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This study adopted both indirect and direct methods to probe into Taiwanese people’s attitudes towards Taigi. The indirect method involved a verbal guise experiment with four Taigi speakers – Old-H (higher competence), Old-L (lower competence), Young- H, and Young-L. Participants, including old and young, must complete a questionnaire indirectly investigating their attitudes towards these four guises. The direct method involved a direct questionnaire. Results showed both pessimistic and optimistic outlooks of Taigi. Pessimistically, the participants, both the old and young, evaluated H competence Taigi higher. This result suggested that Taigi revitalisation is being confronted with the potential challenge of Taigi purism, since revitalised Taigi can hardly avoid the influences from Mandarin, the dominant language in Taiwan. In addition, Taigi was considered being alienated from the dimension of youthfulness. However, optimistically, within the H speakers, Young-H were preferred than Old-H, who were in fact more native in Taigi than Young-H speakers. This study, based on the results, further offered suggestions towards the Taigi language policy of Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within the language domain, movement disorders triggered by frontostriatal damage are characterized by deficits in action verbs, motor-language coupling, and syntax. However, these impairments have not been jointly interpreted under a unifying rationale or integratively assessed in terms of possible clinical implications. To bridge these gaps, here we introduce the “disrupted motor grounding hypothesis”, a new framework to conceive such impairments as disturbances of embodied mechanisms (high-order domains based on the recycling of functionally germane sensorimotor circuits). We focus on two relevant lesion models: Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. First, we describe the physiopathology of both conditions as models of progressive frontostriatal impairment. Then, we summarize works assessing action language, motor-language coupling, and syntax in samples at early and preclinical disease stages. To conclude, we discuss the implications of the evidence for neurolinguistic modeling, identify key issues to be addressed in future research, and discuss potential clinical implications. In brief, our work seeks to open new theoretical and translational avenues for embodied cognition research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robust diagnostics for many human genetic disorders are much needed in the pursuit of global personalized medicine. Next-generation sequencing now offers new promise for biomarker and diagnostic discovery, in developed as well as resource-limited countries. In this broader global health context, X-linked intellectual disability (XLID) is an inherited genetic disorder that is associated with a range of phenotypes impacting societies in both developed and developing countries. Although intellectual disability arises due to diverse causes, a substantial proportion is caused by genomic alterations. Studies have identified causal XLID genomic alterations in more than 100 protein-coding genes located on the X-chromosome. However, the causes for a substantial number of intellectual disability and associated phenotypes still remain unknown. Identification of causative genes and novel mutations will help in early diagnosis as well as genetic counseling of families. Advent of next-generation sequencing methods has accelerated the discovery of new genes involved in mental health disorders. In this study, we analyzed the exomes of three families from India with nonsyndromic XLID comprising seven affected individuals. The affected individuals had varying degrees of intellectual disability, microcephaly, and delayed motor and language milestones. We identified potential causal variants in three XLID genes, including PAK3 (V294M), CASK (complex structural variant), and MECP2 (P354T). Our findings reported in this study extend the spectrum of mutations and phenotypes associated with XLID, and calls for further studies of intellectual disability and mental health disorders with use of next-generation sequencing technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Embodied cognition theories vary in terms of the status attributed to representations. [•] Embodied mechanisms underlying action-verb processing are still a matter of debate. [•] We study the implication of BMS (EPD) vs. MS (NMO, ATM) in motor-language coupling. [•] We found that action-verb deficits in motor disorders are due to dysfunction in BMS. [•] Non-representational embodied theories were unsupported by our results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates how language comprehension is modulated by temporal information, marked by time adverbs, and bodily constraints imposed by motor actions. The experiment used a paradigm similar to that employed by de Vega, Robertson, Glenberg, Kaschak and Rinck (2004), but included significant refinements in the materials and the procedure, allowing for stronger theoretical conclusions. Participants read sentences describing two manual actions as simultaneous or consecutive by means of the adverbs while or after, respectively (e.g., While [After] cleaning the wound he unrolled the bandage). Comprehension was more difficult (longer reading times and lower sensibility rates) when actions were described as simultaneous. This indicates that the semantics of time marked by temporal adverbs is not an independent dimension, but interacts with the motor properties of the described actions. These results cannot be easily explained by the temporal iconicity assumption, but they are consistent with embodied theories of language such as the indexical hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on medical topics which include development of generic fidelity measure in paediatric rehabilitation, computer-based instrument for low motor language testing and development of a tool to evaluate change in high-functioning children having cerebral palsy.

