Developmental Language Disorder and Uninhibited Primitive Reflexes in Young Children.

Purpose Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a developmental disorder where children fail to acquire language in the absence of a clear cause. Many studies have reported general motor deficits in children with DLD, but no studies have uncovered a cure. The purpose of our study is to better understand the underlying motor deficits in DLD, starting from uninhibited primary reflexes-which are the most basic stage of motor development. Knowledge of this motor-language relationship should lead to earlier and more targeted interventions in young children with DLD. Method Children with DLD (n = 75, age range: 4-10 years) and 99 age-matched typically developing (TD) children completed a nonword repetition test to assess DLD and six other tests to assess primitive reflexes. Results Children with DLD demonstrated higher levels of persistent primitive reflexes compared to TD children. As the scores for neuromotor immaturity increased, nonword repetition test scores decreased (r = -.44, p < .01). Results indicated that TD children exhibited lower neuromotor immaturity (M = 7.63, SD = 3.75) compared to children with DLD (M = 13.51, SD = 4.47). All primitive reflexes (the Moro reflex, the symmetrical tonic neck reflex in flexion and in extension, the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex, the tonic labyrinthine reflex, and the Galant reflex) turned out to be statistically significantly different for the TD and DLD groups (p < .001). We also observed some differences between sexes. Conclusions Children with impaired language development underwent slower neuromotor development. However, further research is needed to determine whether motor intervention programs that inhibit primitive reflexes are helpful for children with DLD.

Temporal Information Processing and its Relation to Executive Functions in Elderly Individuals.

Normal aging triggers deterioration in cognitive functions. Evidence has shown that these age-related changes concern also executive functions (EF) as well as temporal information processing (TIP) in a millisecond range. A considerable amount of literature data has indicated that each of these two functions sets a frame for our mental activity and may be considered in terms of embodied cognition due to advanced age. The present study addresses the question whether in elderly subjects the efficiency of TIP is related to individual differences in EF. The study involved 53 normal healthy participants aged from 65 to 78. In these subjects TIP was assessed by sequencing abilities measured with temporal-order threshold (TOT). It is defined as the minimum time gap separating two auditory stimuli presented in rapid succession which is necessary for a subject to report correctly their temporal order, thus the relation 'before-after.' The EF were assessed with regard to the efficiency of the executive planning measured with the Tower of London-Drexel University (TOLDX) which has become a well-known EF task. Using Spearman's rank correlations we observed two main results. Firstly, the indices of the TOLDX indicated a coherent construct reflecting the effectiveness of executive planning in the elderly. Initiation time seemed dissociated from these coherent indices, which suggested a specific strategy of mental planning in the elderly based on on-line planning rather than on preplanning. Secondly, TOT was significantly correlated with the indices of TOLDX. Although some of these correlations were modified by subject's age, the correlation between TOT and the main index of TOLDX ('Total Move Score') was rather age resistant. These results suggest that normal aging may be characterized by an overlapping of deteriorated TIP and deteriorated EF.

[Selected endo- and exogenous factors and somatic development in children with deafness]. / Wybrane czynniki endo- i egzogenne a rozwój somatyczny dzieci i mlodziezy nieslyszacej.

INTRODUCTION: Three major trends in the literature devoted to somatic development of deaf children can be identified. Those various conclusions create a need for further research in the quest for identifying the factors of differentiation in somatic development of deaf children. That is why, the purpose of the presented study was to determine whether selected and classified endo- and exogenous factors (i.e. etiology and location of damage to hearing, educational environment) affect the somatic development of deaf children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A group of 56 pupils from special care schools in three centers for persons with impaired hearing at the age of 10-16 years was selected. All the subjects were intellectually healthy and no dysfunctions of motor organs were observed among them. Measurements of body height were taken by means of anthropometer. Body weight and fat percentage were measured with impedance analyzer, using the phenomenon of conduction of electricity of low intensity in body tissues. Somatic development profiles were created separately for the groups with different cause, type (location) of hearing loss and educational environment on the basis of the standardization. RESULTS: A varied course of somatic development profiles by type of hearing loss, etiology, and environmental education was found. However, the analysis of variance and Student´s t-test did not confirm that components of somatic profiles differ substantially from the selected endo- and exogenous factors. CONCLUSION: 1. In the study group reviewed a factor of educational environment was not dominant for the somatic development in deaf children. The hypothesis that the educational environment factor affects the somatic development was not proved. 2. There has been no significant relationship between the somatic development and deafness i.e. etiology and location of hearing damage.

The development of analogical reasoning in deaf children and their parents' communication mode.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the results of a study of the development of analogical reasoning in deaf children coming from two different linguistic environments (deaf children of deaf parents--sign language, deaf children of hearing parents--spoken language) and in hearing children, as well as to compare two groups of deaf children to a group of hearing children. In order to estimate the development of children's analogical reasoning, especially the development of their understanding of different logical relations, two age groups were singled out in each population of children: younger (9- and 10-year-olds) and older (12- and 13-year-olds). In this way it is possible to assess the influence of early and consistent sign-language communication on the development of the conceptual system in deaf children and to establish whether early and consistent sign-language communication with deaf children affects their mental development to the same extent as early and consistent spoken-language communication with hearing children. The children were given three series of analogy tasks based on different logical relations: (a) a series of verbal analogy tasks (the relations of opposite, part-whole, and causality); (b) a series of numerical analogy tasks (the relations of class membership, opposite, and part-whole); and (c) a series of figural-geometric analogy tasks (the relations of opposite and part-whole). It was found that early and consistent sign-language communication with deaf children plays an almost equivalent role in the development of verbal, numerical, and spatial reasoning by analogy as early and consistent spoken-language communication with hearing children.

Temporal processing deficits in high-functioning children with autism.

It is well known that complex functions (e.g. perception, attention, memory, emotions, social interactions and language) are usually disturbed in autism. As these functions are characterized by specific temporal patterns, the present study examined whether children with autism show typical temporal processing in the time domain of a few seconds. Using a temporal-reproduction paradigm, we found that they were unable to link their responses to stimulus duration. Independently of stimulus duration, they reproduced auditory or visual stimuli with the same response duration of, on average, 3 s. These results demonstrate important deficits in duration judgment in individuals with autism. As other experiments provide evidence for a temporal processing platform of approximately 2-3 s in normal individuals, this platform may be preserved in a residual form in autism.