Publications (35) View all
-
Article: Body knowledge in brain-damaged children: a double-dissociation in self and other's body processing.
[show abstract] [hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Bodies are important element for self-recognition. In this respect, in adults it has been recently shown a self vs other advantage when small parts of the subjects' body are visible. This advantage is lost following a right brain lesion underlying a role of the right hemisphere in self body-parts processing. In order to investigate the bodily-self processing in children and the development of its neuronal bases, 57 typically developing healthy subjects and 17 subjects with unilateral brain damage (5 right and 12 left sided), aged 4-17 years, were submitted to a matching-to-sample task. In this task, three stimuli vertically aligned were simultaneously presented at the centre of the computer screen. Subjects were required which of two stimuli (the upper or the lower one) matched the central target stimulus, half stimuli representing self and half stimuli representing other people's body-parts and face-parts. The results showed that corporeal self recognition is present since at least 4 years of age and that self and others' body parts processing are different and sustained by separate cerebral substrates. Indeed, a double dissociation was found: right brain damaged patients were impaired in self but not in other people's body parts, showing a self-disadvantage, whereas left brain damaged patients were impaired in others' but not in self body parts processing. Finally, since the double dissociation self/other was found for body-parts but not for face parts, the corporal self seems to be dissociated for body and face-parts. This opens the possibility of independent and lateralized functional modules for the processing of self and other body parts during development.Neuropsychologia 11/2011; 50(1):181-8. · 3.64 Impact Factor -
Article: How many functional brains in developmental dyslexia? When the history of language delay makes the difference.
[show abstract] [hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Clinical manifestations of developmental dyslexia (DD) are greatly variable, suggesting complex underlying mechanisms. It was recently advanced that the characteristics of DD in Italian, a language with shallow orthography, are influenced by a positive history for language delay. We explored this hypothesis by studying in Italian individuals with DD (i) the brain representation of phonological processing with functional magnetic resonance imaging and (ii) the correlation between the patterns of activation and the presence/absence of previous language delay. Thirteen individuals with DD and 13 controls participated in the functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment consisting of a rhyme-generation task. Individuals with DD showed a reduced activation of phonological processing areas of the left hemisphere, such as the middle frontal gyrus, the precuneus, and the inferior parietal lobule, and in particular the superior temporal gyrus. Furthermore, patients with a history of language delay had reduced activation in the left inferior and medial frontal gyrus, that was associated with worse reading and phonological accuracy than patients with normal language development. Neurofunctional profiles of Italian individuals with DD are correlated to the history of language delay, suggesting that the relatively better behavioral profiles observed in individuals without a history of language delay are associated with a major activation of frontal networks normally involved in phonological working memory.Cognitive and behavioral neurology: official journal of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology 06/2011; 24(2):85-92. · 1.09 Impact Factor -
Article: Long-term reading and spelling outcome in Italian adolescents with a history of specific language impairment.
[show abstract] [hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Specific language impairment (SLI) diagnosed in the pre-school years is frequently associated with reading and writing difficulties at school age. The nature of this relationship is unclear, despite the availability of a large number of studies, mostly on English speaking children. Phonological processing deficits have been considered the prominent cause of both difficulties. However recent findings in both children with SLI and in children with reading difficulties are not easily accommodated within a single dimensional model explaining the relationship between oral and written language deficits. Our study focuses on the long-term reading and spelling outcome in relation to preschool oral language skills in a group of Italian adolescents with a documented history of SLI. Sixteen Italian adolescents diagnosed as SLI at our Hospital in the pre-school years and 32 normal controls were submitted to an extensive assessment of oral and written language skills. At a group level SLI adolescents had weak oral and written language skills in almost all tests. Results show that reading difficulties have some features in common with those of Italian developmental dyslexics but also have distinct characteristics, since reading accuracy and written comprehension, usually relatively spared in Italian developmental dyslexics, were impaired in adolescents with SLI. Longitudinal analyses showed that expressive morpho-syntactic and lexical abilities at pre-school age were the oral language skills that best predicted reading and spelling outcomes in adolescents with SLI. However, also children with severe phonological impairment in the absence of other oral language deficits showed later literacy difficulties, although less severe and mainly limited to reading accuracy. Our study supports the notion that there is a complex relationship between oral and written language difficulties which may change at different developmental time points, not captured by a single deficit model, but best conceptualized considering multiple interactions between language skills and literacy abilities.Cortex 02/2011; 47(8):955-73. · 6.08 Impact Factor -
Chapter: Neuropsychological Evaluation
[show abstract] [hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: The study of cognitive and neuropsychological functions in children with cerebral palsy (CP) is relevant both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. From the theoretical standpoint, an analytical documentation of cognitive development and of the neuropsychological patterns associated with the different clinical forms of CP is important for advancing our knowledge on the relations between neurobiological substrate and function. From the practical point of view, a comprehensive cognitive and neuropsychological evaluation represents the starting point for view, a comprehensive cognitive and neuropsychological evaluation represents the starting point for defining the rehabilitation program.12/2009: pages 143-179; -
Article: Subtypes of developmental dyslexia in transparent orthographies: a comment on Lachmann and Van Leeuwen (2008).
[show abstract] [hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Lachmann and Van Leeuwen (2008) proposed two diagnostic subtypes of developmental dyslexia in a language with transparent orthography (German). The classification was based on reading time, rather than reading errors, for lists of words and nonwords. The two subtypes were "frequent-word reading impaired" (FWRI) and "nonword reading impaired" (NWRI). Notably, FWRI were very slow in reading high-frequency words but as fast as controls in reading nonwords; ca. one-third of these children showed this "reversed lexicality effect" in a particularly marked fashion (i.e., read nonwords two to three times faster than high-frequency words). Since Italian is a highly transparent language, we applied this classification to 87 third- and sixth-grade dyslexics from various previously published studies. Some children showed a marked lexicality effect, while others showed small or no difference between word and nonword reading speed. However, regardless of stimulus length, grade and presence/absence of a previous language delay, no child showed a marked reversed lexicality effect; more generally, no child could be classified as FWRI. These findings indicate that the search for subtypes of developmental dyslexia in transparent orthographies still constitutes an open question.Cognitive Neuropsychology 12/2009; 26(8):752-8. · 2.13 Impact Factor
