Developmental Psychology Commons^™

The Cerebellum's Relationship To Language Function Following Perinatal Stroke, Carolina Alexis Vias

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While recent studies have demonstrated the association between the cerebellum and higher-order cognitive functioning, it is still unclear how volumetric differences of specific regions of interests within the cerebellum across typical and atypical development are related to language function. We have done so by measuring the volume of cerebellar subregions of healthy controls, and compared the volume to behavioral measures of language function. We then followed with an analysis of the cerebellum’s relationship to language function following perinatal stroke, which provides us with a greater knowledge of the impact of a cortical injury on cerebellar development and the cognitive outcomes …

Development Of Prefrontal Structure And Connectivity In Typical Children And Children With Adhd: Association With Language And Executive Function, Dea Garic

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The structure and connectivity of the prefrontal cortex has been extensively studied for its contribution to language and executive function (EF) development, but many questions still remain whether its microstructural tissue properties can reliably predict behavioral outcomes in very young typically and atypically developing populations. In particular, the bilateral frontal aslant tract (FAT) has garnered increasing interest with respect to its potential association with both language and EF, but has yet to be examined in childhood attention disorders, such Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). At the same time, with advances in diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), new diffusion models offer more …

Motor-Language Cascades: How Fine Motor Relates To Language Outcomes Across Early Development, Sandy Gonzalez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current dissertation examined the role of motor skills on children’s language outcomes across early development. For study one a systematic review was conducted to examine differences in how gross and fine motor skills foster language development from 0-5 years of age. Results based on 22 articles indicated that while both gross and fine motor skills are related to language outcomes, too few studies have measured fine motor skills to conclusively determine differences in how gross and fine motor skills differentially relate to language outcomes.

The aim of study two was to investigate whether gross or fine motor skills were …

The Development Of Spatial Vocabulary, Rosalie Odean

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown a link between the spatial words children use and their performance on spatial reasoning tasks. There is a dearth of measures of spatial language, especially those that focus on a specific type of word. This dissertation introduces three studies, using two measures of dimensional adjective comprehension, one in English and one in Spanish. Study one found that bilingual children’s knowledge of dimensional adjectives in one language is not predictive of their performance on dimensional adjectives in the other language, but that general vocabulary within a language predicts performance in that language. This study also showed that …

Evaluating The Role Of Social Approach Behaviors In Children With Autism, Jessica M. Weber

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children diagnosed with autism show marked impairments in social and communicative behaviors. According to social motivation and social orienting models of autism, decreased social interest leads to less social input and fewer social learning opportunities (Chevallier et al., 2012; Mundy & Neal, 2001). These models suggest that the ability to initiate and participate in social interactions are important factors in language development. Research in this area has focused on the role of joint attention in language development however; the current study takes a broad view of social interest and posits that not only joint attention, but all socially mediated behaviors …

Fiber Pathways For Language In The Developing Brain: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging (Dti) Study, Iris J. Broce

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study characterized two fiber pathways important for language, the superior longitudinal fasciculus/arcuate fasciculus (SLF/AF) and the frontal aslant tract (FAT), and related these tracts to speech, language, and literacy skill in children five to eight years old. We used Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to characterize the fiber pathways and administered several language assessments. The FAT was identified for the first time in children. Results showed no age-related change in integrity of the FAT, but did show age-related change in the left (but not right) SLF/AF. Moreover, only the integrity of the right FAT was related to phonology but …