Functional organization of the language network in three- and six-year-old children

Abstract

The organization of the language network undergoes continuous changes during development as children learn to understand sentences. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral measures were utilized to investigate functional activation and functional connectivity (FC) in three-year-old (3yo) and six-year-old (6yo) children during sentence comprehension. Transitive German sentences varying the word order (subject-initial and object-initial) with case marking were presented auditorily. We selected children who were capable of processing the subject-initial sentences above chance level accuracy from each age group to ensure that we were tapping real comprehension. Both age groups showed a main effect of word order in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG), with greater activation for object-initial compared to subject-initial sentences. However, age differences were observed in the FC between left pSTG and the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The 6yo group showed stronger FC between the left pSTG and Brodmann area (BA) 44 of the left IFG compared to the 3yo group. For the 3yo group, in turn, the FC between left pSTG and left BA 45 was stronger than with left BA 44. Our study demonstrates that while task-related activation was comparable, the small behavioral differences between age groups were reflected in the underlying functional organization revealing the ongoing development of the neural language network.

Young children’s sentence comprehension: Neural correlates of syntax-semantic competition

“…In a more recent study, using similar stimulus material, the performance of 3-year-olds was considered at the individual level. It was found that 11 out of 21 children performed above chance for object-first sentences whereas 10 performed at chance ( Vissiennon, Friederici, Brauer, & Wu, 2017 ). Although indicating high behavioral variability around this age, these data provide the first evidence that children, even from the age of 3 years, start to use case-marking as a possible cue to help sentence interpretation.…”

Age and Proficiency in the Bilingual Brain Revisited: Activation Patterns Across Different L2-Learner Types

“…This was not always the case in the left IFG however, in particular BA44. Increased activation in left BA45 but not BA44 is a pattern that is seen in the "developmental" stage of language learning in children or when processing is controlled rather than automatic (Jeon and Friederici, 2015;Vissiennon et al, 2017). We propose that the pattern of frontal activation we saw in our LAHP bilinguals was a function of degree of automaticity in L2.…”

“…Put another way: there is a reliance on BA44 in adult native language processing, which is considered to be highly automatic. In children however (and by extension L2 learners) language learning is still in "development" and there is greater reliance during this period on BA45, a more anterior part of the IFG (Hahne et al, 2004;Vissiennon et al, 2017).…”

“…A specific question that remains unanswered is which of the two is more crucial in determining the pattern of brain activation during L2 processing, and related to that is how each factor influences functional activation. Addressing such questions has a potential impact on larger theoretical questions such as those about neural plasticity and the effects of experience as well as degree of automaticity on the bilingual brain (Li et al, 2014;Nichols and Joanisse, 2016;Vissiennon et al, 2017).…”

Syntactic Analysis of Language Acquisition in Three-Year-Old Children Based on Cultural Background

“…When getting a language, the child is faced with a challenge to decode relationships between certain greeting entities, which require certain grammatical sayings and the thematic roles played by each entity. So that this can be done, the child must implement it linguistic cues and regularities provided by certain languages (Vissiennon, Friederic, Brauer, & Wu, 2016). Language mastery can be seen as a type of mastery of skills, just as in learning to ride a bicycle, play a musical instrument, or draw; and the need to gain knowledge about the abstract structure of language (Chater & Christianshen, 2018).…”