The term bilingual refers to “all those people who use two or more languages or dialects in their everyday lives” and currently, more than half of the world can be classified as bilingual. Due to this growing population of individuals, there has also been an increase in interest and research on the bilingual population relating to aphasia, especially when it comes to recovery patterns and treatment. (Ansaldo, Marcotte, Scherer, & Raboyeau, 2008, p. 540) This field presents many challenges because, due to the complexity of behavioral patterns seen in the bilingual population as a result of concerning two or more languages, recovery does not always follow the same patterns from person to person (Ansaldo & Saidi, 2014, p. 1). In order to look …show more content…
Due to the lack of research, there is currently no definite answer, but typical plans of intervention mainly favor leaving out one language during treatment. This then raises a new question, which language do we treat? There are many ways to go about therapy such as treating the most frequently used language, the language of the clients environment, the most impaired language, the least impaired language, or the language that the client has the most emotional attachments with. The answer to this question can ultimately be left up to the client and their family depending on which language they feel should be treated (Fabbro, 1999; Paradis, 2001a; 2004). It has been claimed by some, that only one language should be picked to treat during therapy because treating more than one language may inhibit global speech recovery for the client and may also delay the recovery of all of their languages (Chlenov, 1948). On the other hand though, if the bilingual language system is made up of only one system, then why wouldn’t you treat both? In the case of a proficient bilingual “depriving the bilingual person with aphasia from either language support could be to a certain extent considered like forcing a unilingual person with aphasia to inhibit preserved …show more content…
This is known as cross-linguistic transfer, and its effects are more common to the early bilinguals as opposed to late bilinguals. (Ansaldo, Marcotte, Scherer, & Raboyeau, 2008, p. 545) Research of cross-linguistic transfer has been very common when looking at bilingual aphasia because “therapy in both languages is not always available, and, thus, researchers have focused on the transfer of therapy effects from the treated language to the untreated language.” (Ansaldo & Saidi, 2014, p. 1) Many studies have proven focused language therapy to aphasic patients to be successful but the most effective one has not yet been determined. Along the way of researching this topic, Bhogal, Teasell, and Speechley (2003) showed that the frequency of therapy sessions is one determining criterion for the success of language training. This is especially important when the aphasic patients have reached the “chronic stage” which is considered to begin around six months post-onset where the therapy should occur daily. In a study conducted by Filiputti, Tavano, Vorano, de Luca, and Fabbro (2002), they treated a quadrilingual Wernicke’s aphasic patient in his second language, Italian, three times a week for half of the year. As a result, not only was there significant improvement in the
The two types of aphasia discussed in class is non-fluent aphasia and fluent aphasia. Aphasia can occur when there is damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is the language center of the brain. People with non-fluent aphasia will say or sign random words, there will be little or no function words/signs, similar to the telegraphic stage of language development. People with fluent aphasia will be able to produce sentences with function words, but the sentences will contain miss-selected words/signs.
Salonen, L. (2013). L. S. Vygotsky 's psychology and theory of learning applied to the rehabilitation of aphasia: A developmental and systemic view. Aphasiology, 27(5), 615-635. doi:10.
Aphasia can be defined as a disorder that is caused by damage to parts of the brain that are responsible for language (“Aphasia” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia is a type of fluent aphasia (with the other type being nonfluent). It is named after Carl Wernicke who described the disorder as “an amnesiac disorder characterized by fluent but disordered speech, with a similar disorder in writing, and impaired understanding of oral speech and reading” (“Wernicke’s” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia can also be known as sensory aphasia, fluent aphasia, or receptive aphasia. It is a type of aphasia that is caused by damage to Wernicke’s area in the brain, in the posterior part of the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere. This area of the brain contains motor neurons responsible for the understanding of spoken language and is believed to be the receptive language center (“Rogers” n.p.). Wernicke’s aphasia can be most efficiently defined as a fluent language disorder commonly caused by strokes and characterized by difficulty comprehending spoken language and producing meaningful speech and writing which is both assessable by an SLP and treatable by a variety of methods.
Hammers, J.F., & Blanc, M.A. (1989). Social and psychological foundations of bilinguality. In P. Mardaga (Ed.), Bilinguality and Bilingualism (pp. 110-133). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
My definition of courage is someone who goes out of their way to do something good. Firefighters have given their lives to save millions of people, so they are extremely brave. A person who I think is courageous is Patrick Kane, my nanny’s husband, who is a firefighter. I have known him for 7 years. He has been a firefighter for almost thirty years and is currently the fire chief.
