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- Title
Neural Correlates of Morphosyntactic Processing in Spanish-English Bilingual Children: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study.
- Authors
Baron, Alisa; Wagley, Neelima; Xiaosu Hu; Kovelman, Ioulia
- Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of early bilingual exposure on Spanish-English bilingual children's neural organization of English morphosyntactic structures. This study examines how children's age and language experiences are related to morphosyntactic processing at the neural level. Method: Eighty-one children (ages 6-11 years) completed an auditory sentence judgment task during functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. The measure tapped into children's processing of early-acquired (present progressive -ing) and later-acquired (past tense -ed and third-person singular -s) English morphosyntactic structures, the primary language of academic instruction. Results: We observed effects of syntactic structure and age. Early-acquired morphemic structures elicited activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus, while the later-acquired structures elicited additional activations in the left middle temporal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus (STG). Younger children had a more distributed neural response, whereas older children had a more focal neural response. Finally, there was a trending association between children's English language use and left STG activation for later-acquired structures. Conclusion: The findings inform theories of language and brain development by highlighting the mechanisms by which age and language experiences influence bilingual children's neural architecture for morphosyntactic processing.
- Subjects
MICHIGAN; SEMANTICS; EVOKED potentials (Electrophysiology); NEURAL transmission; PHONOLOGICAL awareness; NEAR infrared spectroscopy; ENGLISH language; MULTILINGUALISM; COGNITIVE processing speed; LINGUISTICS; TASK performance; REGRESSION analysis; COMPARATIVE grammar; MAGNETIC resonance imaging; T-test (Statistics); SPANISH language; RESEARCH funding; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; QUESTIONNAIRES; DATA analysis software; NEURORADIOLOGY; CHILDREN
- Publication
Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 2023, Vol 66, Issue 9, p3500
- ISSN
1092-4388
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00598