Sex/Gender Differences in the Language Profiles of Italian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Retrospective Study.

Sex/gender (S/G) differences in ASD language profiles have been poorly investigated. The present study aims to explore whether male (M) and female (F) children with ASD and with normal non-verbal cognitive abilities differ in their linguistic profiles. A sample of 76 Italian children with ASD (range: 4.

Specific Learning Disabilities and Emotional-Behavioral Difficulties: Phenotypes and Role of the Cognitive Profile.

Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) are often associated with emotional-behavioral problems. Many studies highlighted a greater psychopathological risk in SLD, describing both internalizing and externalizing problems. The aims of this study were to investigate the emotional-behavioral phenotype through the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and evaluate the mediating role of background and cognitive characteristics on the relationship between CBCL profile and learning impairment in children and adolescents with SLD.

Relationship among Connectivity of the Frontal Aslant Tract, Executive Functions, and Speech and Language Impairment in Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a subtype of motor speech disorder usually co-occurring with language impairment. A supramodal processing difficulty, involving executive functions (EFs), might contribute to the cognitive endophenotypes and behavioral manifestations. The present study aimed to profile the EFs in CAS, investigating the relationship between EFs, speech and language severity, and the connectivity of the frontal aslant tract (FAT), a white matter tract involved in both speech and EFs.

Differences and Commonalities in Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech and Comorbid Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Multidimensional Perspective.

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder often co-occurring with language impairment and complex neurodevelopmental disorders. A cohort of 106 children with CAS associated to other neurodevelopmental disorders underwent a multidimensional investigation of speech and language profiles, chromosome microarray analysis and structural brain magnetic resonance (MR). Our aim was to compare the clinical profiles of children with CAS co-occurring with only language impairment with those who, in addition to language impairment, had other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Implicit learning in children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Background: Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a severe and persistent clinical subtype of Speech Sound Disorder. Given the difficulties in the acquisition, programming and control of the movements underlying speech and the slowdown in a wide range of non-linguistic skills, the difficulty in implicit learning of sequential information could play a role in the disorder, contributing to understand its etiopathological mechanisms and behavioral manifestations.

Aims: The present study was aimed at investigating implicit learning in children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Sex differences in early language delay and in developmental language disorder.

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental condition, occurring in about 3% to 7% of preschoolers, that can impair communication and negatively impact educational and social attainments, in spite of adequate neurological, cognitive, emotional, social development, and educational opportunities for language learning. Significant risk factors for DLD are male sex, familial history of early language delay, low parental education, and various perinatal factors. A strong sex effect with a higher prevalence of language delay and DLD in males than in females has been consistently reported.

Adaptive Working Memory Training Can Improve Executive Functioning and Visuo-Spatial Skills in Children With Pre-term Spastic Diplegia.

Pre-term spastic diplegia (pSD) due to periventricular leukomalacia is a form of cerebral palsy in which weaknesses in executive functions are reported beyond the core visuo-spatial deficits. The study aimed at improving executive functioning and visuo-spatial skills with an evidence-based training focused on working memory in children with pSD. The intervention study followed a stepped wedge design.

Sleep disturbances in specific learning disorders: a qualitative and quantitative investigation.

Background: The literature reports a significant association between sleep disorders and learning disabilities. Nevertheless, not all children with learning disorders have sleep alterations, and which sleep characteristics are associated with which learning difficulty is still unknown. The study aimed at acquiring new information on the relation between sleep disturbances or habits and the learning profiles of children with a specific learning disorder (SLD).

Morphosyntactic weaknesses in Developmental Language Disorder: the role of structure and agreement configurations.

Agreement is a morphosyntactic dependency which is sensitive to the hierarchical structure of the clause and is constrained by the structural distance that separates the elements involved in this relation. In this paper we present two experiments, providing new evidence that Italian-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), as well as Typically Developing (TD) children, are sensitive to the same hierarchical and locality factors that characterise agreement in adult grammars. This sensitivity holds even though DLD children show accrued difficulties in more complex agreement configurations.

Training RAN or reading? A telerehabilitation study on developmental dyslexia.

Rehabilitation procedures recommended for developmental dyslexia (DD) are still not fully defined, and only few studies directly compare different types of training. This study compared a training (Reading Trainer) working on the reading impairment with one (Run the RAN) working on the rapid automatized naming (RAN) impairment, one of the main cognitive deficits associated with DD. Two groups of DD children (N = 45) equivalent for age, sex, full IQ, and reading speed were trained either by Reading Trainer (n = 21) or by Run the RAN (n = 24); both trainings required an intensive home exercise, lasting 3 months.

Hemispheric language organization after congenital left brain lesions: A comparison between functional transcranial Doppler and functional MRI.

This study investigated whether functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound (fTCD) is a suitable tool for studying hemispheric lateralization of language in patients with pre-perinatal left hemisphere (LH) lesions and right hemiparesis. Eighteen left-hemisphere-damaged children and young adults and 18 healthy controls were assessed by fTCD and fMRI to evaluate hemispheric activation during two language tasks: a fTCD animation description task and a fMRI covert rhyme generation task. Lateralization indices (LIs), measured by the two methods, differed significantly between the two groups, for a clear LH dominance in healthy participants and a prevalent activation of right hemisphere in more than 80% of brain-damaged patients.

Spastic diplegia in preterm-born children: Executive function impairment and neuroanatomical correlates.

Background: The neuropsychological literature on preterm-born children with spastic diplegia due to periventricular leukomalacia is convergent in reporting deficits in non-verbal intelligence and in visuo-spatial abilities. Nevertheless, other cognitive functions have found to be impaired, but data are scant and not correlated with neuroimaging findings.