Previous research has shown that primes that induce particular spatial perspectives can influence temporal judgements. However, most studies have used priming stimuli that involve both spatial and motor language and imagery. Here we ask whether the motor content of these stimuli plays an important role in their ability to serve as effective primes. A total of 198 adult participants made temporal judgements after exposure to spatial primes involving varying levels of imagined effort. Spatial primes involving imagined motor actions, but not those involving equivalent passive motions through space, successfully primed decisions about time. This suggests that motor content, rather than spatial content alone, contributes to the priming effects that arise when people make temporal judgements after exposure to particular spatial perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we report the results of an experiment in which subjects read syntactically unambiguous and ambiguous sentences which were disambiguated after several words to the less likely possibility. Understanding such sentences involves building an initial structure, inhibiting the non-preferred structure, detecting that later input is incompatible with the initial structure, and reactivating the alternative structure. The ambiguous sentences activated four areas more than the unambiguous sentences. These areas are the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the right basal ganglia (BG), the right posterior dorsal cerebellum (CB) and the left median superior frontal gyrus (SFG). The left IFG is normally activated when syntactic processing complexity is increased and probably supports that function in the current study as well. We discuss four hypotheses concerning how these areas may support comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. (1) The left IFG, right CB and BG could support articulatory rehearsal used to support the processing of ambiguous sentences. This seems unlikely since the activation pattern associated with articulatory rehearsal in other studies is not similar to that seen here. (2) The CB acts as an error detector in motor processing. Error detection is important for recognizing that the wrong sentence structure has been chosen initially. (3) The BG acts to select and sequence movements in the motor domain and in cognitive domains may serve to inhibit competing and completed plans which is not unlike inhibiting the initially non-preferred structure or “unchoosing” the initial choice when incompatible syntactic input is received. (4) The left median SFG is relevant for the evaluation of plausibility. Evaluating the plausibility of the two possibilities provides an important basis for choosing between them. The notion of the use of domain general cognitive processes to support a linguistic process is in line with recent suggestions that the a given area may subserve a specific cognitive task because it carries out an appropriate sort of computation rather than because it supports a specific cognitive domain. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a study that compared the development norms of preschoolers from an urban population in Canada. It is collected for the Denver Developmental Screening Test with norms of preschoolers from a rural and semirural population. The subjects consisted of 122 males and 104 females, Caucasian preschoolers ranging in age from 2 weeks to 6.4 years. The main purpose of the screening instrument was to search slow development in four functional areas of development namely gross motor, fine motor, language and personal-social. The test was devised as a clinical tool simple enough in format that it could be administered and scored by people who had no prior training in psychological testing.

Impairments of action language have been documented in early stage Parkinson's disease (EPD). The action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE) paradigm has revealed that EPD involves deficits to integrate action-verb processing and ongoing motor actions. Recent studies suggest that an abolished ACE in EPD reflects a cortico-subcortical disruption, and recent neurocognitive models highlight the role of the basal ganglia (BG) in motor-language coupling. Building on such breakthroughs, we report the first exploration of convergent cortical and subcortical signatures of ACE in EPD patients and matched controls. Specifically, we combined cortical recordings of the motor potential, functional connectivity measures, and structural analysis of the BG through voxel-based morphometry. Relative to controls, EPD patients exhibited an impaired ACE, a reduced motor potential, and aberrant frontotemporal connectivity. Furthermore, motor potential abnormalities during the ACE task were predicted by overall BG volume and atrophy. These results corroborate that motor-language coupling is mainly subserved by a cortico-subcortical network including the BG as a key hub. They also evince that action-verb processing may constitute a neurocognitive marker of EPD. Our findings suggest that research on the relationship between language and motor domains is crucial to develop models of motor cognition as well as diagnostic and intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]