Plasticity and development

Commentary on essays in a special issue of Brain and Language titled "Plasticity and Development: Language in Atypical Children" raises issues from the perspective of adult language disorders in light of two surprising findings of the studies under review: (1) children with specific language impairment seem to fare very poorly over time in comparison with children with focal lesions, who tend to function in the lower regions of normal language development; & (2) effects of laterality on language development in the latter population are consistently negligible. It is suggested that specific language impairment may actually arise from subtle, widespread brain damage that produces a condition resembling mild Broca's aphasia & that such systemic damage is more devastating to language development than circumscribed damage. 2 References. J. Hitchcock