The Neural Correlates of Spontaneous Beat Processing and Its Relationship with Music-Related Characteristics of the Individual.

In the presence of temporally organized stimuli, there is a tendency to entrain to the beat, even at the neurological level. Previous research has shown that when adults listen to rhythmic stimuli and are asked to imagine the beat, their neural responses are the same as when the beat is physically accented. The current study explores the neural processing of simple beat structures where the beat is physically accented or inferred from a previously presented physically accented beat structure in a passive listening context.

Regular rhythmic primes improve sentence repetition in children with developmental language disorder.

Recently reported links between rhythm and grammar processing have opened new perspectives for using rhythm in clinical interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Previous research using the rhythmic priming paradigm has shown improved performance on language tasks after regular rhythmic primes compared to control conditions. However, this research has been limited to effects of rhythmic priming on grammaticality judgments.

Using Motor Tempi to Understand Rhythm and Grammatical Skills in Developmental Language Disorder and Typical Language Development.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show relative weaknesses on rhythm tasks beyond their characteristic linguistic impairments. The current study compares preferred tempo and the width of an entrainment region for 5- to 7-year-old typically developing (TD) children and children with DLD and considers the associations with rhythm aptitude and expressive grammar skills in the two populations. Preferred tempo was measured with a spontaneous motor tempo task (tapping tempo at a comfortable speed), and the width (range) of an entrainment region was measured by the difference between the upper (slow) and lower (fast) limits of tapping a rhythm normalized by an individual's spontaneous motor tempo.

The Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) Framework for Understanding Musicality-Language Links Across the Lifespan.

Using individual differences approaches, a growing body of literature finds positive associations between musicality and language-related abilities, complementing prior findings of links between musical training and language skills. Despite these associations, musicality has been often overlooked in mainstream models of individual differences in language acquisition and development. To better understand the biological basis of these individual differences, we propose the Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE) framework.

Rhythm and timing as vulnerabilities in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Millions of children are impacted by neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), which unfold early in life, have varying genetic etiologies and can involve a variety of specific or generalized impairments in social, cognitive and motor functioning requiring potentially lifelong specialized supports. While specific disorders vary in their domain of primary deficit (e.g.

Does rhythmic priming improve grammatical processing in Hungarian-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder?

Research has described several features shared between musical rhythm and speech or language, and experimental studies consistently show associations between performance on tasks in the two domains as well as impaired rhythm processing in children with language disorders. Motivated by these results, in the current study our first aim was to explore whether a short exposure to a regular musical rhythm (i.e.

How 15-month-old infants process morphologically complex forms in an agglutinative language?

While phonological development is well-studied in infants, we know less about morphological development. Previous studies suggest that infants around one year of age can process words analytically (i.e.

Is atypical rhythm a risk factor for developmental speech and language disorders?

Although a growing literature points to substantial variation in speech/language abilities related to individual differences in musical abilities, mainstream models of communication sciences and disorders have not yet incorporated these individual differences into childhood speech/language development. This article reviews three sources of evidence in a comprehensive body of research aligning with three main themes: (a) associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, (b) musical rhythm in children with developmental speech/language disorders and common comorbid attentional and motor disorders, and (c) individual differences in mechanisms underlying rhythm processing in infants and their relationship with later speech/language development. In light of converging evidence on associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, we propose the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis, which posits that individuals with atypical rhythm are at higher risk for developmental speech/language disorders.

Word Retrieval Difficulties and Cognitive Control in Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose The study aims to test whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) show weaknesses in word retrieval and cognitive control and to find out whether impairments in the 2 domains are associated. Method Thirty-one children with SLI (age: M = 8;11 years;months, SD = 1;1) and 31 age- and IQ-matched typically developing children completed 2 word retrieval tasks and 3 cognitive control tasks. Word retrieval was assessed with a fluency task and a rapid automatized naming (RAN) task, whereas cognitive control was measured with a backward digit span, an n-back task, and a Stroop task.

Lexical conflict resolution in children with specific language impairment.

The aim of our study is to examine the effect of conflict on naming latencies in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children and to explore whether deficits in conflict resolution contribute to lexical problems in SLI. In light of previous results showing difficulties with inhibitory functions in SLI, we expected higher semantic conflict effect in the SLI than in the TD group. To investigate this question 13 children with SLI and 13 age- and gender-matched TD children performed a picture naming task in which the level of conflict was manipulated and naming latencies were measured.

Executive functions and the contribution of short-term memory span in children with specific language impairment.

Objective: An increasing number of results show that specific language impairment (SLI) is often associated with impairments in executive functions (EF), but the nature, extent, and generality of these deficits is yet unclear. The aim of the paper is to present results from verbal and nonverbal tasks examining EF in children with SLI and their age-matched typically developing (TD) peers.

Method: 31 children with SLI were tested on verbal and nonverbal versions of simple and complex span, fluency, N-back, and Stroop tasks.