Evidence from neuropsychological studies of individuals with brain damage post-stroke has supported the separation of working memory (WM) capacities for semantic (word meaning) and phonological (speech sound) information. These separate capacities have been shown to play different roles in supporting multiword language production, with semantic WM…

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are heterogeneous in nature and commonly result in deficits to multiple areas of cognition including memory, linguistic processing, and executive functioning. For individuals with TBI, returning to everyday activities can be a challenge with their quality of life reduced by a variety of impairments including…

Children born preterm constitute one of the largest populations of children at risk for the development of language impairments. A little over one in ten pregnancies result in a preterm birth and approximately 25% of these children go on to experience subsequent difficulties with language (CDC, 2015; Foster-Cohen, Friesen, Champion, &…

This dissertation will focus on the processing and learning of abstract, phrasal argument structure constructions. Chapter 1 provides the theoretical framework for abstract constructions, and illustrates the importance of such representations in speakers' linguistic knowledge. Chapter 2 reviews the evidence for meaning being associated with…

Purpose: Significant challenges face speech-language pathologists when children raised in bilingual environments are referred for speech-language evaluations. The situation is compounded for bilingual Mandarin-English children because no research-based data is available to date. This study is a preliminary examination of phonological acquisition…

Two studies assessed the ability of 12 pre-school children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; N = 7) or Specific Language Impairment (SLI; N = 5) to use semantic context and eye gaze to infer the meanings of novel nouns, and to recall those meanings after a 24-hour delay. In Experiment 1, the children heard statements containing a familiar,…

The mechanisms by which the mind encodes meaning into words and reconstructs it from them has been the subject of philosophical speculations at least since Plato and Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. Our current understanding of how the brain is involved in these processes, however, only started in the 19 th century, with precise descriptions of…