Maria S. Kovyazina

Background. The phenomenon of multilingualism and its impact on child development are in the spotlight of latter-day psychology, and of utmost importance both for theory and practice. Language development is a strong predictor of psychological readiness for school and further academic success. At the same time, children's mastery of written and oral speech in school education in a multilingual environment has several distinctive features. This study was dedicated to examining the influence of executive functions on the development of the vocabulary aspects of speech (both active and passive vocabulary) of mono- and bilingual children growing up in a bilingual environment.

Objective. We aimed to analyze the relationship between bilingualism and language development (vocabulary and verbal fluency) and determine which executive functions may help overcome the resulting difficulties at preschool age.

Design. Both monolingual and bilingual children participated in the study (n = 137 and n = 81, respectively). The children’s ages ranged from 6 to 7 years (M = 78.7 months, SD = 5.87). Two independent General Linear Models (GLM) were built to define which executive functions influenced the vocabulary and verbal fluency of the mono- and bilingual subjects (controlling for age, gender, and non-verbal intelligence as well).

Results. The results confirmed that bilingualism is negatively related to language development, but showed that verbal working memory significantly helps bilinguals compensate for difficulties in developing vocabulary and verbal fluency.

Conclusion. The study demonstrated that the ability to preserve and reproduce verbal information was of more significance for children's vocabulary and verbal fluency than their language group (mono- or bilingual).

Background. Alexandria R. Luria’s classic neurorehabilitation methods (“restorative learning”) have now been successfully applied in clinical settings for more than seventy years. It is of interest how Luria’s methods relate to contemporary strategic approaches to effective rehabilitation. One such framework is the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)—a comprehensive WHO framework for measuring health and disability for diagnostic and rehabilitation purposes.

Objective. To compare Luria’s procedure of restorative learning in aphasia and the ICF. Such a comparison may facilitate the use of the ICF in the work of multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams for diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation of rehabilitation programs.

Design. A systematic comparison of ICF components with specific rehabilitation procedures developed by Luria aimed at speech understanding and production.

Results. Luria’s speech rehabilitation methods pertain to the ICF component “Body Functions and Structures”. Specific correspondences between Luria’s rehabilitation procedures and ICF categories are found, especially for afferent and efferent aphasias. For the aphasias related to speech understanding (sensory and semantic aphasia), such correspondences are rare. This reflects an insufficient differentiation in the understanding of higher cognitive functions in current neurorehabilitation. Luria’s concern for patients’ personality and social status is also explicated.

Conclusion. Although Luria’s “restorative learning” is realized within the ICF domain of “Body Functions and Structures”, his approach also focuses on the rehabilitation of the personal and social status of the patient. This approach is an important condition for clinical and psychological rehabilitation in the ICF domains of “Activities” and “Participation”.

Background. According to numerous studies, people’s development of executive function is a predictor of their successful acquisition of literacy skills. However, the data on the relationship between the development of verbal language and executive function in preschool aged children are insufficient and contradictory. 

Objective. The goal of our research was to study the connection between the three main EF components (working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) and various spoken language skills in children of senior preschool age. It is the first stage of a longitudinal study aimed at understanding the relationship between executive function and language development starting from ages 5–6, and proceeding through elementary school. 

Design. Our study sample included 279 children aged 5–6 years (M = 5.6 years) attending a senior group in Moscow kindergartens (139 boys and 140 girls). e study used NEPSY-II diagnostic complex subtests and the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) test to measure the level of executive functions (working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition). Language development (vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and word generation) was measured by neuropsychological methods (Akhutina, Pylaeva, 2015). 

Results. The results of the study showed significant associations between all EF components and language skills development in preschool children. Oral language skills were more closely related to the level of development of verbal working memory and cognitive flexibility than they were to inhibition or visual working memory. Children with low levels of EF development were significantly less able to cope with tasks such as understanding prepositional structures, understanding similar sounding words, and showing verbal fluency, than children with a high EF level. Furthermore, children with normal and high levels of EF development displayed no significant differences in language development. Thus, the study showed that children with a low level of EF have difficulties with language development. 

Conclusion. Our results provide important details about understanding the relationship between executive functioning and language development in children of senior preschool age. 

This article discusses the connection of hemispheric control over audioverbal perception processes and such individual features as “leading hand” (right-handedness and lefthandedness). We present a literature review and description of our research to provide evidence of the complexity and ambiguity of this connection. The method of dichotic listening was used for diagnosing audioverbal perception lateralization. This method allows estimation of the right-ear coefficient (REC), the efficiency coefficient (EC), and the effectiveness ratio (ER) of different aspects of audioverbal perception. Our research involved 47 persons with a leading right hand (mean age, 29.04±9.97 years) and 32 persons with a leading left hand (mean age, 29.41±10.34 years). Different hypotheses about the mechanisms of hemispheric control over audioverbal and motor processes were assessed. The research showed that both the leftand right-handers’ audioverbal perception characteristics depended mainly on right-hemisphere activity. The most dynamic and sensitive index of the functioning of the two hemispheres during dichotic listening was the efficiency coefficient of stimuli reproduction through the left ear (EC of the left ear). It turns out that this index depends on the coincidence/noncoincidence of the leading hemispheres in speech and motor processes. The highest efficiency of audioverbal perception revealed itself in the left-handers with a leading left ear (the hemispheric-control coincidence), and the lowest efficiency was in the left-handers with a leading right ear (the hemispheric-control divergence). The right-handers were characterized by less variation in values, although the influence of the coincidence/noncoincidence of the leading hemispheres in speech and motor processes also revealed itself as a tendency. This consistent pattern points out the necessity for further research on asymmetries of the different modalities that takes into account their probable interaction. The results of our study comport with scientific data showing genotypic left-handers with subzero right-ear coefficient (REC) values to be more efficient than left-handed persons who display high REC values.

Experimental data was obtained from a dichotic listening test by patients with unilateral brain lesions and corpus callosum pathology (agenesis, cysts, degenerative changes, etc). Efficiency index analysis shows that interhemispheric interaction in the audioverbal sphere depends to a greater extent on the right hemisphere state. The dichotic listening technique is not an informative means of studying hemispheric interaction, since it does not allow a clear distinction between hemispheric symptoms and symptoms of pathology of the corpus callosum. Thus, violations of hemispheric relations caused by disorders of the corpus callosum and cerebral hemispheres change worth more right hemisphere activity.

Split Brain Syndrome as it is described in neuropsychology includes impairments of perceptual and motor activity, more specifically the impairments in coordination of motor responses in bimanual tasks as well as in perception, speech and space impairments. There’s little evidence about the specification of memory processes impairments in the corpus callosum (cc) pathology. The conducted experiment demonstrated that cc performs the function of distribution of energy between the brain hemispheres and suppress the subdominant in the present activity, forcing the interhemispherical asymmetry, suppressing the identical process in the subdominant hemisphere. CC also significantly influences the process of selectivity in involuntary memory and learning.