Chiara Pecini

Course of Autism Signs in the First Year of Life

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are thought to be present right from birth, even if a minority of children displays a normal course during infancy followed by a regression during the second year of life. However, established criteria are not yet available to differentiate these different courses of ASD, and data coming from different sources have not yet been organized into a clear definition. The aim of this study was to elucidate the time of onset, as well as type, frequency and stability of symptoms during the first year of life in ASD. The behavioral summarized evaluation scale, applied to 40 home movies of children later diagnosed as having ASD, showed that most of the subjects (87.5%) display symptoms within the first year of life, when only a small group (12.5%) is completely symptom free. A group of more rated symptoms was found, constituting a typical pattern characterized by being withdrawn, and displaying poor social initiative, hypoactivity, and lack of emotional modulation. The importance of these findings is discussed in relation to early diagnosis and treatment.

Rapid naming, not cancellation speed or articulation rate, predicts reading in an orthographically regular language (Italian)

This study examined the influence of rapid automatization naming (RAN) measures on various parameters of reading performance in children who were native speakers of a language with a shallow orthography (Italian). Participants included 281 children enrolled in first-to-sixth grade. They were given a Naming test, in which they had to name rapidly matrices of colors, objects, or digits, a Cancellation test, using the same stimulus materials, and an oral Articulation test. Performance on all tests improved steadily across ages tested. Performance on the Naming test, but not on the Cancellation and Articulation tests, predicted speed and accuracy in reading; none of these measures reliably predicted the reading comprehension measure. Data on a Blending test were also available for a subsample of first- and third-graders. Both RAN and phonological ability contributed independently to the prediction of reading ability (accuracy and speed) in these participants. The results extend observations on RAN to an orthographically shallow language (Italian) and suggest an element of continuity between languages with opaque and transparent orthographies.

Do phonologic and rapid automatized naming deficits differentially affect dyslexic children with and without a history of language delay? A study of Italian dyslexic children.

ObjectiveThe study aims to verify whether phonologic and rapid automatized naming (RAN) deficits are present and associated in Italian dyslexic children and whether they differentially affect dyslexics with and without a history of previous language delay (LD). BackgroundAccording to the phonologic core deficit hypothesis, dyslexia may stem from impairment of the representation and manipulation of phonemes and may be closely associated with oral language deficits. However, deficits in tasks not requiring fine-grained phonologic representations, such as RAN, have also been described in dyslexic children. MethodsThirty-seven children were selected on the basis of a reading deficit and were assigned to 2 groups according to whether or not they had a history of early LD as determined retrospectively by parental report. A battery of reading and writing, verbal working memory, metaphonologic, RAN, and visual search tests were administered. ResultsRAN deficits were shared by most dyslexics (with and without a history of LD), whereas phonologic deficits were mainly associated with a previous LD. This last condition did not result in a more profound impairment of reading and writing decoding skills. ConclusionIn a shallow orthography such as Italian, RAN, not phonologic deficits, may represent the main cognitive marker of developmental dyslexia.

A view to regressive autism through home movies. Is early development really normal

Objective:  To describe early development of children with regressive autism.

Language organisation in left perinatal stroke.

Right-hemispheric organisation of language has been observed following early left-sided brain lesions. The role of the site of damage is still controversial, as other aspects influence the pattern of speech organisation including timing of the lesion and the presence of epilepsy. We studied a group of 10 term-born children homogeneous for timing/type of lesion and clinical picture. All subjects had left perinatal arterial stroke, right hemiplegia, normal cognitive functions and no or easily controlled epileptic seizures. In half the patients, the lesion clearly involved Brocas area, in the other half it was remote from it. Language lateralization was explored by an fMRI covert rhyme generation task. Eight of 10 subjects showed a right lateralisation of language, including all five patients with a damaged left Broca and 3/5 of those without it. Group analysis in patients with right hemispheric organisation showed brain activations homotopic to those found in the left hemisphere of a matched control group. Our findings confirm that, at the end of gestation, the human brain exhibits extraordinary (re-)organisational capabilities. Language organisation in the right hemisphere is favoured by the presence of destructive lesions of the left Brocas area at birth, and occurs in brain regions homotopic to those usually involved in language processing.

Naming speed and visual search deficits in readers with disabilities: evidence from an orthographically regular language (Italian).

The study examined rapid automatized naming (RAN) in 42 children with reading disabilities and 101 control children—all native speakers of Italian, a language with shallow orthography. Third-, 5th- and 6th-grade children were given a RAN test that required rapid naming of color, object, or digit matrices. A visual search test using the same stimulus material (but not requiring a verbal response) and an oral articulation test were also given. Readers with disabilities performed worse than controls on the RAN test. This effect was larger in higher grades than in lower ones. Readers with disabilities were also slower than controls in performing the visual search test. The pattern of results for the RAN test held constant when the visual search performance was partialed out by covariance analysis, indicating the independence of the 2 deficits. The 2 groups did not differ for articulation rate. Finally, analysis of the pattern of intercorrelations indicated that reading speed was most clearly related to RAN, particularly in the group with reading disabilities. The results extend observations of RAN effects on reading deficits to Italian, an orthographically shallow language.

