Illiteracy and brain organization

Course Description

The goal of this part of the course is to give an overview of the effects of formal schooling / written language acquisition on the functional organization of the brain. This issue will be discussed at a behavioral, functional and structural level, and for different cognitive domains.

1. A critical overview about the relation between literacy / formal schooling and brain organization.

I. Neuropsychological assessment and neuropsychological disorders

2. Illiteracy and neuropsychological assessment. An outline of the influence of formal schooling / acquisition of orthographic knowledge on neuropsychological assessment will be presented as well as a description of the subject selection procedures used in our investigations of a population of illiterate and matched literate controls.

3. Effects of literacy on aphasia and dementia. We will discuss recent results that associate low educational levels to a (potentially) increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and the initial severity of aphasia.

II. Cognitive processing modulated by literacy: behavioral, functional / neuroimaging and structural data

4. Illiteracy and language processing. Several aspects of auditory-verbal language may differ between literate and illiterate subjects. We intend do discuss findings related to different levels of sub-lexical phonological segmentation in literate / illiterate, and present some behavioral differences related to the diverse levels of the sub-lexical phonological representation and processing) including working memory skills.

5. The relation between literacy and visual naming skills. In this section we will discuss the influence of formal education / acquisition of alphabetic orthographic knowledge on two- and three-dimensional visual naming skills. Object recognition will also be discussed. The issues concerning the effects of learning and experience on the organization of the neural system for spoken and written language will be debated.

6. Literacy and hemispheric differences. Is there a relation between formal education / literacy and brain lateralization? This will be discussed based on behavioral functional and structural neuroimaging data.

Reading List

Ardila, A. (1999). A Neuropsychological approach to intelligence. Neuropsychology Review, 9(3), 117-136.

Ardila, A., Ardila, O., Bryden, M. P., Ostrosky, F., Rosselli, M., & Steenhuis, R. (1989). Effects of cultural background and education on handedness. Neuropsychologia, 27(6), 893-897.

Ardila, A., Ostrosky, F., & Mendonza, V. (2000). Learning to read is much more than learning to read: A neuropsychological-based learning to read method. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 6(7), 789-801.

Baddeley, A. D., Gathercole, S. E., & Pagagno, C. (1998). The Phonological Loop as a Language Learning Device. Psychological Review, 105(1), 158-173.

Caplan, D. (1992). Language, structure, processing and disorders. Cambdrige: MIT Press.

Castro-Caldas, A. (1996). Problems of testing aphasia in illiterate subjects. In F.J.Stachowiak, R.D.Blesser, G.Deloche, R.Kaschel, H.Kremin, P.North, L.Pizzamiglio, I.Robertson, & B.Wilson (Eds.), Developments in the assessment and rehabilitation of brain-damaged patients. Perspectives from a European Concerted Action (pp. 205-210).

Castro-Caldas, A., Miranda, P., Carmo, I., Reis, A., Leote, F., Ribeiro, C., & Ducla-Soares, E. (1999). Influence of learning to read and write on the morphology of thecorpus callosum. European Journal of Neurology, 6(1), 23-28.

Castro-Caldas, A., Peterson, K. M., Reis, A., Stone-Elander, S., & Ingvar, M. (1998). The illiterate brain: Learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organisation of the adult brain. Brain, 121, 1053-1063.

Coppens, P., Lebrun, Y., & Basso, A. (1998). Aphasia in atypical populations. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Gathercole, S. E., Pickering, S. J., Hall, M., & Peacker, S. M. (2001). Dissociable lexical and phonological influences on serial recognition and serial recall. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54A(1), 1-30.

Lecours, A. R., Melher, J., Parente, M. A. et al. (1988). Illiteracy and brain damage: 3. A contribution to the study of speech and language disorders in illiterates with unilateral brain damage (initial testing). Neuropsychologia, 26, 575-589.

Lecours, A. R., Melher, J., Parente, M. A. et al. (1987). Illiteracy and brain damage: 1. Aphasia testing in culturally contrasted populations (control subjects). Neuropsychologia, 25, 231-245.

Manly, J. J., Jacobs, D. M., Sano, M., Bell, K., Merchant, C. A., Small, S. A., & Stern, Y. (1999). Effect of literacy on neuropsychological test performance in nondemented, education-matched elders. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (JINS), 5(5), 191-202.

Morais, J., Cary, L., Alegria, J., & Bertelson, P. (1979). Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously? Cognition, 7, 323-331.

Morais, J., Content, A., Bertelson, P., Cary, L., & Kolinsky, R. (1988). Is there a critical period for the acquisition of segmental analysis? Cognitive Neuropsychology, 5(3), 347-352

Morais, J., & Kolinsky, R. (2000). Biology and culture in the literate mind. Brain and Cognition, 42, 47-49.

Neville, H. J., & Bavelier, D. (1998). Neural organization and plasticity of language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 8, 254-258.

Nobre, A. C., & Plunkett, K. (1997). The neural system of language: structure and development. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 7, 262-268.

Patterson, K., & Ralph, M. A. L. (1999). Selective disorders of reading? Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 9, 235-239.

Paulesu, E., McCrory, E., Fazio, F., Menoncello, L., Brunswick, N., Cappa, S. F., Cotelli, M., Cossu, G., Corte, F., Lorusso, M., Pesenti, S., Gallagher, A., Perani, D., Price, C., Frith, C. D., & Frith, U. (2000). A cultural effect on brain function. Nature Neuroscience, 3(1), 91-96.

Petersson, K. M., Reis, A., Askelof, S., Castro-Caldas, A., & Ingvar, M. (2000). Language processing modulated by literacy: A network analysis of verbal repetition in literate and illiterate subjects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(3), 364-382.

Petersson, K. M., Reis, A., & Ingvar, M. (2001). Cognitive processing in literate and illiterate subjects: A review of some recent behavioral and functional neuroimaging data. Scandinavian Journal of Pyschology, 42(251-267).

Price, C., Indefrey, P., & van Turennout, M. (1999). The neural architecture underlying the processing of written and spoken words. In C. M. Brown & P. Hagoort (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 211-233). New York: Oxford University Press.

Reis, A., & Castro-Caldas, A. (1997). Illiteracy: A bias for cognitive development. J Int Neuropsychol Soc, 3, 444-450.

Reis, A., Petersson, K. M., Castro-Caldas, A., & Ingvar, M. (2001). Formal schooling influences two-but not three-dimensional naming skills. Brain and Cognition.

Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., & Rosas, P. (1990). Neuropsychological assessment in illiterates: II. Language and praxic abilities. Brain and Cognition, 12, 281-296.

Prerequisites

No necessary prerequisites for this course.