"My most valuable tool is words, the words I can now use only with difficulty. My voice is debilitated - mute, a prisoner of a communication system damaged by a stroke that has robbed me of language," stated A. H. Raskins, one of approximately one million people in the United States who suffer from aphasia (1), a disorder which limits the comprehension and expression of language. It is an acquired impairment due to brain injury in the left cerebral hemisphere. The most common cause of aphasia is a stroke, but other causes are brain tumors, head injury, or other neuralgic illnesses. Of the estimated 400,000 strokes which occur a year, approximately 80,000 of those patients develop some form of aphasia (2). Another important observation is that within the United States, there are twice as many people with aphasia as there are individuals with Parkinson's disease (2). Yet, what is so astounding is the lack of public awareness about aphasia. Aphasia attacks an intricate part of a person's daily life - the simple act of communication and sharing. The disbursement of such a tool deprives an individual of education learned through their life, often leaving the ill fated feeling hopeless and alone. In considering the effects of aphasia, a deeper analysis of the two most common forms of aphasia will be examined: Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia. While both forms occur usually as a result of a stroke in the left hemisphere of the brain, their particular site of impairment produces different side effects in an individual's comprehension and speech. These regions have been further studied through experimental researches such as positron emission tomography (PET). Moreover, although there is currently no cure for the disorder, there are treatments and certain guidelines to follow when encountering an aphasic.
Hakuta, K. (1990). Language and cognition in bilingual children. Bilingual education: Issues and strategies, 47-59.
Having heard that with each language one learns, the next becomes easier, I have always through that learning languages does something incredibly beneficial for the brain. Research on the subject seems to indicate that in fact there are plenty of benefits of multilingualism spawning the phrase “the bilingual advantage.”
Recently, researches findings point out that the brain is a parallel processor which can perform many types of activities at the same time. Therefore, engaging language and brain will help in developing the process of acquiring and learning a second language.
For this research requirement I chose three different experiments to examine thoroughly. The first of these experiments came from the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. The study done in this journal was an examination of orthographic learning and self-teaching in a bilingual and biliterate context. The aim of the study was to figure out the advantages and/or disadvantages of a student learning a native language when they are either monolingual, bilingual, or biliterate, and the study was focused on learning English because this is the most commonly learned non-native language in the world.
In this world, humans and animals alike have come to communicate by using various mechanisms. Humans have advanced themselves beyond other organisms by using language, or a set of codes and symbols, in order to express themselves to others. Language has brought about a means to create new thoughts, to explore, and to analyze our everyday surroundings. It has also enabled us to retain past memories and to look deep into the advances for the future. However, for some individuals, this tool for communication has been plagued by a language and speech disorders, such as aphasia. Aphasia is the loss of the ability to speak or understand speech or written language. It is often detected at an early age, and contributes to the general class of speech and language disorders affecting "5% of school aged children" (1) . Aphasia is classified into three categories. The main two are receptive or sensory aphasia and expressive or motor aphasia. Receptive aphasia affects the input side and "the ability to understand spoken or written language may be partially or totally lost" (1) . Those with expressive aphasia "can speak but not find certain words or names, or may be totally unable to communicate verbally or by writing" (1) . For a majority of affected individuals, there is a combination of the two. The third type is conduction aphasia. This "involves disruption of transmission between the sensory and motor ends of the circuit" (1) . Here, individuals are able to produce speech despite the lack of connections to the input side. It seems that the ability to speak has a lot to do with your surroundings and how much emphasis was placed on developing this skill during the first few years after birth. Afterall, it's known that the first few years are critical because this is the time when the brain is "plastic" and is rapidly changing and being molded. By the time that adolescence is reached, the brain has become "less plastic". In this paper, I would like to explore theories proposed to try to understand the origins of this impairment.
Growing up in a migrant family, I was accustomed to my parents’ foreign language at home. I recall back in kindergarten, my teacher gave me a low grade because I did not speak in her class, what did she expect my parents did not know English in order to teach me to speak English. Spanish is the main language my parents mostly spoke, but for school it did not help me, I thought as a girl. Throughout the years, I determined myself to speak English my whole life because I am breathing the American culture and Spanish at my house. My parents never had education due to severe poverty. I never realized the benefit I have of being bilingual. Since I am heading to the medical field, being bilingual will challenge my comfort zone with others.
The goal of contrastive analysis is to predict linguistic difficulties experienced during the acquisition of a second language; as formulated by Lado (1957), it suggests that difficulties in acquiring a new (second) language are derived from the differences between the new language and the native (first) language of a language learner.
One way a child can learn a second language is “Simultaneous Bilingualism, refers to children who have early exposure to both languages and are given ample opportunities to use both.” (Fostering, 1995. p. 3) This is where a child is exposed to a second language early as birth. Possibly, both parents may speak their native tongue and the second language. An example is a friend of mine grew up in a Polish-speaking household, where both parents immigrated to the United States from Poland, yet both parents had started learning English before the immigrated here and there were other family members who were here in the States that had already spoke English for some time, thus the friend and her brother were both immersed in two languages
As time goes by and as the global community develops, the world grows more and more international, making second or third language acquisition become necessary to the majority. With the growing importance of multiple language ability, more and more parents think of bilingual or multilingual education, which means acquisitions of two or more languages, for their kids. In fact, we do have many reasons showing why multilingual education is important and beneficial, such as aspects of interpersonal relationship, employment, brain health, and so on.