Recent data suggest recovery of language systems but persistent structural abnormalities in the prematurely born. We tested the hypothesis that subjects who were born prematurely develop alternative networks for processing language. Subjects who were born prematurely (n = 22; 600-1250 g birth weight), without neonatal brain injury on neonatal…

Mentally retarded subjects who could read were tested on their ability to pronounce words and to produce meaningful associates. Analyses of their responses indicated an overuse of a strategy of memorizing words as a way to recognize words in print and an inability to consider word meanings in terms of abstract referents. A comparison of these…

Sentences are understood by outlining associative relations between the concepts representing the meanings of the words. When the words are received the activation spreads from their conceptual counterparts to the other concepts in memory, so that some implicit thoughts are often added to the mental representation of a sentence. As sentences are…