Non-Word Repetition in Children with Specific Language Impairment: A Deficit in Phonological Working Memory or in Long-Term Verbal Knowledge?

In this study we investigated the effects of long-term memory (LTM) verbal knowledge on short-term memory (STM) verbal recall in a sample of Italian children affected by different subtypes of specific language impairment (SLI). The aim of the study was to evaluate if phonological working memory (PWM) abilities of SLI children can be supported by LTM linguistic representations and if PWM performances can be differently affected in the various subtypes of SLI. We tested a sample of 54 children affected by Mixed Receptive-Expressive (RE), Expressive (Ex) and Phonological (Ph) SLI (DSM-IV - American Psychiatric Association, 1994) by means of a repetition task of words (W) and non-words (NW) differing in morphemic structure [morphological non-words (MNW), consisting of combinations of roots and affixes - and simple non-words - with no morphological constituency]. We evaluated the effects of lexical and morpho-lexical LTM representations on STM recall by comparing the repetition accuracy across the three types of stimuli. Results indicated that although SLI children, as a group, showed lower repetition scores than controls, their performance was affected similarly to controls by the type of stimulus and the experimental manipulation of the non-words (better repetition of W than MNW and NW, and of MNW than NW), confirming the recourse to LTM verbal representations to support STM recall. The influence of LTM verbal knowledge on STM recall in SLI improved with age and did not differ among the three types of SLI. However, the three types of SLI differed in the accuracy of their repetition performances (PMW abilities), with the Phonological group showing the best scores. The implications for SLI theory and practice are discussed.

Reading and Spelling Disabilities in Children with and Without a History of Early Language Delay: A Neuropsychological and Linguistic Study

Language delay is a frequent antecedent of literacy problems, and both may be linked to phonological impairment. Studies on developmental dyslexia have led to contradictory results due to the heterogeneity of the pathological samples. The present study investigated whether Italian children with dyslexia showed selective phonological processing deficits or more widespread linguistic impairment and whether these deficits were associated with previous language delay. We chose 46 children with specific reading deficits and divided them into two groups based on whether they had language delay (LD) or not (NoLD). LD and NoLD children showed similar, severe deficits in reading and spelling decoding, but only LD children showed a moderate impairment in reading comprehension. LD children were more impaired in phonological working memory and phonological fluency, as well as in semantic fluency, grammatical comprehension, and verbal IQ. These findings indicate the presence of a moderate but widespread linguistic deficit (not limited to phonological processing) in a subset of dyslexic children with previous language delay that does not generalize to all children with reading difficulties.

Hemispheric specialization for language in children with different types of specific language impairment

The aim of the study was to investigate whether children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show reduced left hemisphere specialization for language and, if so, whether it is associated with a deficit in phonological encoding and a specific type of SLI (Mixed Receptive-Expressive, Expressive, Phonological). We adopted two dichotic listening paradigms, which differed in the phonological similarity of the presented words (Fused and Non-Fused dichotic words tests), as well as a phonological working memory test. Participants included 34 pre-school and school age children affected by SLI. On the dichotic tests, as a group the children with SLI showed a reduced pattern of left hemisphere specialization for language compared to age-matched normal children, with significant differences only in the Fused condition. However, the pattern of hemispheric specialization varied depending on the type of SLI, with reduced left hemisphere specialization in the Expressive type and, to a lesser extent, in the Phonological type of SLI, but not in the Receptive-Expressive type. The three subgroups also differed in phonological processing abilities and the incidence of a positive family history for language disorders: the Receptive-Expressive group performed worse on the working memory and dichotic tests and the Expressive and Phonological groups presented high frequency for familial language disorder. These results suggest that different subtypes of SLI are not different manifestations of the same underlying disorder, but represent pathological conditions that have distinct markers both at the behavioral and neurofunctional level.

How many functional brains in developmental dyslexia? When the history of language delay makes the difference.

BackgroundClinical manifestations of developmental dyslexia (DD) are greatly variable, suggesting complex underlying mechanisms. It was recently advanced that the characteristics of DD in Italian, a language with shallow orthography, are influenced by a positive history for language delay. ObjectiveWe explored this hypothesis by studying in Italian individuals with DD (i) the brain representation of phonological processing with functional magnetic resonance imaging and (ii) the correlation between the patterns of activation and the presence/absence of previous language delay. MethodThirteen individuals with DD and 13 controls participated in the functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment consisting of a rhyme-generation task. ResultsIndividuals with DD showed a reduced activation of phonological processing areas of the left hemisphere, such as the middle frontal gyrus, the precuneus, and the inferior parietal lobule, and in particular the superior temporal gyrus. Furthermore, patients with a history of language delay had reduced activation in the left inferior and medial frontal gyrus, that was associated with worse reading and phonological accuracy than patients with normal language development. ConclusionsNeurofunctional profiles of Italian individuals with DD are correlated to the history of language delay, suggesting that the relatively better behavioral profiles observed in individuals without a history of language delay are associated with a major activation of frontal networks normally involved in phonological working memory.