Buzzsaws and blueprints: what children need (or don't need) to learn language.
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Child Language↗
Biomedical subjects
M A Sabbagh
Publications and source records attributed to M A Sabbagh.
Neural correlates of theory-of-mind reasoning: an event-related potential study.
Everyday understanding of human behavior rests on having a theory of mind--the ability to relate people's actions to underlying mental states such as beliefs and desires. It has been suggested that an impaired theory of mind may lie at the heart of psychological disorders that are characterized by deficits in social understanding, such as autism. In this study, we employed the event-related potential methodology to index the activity of neural systems that are engaged during theory-of-mind reasoning in adults. Specifically, neural activity elicited by tasks that required thinking about mental as compared with nonmental representations (i.e., beliefs vs. photographs) was characterized by a focally enhanced positivity over left frontal areas, which was diminished over left parietal areas. These findings provide an important perspective on both children's theory-of-mind development and the neurobiology of disorders in which theory of mind seems to be impaired.
Adolescent↗
Communicative intentions and language: evidence from right-hemisphere damage and autism.
In this review article, it is argued that the wide range of communicative deficits that have been noted in both individuals with damage to the right cerebral hemisphere (RHD) and high-functioning individuals with autism may stem from difficulties appreciating the importance of their interlocutor's communicative intentions (CIs). It is also argued that the abnormal semantic development noted in infants with RHD and autism may be related to difficulties in appreciating CIs as well. Finally, it is suggested that the CIs hypothesis may provide an avenue for integrating a number of theoretical suggestions that have been made regarding the right hemisphere's contributions to communicative competence.
Adult↗
Metarepresentation in action: 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' developing theories of mind in parent-child conversations.
Using a cross-sectional natural language database, the authors investigated the parent-child conversations of 36 three-, 4-, and 5-year-olds to explore 2 issues regarding the development of metarepresentation. First, children's uses of explicit contrastives (ECs)--utterances that explicitly contrast 2 differing mental states--were explored. Four-year-olds and, to a greater extent, 5-year-olds were found to reliably use ECs. Second, parents' responses to children's uses of "I don't know" and implicit contrastives (e.g., contradictions) were examined to determine whether parents took these opportunities to highlight the representational nature of mental states. All children regularly elicited mentalistic responses from their parents and, in some cases, these parental responses were positively related to children's production of mental talk. Findings are discussed in terms of how theory of mind development may be guided by scaffolding processes.
Child Development↗
[Osteosynthesis of the greater trochanter using a plate and cables in total hip arthroplasties. Technic and complications apropos of 61 cases].
The authors suggest a new system of osteosynthesis of the greater trochanter using a plate and cables. The surgical technique is simple in its realisation which allows 94.4% bone-union of the greater trochanter and almost immediate partial weight bearing by the patient. 61 patients were studied after a minimum of one year and only one case of non-union was observed. The authors recommend this technique especially in difficult arthroplasties (obesity, dysplasia) and in revision total his replacement. The trochanteric approach facilitates the extraction of the prothesis, bone cement, and reconstruction of the acetabulum. This technique may be used systematically in arthroplasties using trochanterotomy.
Aged↗
Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: links between preschoolers' theory of mind and semantic development.
Two studies addressed whether children consider speakers' knowledge states when establishing initial word-referent links. In Study 1, forty-eight 3- and 4-year-olds were taught two novel words by a speaker who expressed either knowledge or ignorance about the words' referents. Children showed better word learning when the speaker was knowledgeable. In Study 2, forty-eight 3- and 4-year-olds were taught two novel words by a speaker who expressed uncertainty about their referents. Whether the uncertainty truly reflected ignorance, however, differed across conditions. In one condition, the speaker said he made the object himself and thus, he was knowledgeable. In the other condition, the speaker stated that the object was made by a friend and thus, expressed ignorance about it. Four-year-olds learned better in the speaker-made than in the friend-made condition; 3-year-olds, however, showed relatively poor learning in both conditions. These findings suggest that theory-of-mind developments impact word learning.
Attention↗