Study examines neurological causes of stuttering
From the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences press release: One per cent of adults and five per cent of children are unable to achieve what most of us take for granted…
Study suggests certain books can increase infant learning during shared reading
From the University of Florida press release: Parents and pediatricians know that reading to infants is a good thing, but new research shows reading books that clearly name and label people and objects is even…
Study suggests infant brain responses predict reading speed in secondary school
From the University of Jyväskylä press release: A study conducted at the Department of Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland and Jyväskylä Centre for Interdisciplinary Brain Research (CIBR) has found that the brain responses…
Study suggests similarities across languages may stem from brain’s preference for efficient information processing
From the University of Arizona press release: An estimated 7,099 languages are spoken throughout the world today. Almost a third of them are endangered — spoken by dwindling numbers — while just 23 languages represent…
Study suggests hearing different accents at home impacts language processing in infants
From the University at Buffalo press release: Infants raised in homes where they hear a single language, but spoken with different accents, recognize words dramatically differently at about 12 months of age than their age-matched…
Study suggests music and native language interact in the brain
From the University of Helsinki press release: The brain’s auditory system can be shaped by exposure to different auditory environments, such as native language and musical training. A recent doctoral study by Caitlin Dawson from…
Study suggests socioeconomic status may be linked to differences in the vocabulary growth
From the University of Texas at Dallas press release: The nation’s 31 million children growing up in homes with low socioeconomic status have, on average, significantly smaller vocabularies compared with their peers. A new study…
Study suggests babies understand when words are related
From the Duke University press release: The meaning behind infants’ screeches, squeals and wails may frustrate and confound sleep-deprived new parents. But at an age when babies cannot yet speak to us in words, they…
Study suggests punctuation in text messages helps replace cues found in face-to-face conversations
From the Binghamton University press release: Emoticons, irregular spellings and exclamation points in text messages aren’t sloppy or a sign that written language is going down the tubes — these “textisms” help convey meaning and…
Chimp study reveals how brain’s structure shaped our evolution
From the University of Edinburgh press release: The pattern of asymmetry in human brains could be a unique feature of our species and may hold the key to explaining how we first developed language ability,…