Spoken language development in the pediatric brain and its plastic reorganization induced by deafness

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Objectives : To investigate the cortical processing of the visual component of language and the effect of deafness upon this activity. Subjects and methods : Six prelingually deafened children participated in this study. The subjects were numbered 1 to 6 in the order of their spoken communication skills. In the time period between an intravenous injection of 370 MBq 18F-FDG and PET scanning of the brain, each subject was instructed to watch a video of the face of a speaking person. The cortical radioactivity of each deaf child was compared with that of a group of normal-hearing adults using at test in a basic SPM2 model. Results : The widest bilaterally activated cortical area was detected in subject 1, who was the worst user of spoken language. By contrast, there was no significant difference between subject 6, who was the best user of spoken language with a hearing aid, and the normal hearing group. Conclusions : The use of fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) with a visual language task provided objective information on the development and plasticity of cortical language networks. This approach could help individuals involved in the habilitation and education of prelingually deafened children to decide upon the appropriate mode of communication.