1.

Functional brain adaptations during speech processing in 4-month-old bilingual infants

This study examines how bilingualism affects neural processing of speech in 4-month-old infants, finding distinct brain activity patterns in bilingual infants compared to monolingual infants.

Neural processing of rhythmic speech by children with developmental language disorder (DLD): An EEG study

This study uses EEG to compare neural processing of rhythmic speech in children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD), finding differences in phase entrainment, power, and coupling across frequency bands.

Microstructural Properties of the Cerebellar Peduncles in Children with Developmental Language Disorder

This study examines microstructural properties of cerebellar peduncles in children with developmental language disorder using diffusion-weighted imaging and finds reduced fractional anisotropy in the inferior cerebellar peduncles.

Genome-wide analyses of vocabulary size in infancy and toddlerhood: associations with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and cognition-related traits

This study identifies genetic links between early vocabulary development and ADHD and cognition traits using genome-wide analyses.

Prenatal experience with language shapes the brain

This study shows that newborns' brain activity shows increased long-range temporal correlations after speech stimulation, particularly for the language they heard prenatally.

Differences in cortical surface area in developmental language disorder

This study compares cortical surface area and thickness between children with developmental language disorder and controls, finding reduced surface area in specific brain regions but no differences in thickness or asymmetry.

Language exposure and brain myelination in early development

This study examines how early language exposure and socioeconomic status affect brain myelination in infants at 6 and 30 months of age using MRI.

Children's syntax is supported by the maturation of BA44 at 4 years, but of the posterior STS at 3 years of age

The paper shows that 3-year-olds' syntax is linked to the posterior STS, while 4-year-olds' syntax is linked to BA44 maturation.

Quantitative MRI reveals differences in striatal myelin in children with DLD

The paper uses quantitative MRI to find reduced myelin in specific brain regions of children with DLD compared to typically developing children.

Tracking transitional probabilities and segmenting auditory sequences are dissociable processes in adults and neonates

This study shows that tracking transitional probabilities and segmenting auditory sequences are separate processes in adults and neonates, with prosodic cues aiding segmentation and learning increasing neural similarity across infants.

Development of infants' neural speech processing and its relation to later language skills: an MEG study

This study uses MEG to track neural speech processing in infants and links it to later language development, finding that nonnative speech processing predicts vocabulary growth.

From computing transition probabilities to word recognition in sleeping neonates, a two-step neural tale

The paper investigates how neonates process and retain an artificial language, finding a two-step learning strategy involving neural entrainment and memory of syllable sequences.

Assessing the sensitivity of EEG-based frequency-tagging as a metric for statistical learning

This study evaluates the sensitivity of EEG-based frequency-tagging as a measure of statistical learning in individuals, finding low individual-level sensitivity compared to behavioral measures.

Speech-like sounds dominate the human infant landscape

The paper quantifies the frequency of human infant laughter and protophones in natural environments, finding laughter occurs less frequently than cries and protophones dominate vocalizations.

Association between genes regulating neural pathways for quantitative traits of speech and language disorders

This study identifies 18 significant genetic loci associated with speech sound disorders through GWAS and finds polygenic risk scores linked to clinical severity.

Gradual development of non-adjacent dependency learning during early childhood

This study shows that children's ability to learn non-adjacent dependencies in a foreign language gradually declines with age, as indicated by decreasing ERP effects.

White matter in infancy is prospectively associated with language outcome in kindergarten

This study shows that infant white matter organization predicts kindergarten language abilities, specifically phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge.

Neuroplasticity associated with changes in conversational turn-taking following a family-based intervention

This study examines how a family-based intervention affecting conversational turn-taking influences neuroplasticity and language development in young children.