Neural Correlates of Processing Syntax in Music and ... - PubMan

Specific Language Impairment 81
poor segmental analysis (Baddeley, 2003; Baddeley, Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998;
Gathercole, Willis, Baddeley, & Emslie, 1994).
The neurophysiological investigation of phonological working memory often employs
MMN paradigms, investigating the ability to detect (non-attentively) occasionally occurring
‘deviant’ stimuli within a sequence of identical ‘standard’ sounds. These deviants
elicit a particular event-related potential (ERP) component, the mismatch negativity
(MMN), reflecting an automatic comparison process within auditory sensory memory.
Weber, Hahne, Friedrich, and Friederici (2005) compared the MMN responses to stimuli
of bisyllabics that either had a very frequent word stress pattern (i.e. the trochee) or a
less frequent one (i.e. the iambus). 5-month old infants that later had a very low word
production (at 12 and 24 months), displayed a normal response when the more frequent
(trochaic) pseudoword but a reduced response amplitude when the less frequent (iambic)
pseudoword was the deviant item. That is, an impaired processing of word stress
may be utilized as an early marker of risk for SLI. Uwer, Albrecht, and von Suchodoletz
(2002) presented 5 to 10 year old children with tones, that differed in frequency (1000
vs. 1200 Hz) or duration (175 vs. 100 ms), and syllables (/ba/, /da/, and /ga/). Children
with SLI had attenuated MMN amplitudes to speech stimuli, whereas the MMN response
to tone stimuli did not differ between the children with SLI and TLD.
Working memory problems may also contribute to difficulties in language processing
(especially at high processing speed). A possible interpretation for SLI children’s deficiencies
with complex syntax relies on the burden imposed on working memory by
grammatical processing (Maillart & Schelstraete, 2002). Sentence understanding involves
processing of grammatical cues. These have to be maintained in working memory.
If children with SLI are restricted in their processing capacity they will base their
sentence understanding on less demanding information. For the acquisition of grammar
in children with TLD, working memory load was also a critical factor (Valian, Hoeffner,
& Aubry, 1996).
SLI children’s weaknesses in grammar were assumed to represent a lack of knowledge
of a rule, principle or constraint, that is, insufficient mechanisms for processing grammar
(see, e.g., Clahsen et al., 1997; Gopnik, 1997; van der Lely, 2005; van der Lely &
Harris, 1990). Especially nativists (see the chapter “Language perception”) postulate
such an impairment of innate grammatical mechanisms. These deficits may lead to an
inefficient analysis of the language, causing the deficiencies of morphosyntax observed
in children with SLI. Children with SLI may also misanalyse function words or other
grammatical elements (such as bound morphemes) as lexical items. It might lead to
difficulties in acquiring flexion rules to mark tense, number and person since (Gopnik,
1999) which can manifest in problems with generalizing morphologyical rules and ap-