The role of imageability in noun and verb acquisition in children with Down syndrome and their peers with typical development.

Our main objective was to analyze the role of imageability in relation to the age of acquisition (AoA) of nouns and verbs in Spanish-speaking children with Down syndrome (DS) and their peers with typical development (TD). The AoA of nouns and verbs was determined using the MacArthur-Bates CDIs adapted to the profile of children with DS. The AoA was analyzed using a linear mixed-effect model, including factors of imageability, group, and word class, and controlling for word frequency and word length.

Sentence-final completion norms for 2925 Mexican Spanish sentence contexts.

Sentence-final completion tasks serve as valuable tools in studying language processing and the associated predictive mechanisms. There are several established sentence-completion norms for languages like English, Portuguese, French, and Spanish, each tailored to the language it was designed for and evaluated in. Yet, cultural variations among native speakers of the same language complicate the claim of a universal application of these norms.

Word prediction using closely and moderately related verbs in Down syndrome.

People with Down syndrome (DS) have several difficulties in language learning, and one of the areas most affected is language production. Theoretical frameworks argue that prediction depends on the production system. Yet, people with DS can predict upcoming nouns using semantically related verbs.

Bottom-up processes dominate early word recognition in toddlers.

This study set out to investigate whether the 'phonological onset preference effect' often reported in adult studies using the visual world task (i.e., increased attention to an object that is phonologically-related to a spoken-target word, such as boat-bear) is also contingent upon toddler participants having sufficient preview time to inspect the picture stimuli.

Developmental changes in phonological and semantic priming effects in Spanish-speaking toddlers.

Research on the early lexical-semantic system has described how toddlers organize word representations based on semantic and phonological features. This study is a longitudinal investigation of the development of this organization during infancy. Middle-high socioeconomic status Mexican toddlers ( = 28, 15 female) were presented with a preferential looking task using an eye-tracker at 18, 21, and 24 months of age, manipulating semantic and phonological lexical links.

Mediated semantic priming interference in toddlers as seen through pupil dynamics.

Mediated priming refers to the activation of a target word by a prime word through an intermediate word. This type of priming provides behavioral evidence of between- and within-level spreading activation in the lexical system. Studies of toddlers show phonosemantic between-level mediated priming that supports a cascade of activation between different levels of processing.

Inhibitory control under emotional contexts in women with borderline personality disorder: An electrophysiological study.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by emotional dysregulation and difficulties in cognitive control. Inhibitory control, meanwhile, is modulated by the presence of emotional stimuli. The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of implicit emotional contexts on response inhibition in BPD patients.

The influence of sleep on language production modalities in preschool children with Down syndrome.

Evidence suggests that sleep may relate to oral language production in children with Down syndrome. However, these children are capable of using complex referential gestures as a compensation strategy for problems with oral production, and those with a greater productive oral vocabulary have less gestural vocabulary. The goal of this study was to explore whether sleep quality relates to oral and gestural production modalities in children with Down syndrome.

Emotional faces modulate eye movement control on an antisaccade task.

The ability to modulate automatic responses, in order to favor voluntary actions is crucial for cognition and behavior, and this is particularly difficult when dealing with highly salient stimuli as emotional faces. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of angry faces on cortical activity during preparation of saccadic inhibition and voluntary reorientation of attention. Behavioral performance, eye movements and presaccadic event-related potentials were evaluated as 30 participants performed an antisaccadic task with neutral and angry faces presented in the peripheral visual field.

Verb-mediated anticipatory eye movements in people with Down syndrome.

Background: Children and adults with neurotypical development employ linguistic information to predict and anticipate information. Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) have weaknesses in language production and the domain of grammar but relative strengths in language comprehension and the domain of semantics. What is not clear is the extent to which they can use linguistic information, as it unfolds in real time, to anticipate upcoming information correctly.

Development of bidirectional phono-semantic activation in toddlers.

A mediated priming effect refers to the activation of a target via a mediator previously activated by a prime. This effect has been found at 24 months of age for phono-semantic links: a prime ( cup) activates a target ( dog) via a mediator ( cat), providing evidence of activation in a forward direction (phonological to semantic). Interactive models, however, propose that activation propagates in both forward and backward directions between processing levels.

Pupil response and attention skills in Down syndrome.

Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by attentional problems. Little is known about the neural correlates of attention problems in DS due to difficulties in evaluation. Pupil dilation, associated with an increase in cognitive load and locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system activity in humans, is a neurophysiological measurement that may help to characterize such problems.

Sex differences in emotional contexts modulation on response inhibition.

The aim of the present study was to explore sex differences in the effects that emotional contexts exert on the temporal course of response inhibition using event-related potentials (ERP). Participants performed a Go-NoGo response inhibition task under 3 context conditions: with 1) neutral background stimuli, and 2) pleasant, and 3) unpleasant emotional contexts. No sex differences were found in relation to accuracy.