Aims: This study analyzes the neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses in preterm-born children with spastic diplegia (pSD) and their relationships with neuroanatomical findings, investigated by a novel scale for MRI classification.

Spelling Impairments in Italian Dyslexic Children with and without a History of Early Language Delay. Are There Any Differences?

Language delay is considered a frequent antecedent of literacy problems and both may be linked to phonological impairment. However, while several studies have examined the relationship between language delay and reading impairment, relatively few have focused on spelling. In this study, spelling performance of 28 children with developmental dyslexia (DD), 14 children with a history of language delay (LD), and 14 children without (NoLD) and 28 control participants were examined.

Telerehabilitation in developmental dyslexia: methods of implementation and expected results.

Background: Developmental Dyslexia is a disorder, highly frequent in the school population, for which the recommended rehabilitation procedures are not well defined. This study aimed to automatize reading decoding skills by using an innovative system for rehabilitation, based on a telerehabilitation method. It requires an intensive home-exercise with the supervision, by web, of the clinician.

Behavioral and neurobiological correlates of childhood apraxia of speech in Italian children.

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a neurogenic Speech Sound Disorder whose etiology and neurobiological correlates are still unclear. In the present study, 32 Italian children with idiopathic CAS underwent a comprehensive speech and language, genetic and neuroradiological investigation aimed to gather information on the possible behavioral and neurobiological markers of the disorder. The results revealed four main aggregations of behavioral symptoms that indicate a multi-deficit disorder involving both motor-speech and language competence.

Reading impairment in Duchenne muscular dystrophy: A pilot study to investigate similarities and differences with developmental dyslexia.

Below-average reading performances have been reported in individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), but literacy problems in these subjects have yet to be characterized. In this study, the presence and characteristics of literacy deficits in boys with DMD were investigated through a comparison with typically developing children and with children affected by developmental dyslexia, with the aim of clarifying whether DMD and developmental dyslexia have overlapping profiles of literacy deficits and whether these deficits are associated, as in children with dyslexia, with impairments in phonological processing and rapid lexical access. The results confirmed the high incidence of literacy problems in boys with DMD and revealed a profile less severe than, but qualitatively similar to, that of Italian children with developmental dyslexia.

The contribution of discrete-trial naming and visual recognition to rapid automatized naming deficits of dyslexic children with and without a history of language delay.

Children with Developmental Dyslexia (DD) are impaired in Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) tasks, where subjects are asked to name arrays of high frequency items as quickly as possible. However the reasons why RAN speed discriminates DD from typical readers are not yet fully understood. Our study was aimed to identify some of the cognitive mechanisms underlying RAN-reading relationship by comparing one group of 32 children with DD with an age-matched control group of typical readers on a naming and a visual recognition task both using a discrete-trial methodology, in addition to a serial RAN task, all using the same stimuli (digits and colors).

Cerebral lateralization for language in deaf children with cochlear implantation.

Functional Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (fTCD) was used to investigate the effects of early acoustic deprivation and subsequent reafferentation on cerebral dominance for language in deaf children provided with Cochlear Implantation (CI). Twenty children with CI (13 in right ear and 7 in left ear) and 20 controls matched for age, sex and handedness were administered a fTCD animation description task. Left hemisphere dominance for language with comparable mean Laterality Indexes (LIs) was found in children with CI and controls; right-ear implanted subjects showed cerebral activation controlateral to implanted ear more frequently than left-ear implanted ones.

A longitudinal study of lexical and grammar development in deaf Italian children provided with early cochlear implantation.

Objective: A growing number of studies on deaf children with cochlear implant (CI) document a significant improvement in receptive and expressive language skills after implantation, even if they show language delay when compared with normal-hearing peers. Data on language acquisition in CI Italian children are still scarce and limited to only certain aspects of language. The purpose of this study is to prospectively describe the trajectories of language development in early CI Italian children, with particular attention to the transition from first words to combinatorial speech and to acquisition of complex grammar in a language with rich morphology, such as Italian.

Language regression associated with autistic regression and electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormalities: a prospective study.

We report a boy, referred at 25 months following a dramatic isolated language regression antedating autistic-like symptomatology. His sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) showed persistent focal epileptiform activity over the left parietal and vertex areas never associated with clinical seizures. He was started on adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) with a significant improvement in language, behavior, and in EEG discharges in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Evaluating benefits of cochlear implantation in deaf children with additional disabilities.

Objectives: Cochlear-implanted deaf children having additional disabilities may develop speech perception and language skills at a slower pace than their implanted peers without such disorders. Nevertheless, it has been shown that, even for these special cases, cochlear implantation (CI) provides benefits for a larger range of neuropsychological functions including social and relational skills. These benefits are frequently mentioned by parents, but rarely objectively measured by tests.

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

Background: Clinical 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.

Objective: We 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.

Neurodevelopmental disorders in children with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss: a clinical study.

Aim: The effects of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) are often complicated by additional disabilities, but the epidemiology of associated disorders is not clearly defined. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and type of additional neurodevelopmental disabilities in a sample of children with SNHL and to investigate the relation between these additional disabilities and the aetiology of deafness.

Method: One hundred children with severe/profound SNHL (60 males, 40 females; mean age 5 y 7 mo, SD 3 y 6 mo, range 8 mo-16 y) were investigated using a diagnostic protocol including neurodevelopmental, genetic, neurometabolic, and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessment.