Exceptional Language Development in Down Syndrome: Implications for the Cognition-Language Relationship [First ed.] 0521369665, 9780521369664

Table of contents :
Contents

Foreword by Neil O'Connor page ix Acknowledgments xii

1 Introduction 1

2 Language development in Down syndrome 3

2.1 Language-related deficiencies in Down syndrome 3

2.2 Language development in Down syndrome 6

2.3 Karyotype and behavioral variability 13

2.4 Cerebral specialization 14

3 Exceptional language development in mentally handicapped individuals 19

3.1 Exceptional written language development in Down syndrome 23

3.2 Hyperlinguistic mentally retarded adolescents with Williams syndrome 25

3.3 Hydrocephalic mentally retarded subjects with exceptional language capabilities 27

3.4 Hyperlinguistic mentally retarded subjects from other etiologies 28

3.5 Dissociative tendencies in the language of typical mentally retarded subjects 31

3.6 Conclusions 43

4 Cognition-language relationships and modularity issues 51

4.1 Piagetian and other “cognition drives grammar” hypotheses 52

4.2 Chomsky’s point of view 58

4.3 Language modularity and general modularity theory 63

5 A case study 70

5.1 The subject 70

5.2 General procedure 71

5.3 Conceptual rationale 72

5.4 Oral language assessment 73

5.5 Metalinguistic ability 16

Contents

Foreword by Neil O'Connor page ix Acknowledgments xii

1 Introduction 1

2 Language development in Down syndrome 3

2.1 Language-related deficiencies in Down syndrome 3

2.2 Language development in Down syndrome 6

2.3 Karyotype and behavioral variability 13

2.4 Cerebral specialization 14

3 Exceptional language development in mentally handicapped individuals 19

3.1 Exceptional written language development in Down syndrome 23

3.2 Hyperlinguistic mentally retarded adolescents with Williams syndrome 25

3.3 Hydrocephalic mentally retarded subjects with exceptional language capabilities 27

3.4 Hyperlinguistic mentally retarded subjects from other etiologies 28

3.5 Dissociative tendencies in the language of typical mentally retarded subjects 31

3.6 Conclusions 43

4 Cognition-language relationships and modularity issues 51

4.1 Piagetian and other “cognition drives grammar” hypotheses 52

4.2 Chomsky’s point of view 58

4.3 Language modularity and general modularity theory 63

5 A case study 70

5.1 The subject 70

5.2 General procedure 71

5.3 Conceptual rationale 72

5.4 Oral language assessment 73

5.5 Metalinguistic ability 16

Contents

5.6 Written language assessment 176

5.7 Cerebral hemispheric specialization 180

5.8 Relevant nonlinguistic data 187

6 Theoretical discussion 210

6.1 Exceptional and nonexceptional language development in mental handicap 210

6.2 Rejecting a simple teaching-learning explanation 212

6.3 Rejecting a global developmental cognitive explanation 219

6.4 Modularity and dissociations 220

6.5 Explaining exceptional language development in persons with mental retardation 228

7 General conclusions 267

Appendixes Appendix 1: Speech excerpts 269

Appendix 2: English translation of the speech turns used in the linguistic analysis 274

Appendix 3: List of active and passive sentences 277

Appendix 4: List of sentences with relative subordinates 280

Appendix 5: List of sentences with causative and temporal subordinates 283

Appendix 6: List of coreferential paragraphs 287

Appendix 7: Reading material 290

Appendix 8: Written text and dictation 293

Appendix 9: Visuographic testing 294

References 299

Index 341