NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

我们在这项研究中的目标是确定成熟的作用， 语言能力在个体发育中的作用 大脑系统介导正常人的初级语言习得 发展 我们的方法是评估大脑组织的变化 发生的年龄变化，并与 当年龄保持不变时，与特定语言能力有关的变化。 因此，我们将对比婴儿和新生儿的大脑功能特化， 孩子们在中间，在上端和下端， 语言理解和产出的正态分布。 我们将 记录来自多个大脑的事件相关脑电位（ERP） 在一系列的研究中， 旨在评估感官，语言和非语言的不同方面 认知加工 这一系列实验的具体目的 包括以下步骤： 1.为了确定（a）成熟模式的发展时间过程， 语言处理的大脑特化及其与 （B）ERP的局限性， 早期词汇发展中的词汇理解指数，（c） 语义相关信息的跨模态整合， 词汇发展，（d）当发展中的词汇显示语义 组织（即启动）以及该组织是否由 语言能力水平或实际年龄。 为了评估假设，（a）不同的神经系统介导语义 （B）从幼年开始， 与语义相关的大脑组织模式 加工过程在较早的年龄就很明显， 语法处理，（c）不同的神经系统，调解语言和 非语言认知处理在所有年龄和发展水平， (d)右半球对面孔的功能特化 承认是在左的发展之前，并取决于左的发展。 语言半球特化。(e)感觉分化 系统发生沿着不同的（更早）的时间过程比 语言系统的专业化。

Our goals in this research are to determine the role of maturational constraints and the effects of language competence in the ontogeny of the brain systems that mediate primary language acquisition in normal development. Our approach will be to assess changes in brain organization that occur as a function of chronological age and to contrast these with changes linked to specific language abilities when age is held constant. Thus, we will contrast functional cerebral specializations in infants and children who are in the middle, and at the upper and lower ends of the normal distribution for language comprehension and production. We will record event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from over several brain regions within and between the cerebral hemispheres in a series of studies designed to assess different aspects of sensory, language and non-language cognitive processing. The specific aims of the series of experiments include: 1. To determine (a) the developmental time course of mature patterns of cerebral specializations for language processing and their relation to the attainment of specific language milestones, (b) the limits of ERPs as an index of word comprehension in early lexical development, (c) the nature of cross-modal integration of semantically related information as the lexicon develops, (d) when the developing lexicon displays a semantic organization (i.e. priming) and whether this organization is predicted by levels of language abilities or chronological age. To assess the hypotheses that (a) different neural systems mediate semantic and syntactic processing of language from an early age, (b) the mature pattern of cerebral organization associated with aspects of semantic processing is evident at an earlier age than is that characteristic of grammatical processing, (c) different neural systems, mediate language and non-language cognitive processing at all ages and, levels of development, (d) the functional specializations of the right hemisphere for face recognition are preceded by and depend upon the development of left hemisphere specialization for language. (e) the differentiation of sensory systems occurs along a different (earlier) time course than the specialization of language systems.