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13 - Cortical images of early language and phonetic development using near infrared spectroscopy

from Part III - Brain, language, and mathematics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Laura-Ann Petitto
Edited by
Antonio M. Battro ,
Kurt W. Fischer  and
Pierre J. Léna
Laura-Ann Petitto
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology University of Toronto Scarborough
Antonio M. Battro
Affiliation:
National Academy of Education, Argentina
Kurt W. Fischer
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Pierre J. Léna
Affiliation:
Université de Paris VII (Denis Diderot)
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Summary

Overview

Educational neuroscience provides powerful tools and new knowledge to help researchers and educators to build on cognitive neuroscience to open new perspectives for education and for remediation of young children at risk. A promising new tool is Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), which can be used with very young children to explore many cognitive capacities and performances. In particular, NIRS gives solid evidence for the existence of language-specific neural networks in infants well before they can speak. For linguistic stimuli, the networks include the left superior temporal gyrus and Broca's area, areas that are strongly involved in language in older children and adults. Brain imaging research can provide new arguments and tests for a model of language acquisition based on the early endowment of specific linguistic areas. Educational neuroscience research can address many other educationally relevant questions in a similar way.

The Editors

Revolutions can start in unlikely places. Beginning around twenty years ago, researchers in hospital sub-basements began using new brain imaging technology to look inside the skulls of volunteers while they were alive and performing a variety of cognitive tasks. This exciting imaging technology, designed to detect brain areas that drank up more oxygen than others during specific cognitive tasks, was used to discover how the brain was organized and which systems of neural areas made possible the spectacular mental functions that we humans enjoy.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Educated Brain
Essays in Neuroeducation
 , pp. 213 - 231
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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