Hearing & Language Processing

Structure of the Ear

How the Ear Works

The ear has three main parts: the outer, middle and inner ear. The outer ear (the part you can see) opens into the ear canal. The eardrum separates the ear canal from the middle ear. Small bones in the middle ear help transfer sound to the inner ear. The inner ear contains the auditory (hearing) nerve, which leads to the brain.

From Sound Wave to Nerve Impulse

Any source of sound sends vibrations or sound waves into the air. These funnel through the ear opening, down the ear, canal, and strike your eardrum, causing it to vibrate. The vibrations are passed to the small bones of the middle ear, which transmit them to the hearing nerve in the inner ear. Here, the vibrations become nerve impulses and go directly to the brain, which interprets the impulses as sound (music, voice, a car horn, etc.).

Otitis Media
Otitis media is an inflammation in the middle ear (the area behind the eardrum) that is usually associated with a buildup of fluid. The fluid may or may not be infected. The Eustachian tube, a passage between the middle ear and the back of the throat, is smaller and more nearly horizontal in children than in adults. Therefore, it can be more easily blocked by conditions such as large adenoids and infections. This allows bacteria and viruses to find their way into the middle ear more easily. Their tubes are also narrower and less stiff, which makes them more prone to blockage.

http://www.kidsource.com/ASHA/otitis.html

Otitis Media: How hearing becomes impaired

Three tiny bones in the middle ear carry sound vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear. When fluid is present in the middle ear, the vibrations are not transmitted efficiently and sound energy is lost. This is because the flexion of the membranes in the cochlea (which then causes the fluid to flow past the cilia and bend them for the sounds) is affected. The result may be a mild or even moderate hearing loss. Therefore, some speech sounds may be muffled or inaudible (note: think about how this might affect phonemic processing during the first 3 years of life during the critical period). Generally, this type of hearing loss is temporary. However, when otitis media occurs over and over again, damage to the eardrum, the bones of the ear, or even the hearing nerve can occur and cause permanent hearing loss.

Primary Auditory Pathway

Sound travels via the 8th cranial nerve (vestibulocochlear) Most of the fibers cross over to the contralateral side; information received in the right ear is processed by the left hemisphere and vice versa

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.iurc.montp.inserm.fr/cric/audition/english/ptw/miniprim.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.iurc.montp.inserm.fr/cric/audition/english/ptw/ptw. htm&h=237&w=142&sz=13&tbnid=LutIQICIalGuM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=62&hl=en&start=12&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dauditory%2Bpathways%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefoxa%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

From Nerve Impulse to Peception:

Wernicke-Geshwind Model of Language
7 Components: 1.Primary Auditory Cortex 2.Wernickes Area (22) 3.Arcuate fasciculus

4.Primary Visual Cortex

5.Angular Gyrus 6.Brocas Area

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7.Primary Motor Cortex

Note: in this model the dorsal and ventral streams from the occipital lobe are not included, only Area 39 that retrieves and assembles the phonological code. This is the original model that has since been elaborated.

Original Wernicke-Geschwind Model of Language

from: Rosenzweig, et al., 2002

Subtractive Pet Scans: Notice all the brain areas affected

from: Rosenzweig, et al., 2002

What is aphasia?
An impairment in language understanding or production that is caused by brain injury: Brocas aphasia Wernickes aphasia Global aphasia Conduction aphasia Subcortical aphasia

Brain Areas Affected in Aphasia

from: Rosenzweig, et al., 2002

from: Rosenzweig, et al., 2002

Dual Route Models for Reading & Writing

Reading
Input (text)
Phonological Route
GraphemePhoneme conversion

Writing
Input (picture, spoken work)

Whole-Word Route
Orthographic Input lexicon

Phonological Route
GraphemePhoneme conversion

Whole-Word Route
Orthographic Input lexicon

Semantic System

Semantic System

Phonological Output

Written Output

Response

Response

Dual Route Models for Reading: Dyslexia

Reading
Input (text)
Phonological Route
GraphemePhoneme conversion

Phonological Dyslexia
In this form of dyslexia, the problem occurs with attributing the correct sound (phoneme) to the grapheme (letter). Errors occur in sounding out unfamiliar words such as nonsense words because of the phonemegrapheme impairment. Any familiar word, even an irregular familiar word, is readable (e.g. colonel). The phonological route is impaired. Errors also occur in the form of visual paralexias (e.g., leaf and lead).

Whole-Word Route
Orthographic Input lexicon

Semantic System

Phonological Output

Response

Dual Route Models for Reading: Dyslexia

Reading
Input (text)
Phonological Route
GraphemePhoneme conversion

Surface Dyslexia
In this form of dyslexia, the problem occurs only with unfamiliar words (e.g., colonel), but sparing of regular (e.g., dog) or nonwords. The wholeword route is impaired, but the reader is able to apply the graphemephoneme conversion. Errors occur in understanding the meaning of words that sound the same (i.e. homophones such as son and sun).

Whole-Word Route
Orthographic Input lexicon

Semantic System

Phonological Output

Response

Dual Route Models for Reading: Dyslexia

Reading
Input (text)
Phonological Route
GraphemePhoneme conversion

Deep Dyslexia
This form of dyslexia is similar to phonological dyslexia, but the problem occurs only in reading nonwords or words that do not have strong visual or phonetic components (on, it,the). Substituting one word with another word that has a similar semantic meaning occurs: Infant was crying is changed to Baby was crying (semantic paralexia). Etiology? Perhaps a disconnection between the phonological and the whole-word routes.

Whole-Word Route
Orthographic Input lexicon

Semantic System

Phonological Output

Response

A few final points:

1. Dysgraphia follows the same model as dylexia (phonolological, surface, deep) 2. Impairment in prosody is a right hemisphere problem; it can significantly affect the meaning of language. 3. Typically, children do not fall into one distinct dyslexic subtype; rather, they might have a stronger orientation or approach to reading that follows this model because of a problem that affects the other path (e.g., strong visual memory or visuospatial skills and otitis media affecting phonological processing).

Visual and Spatial Abilities

Visual processing is accomplished in distinct neuroanatomic pathways. 1.One such pathway, known as the where pathway involves a dorsal route through magnocellular thalamic cells to occipital and parietal cortices and conveys location and motion information. 2.A second pathway, known as the what pathway involves a ventral route through parvocellular thalamic cells to occipital and temporal cortices and conveys color and form information. Note: Subtle differences in this process as it applies to reading

Neural Mechanisms for Reading: the Left Hemisphere

Written word is sent along the ventral stream to the word-form area (inferior temporal cortex), which links the orthographic representation (visual pattern) with the phonological code (Area 39). The neural networks that retrieve and assemble phonological codes (Area 39) and those that associate meaning with words are distributed over the dorsal stream.
Note: This occurs in the left hemisphere and reflects mature reading. In young children, Wernickea area is more involved as well as the ventral stream in the right hemisphere (which later disengages) for visuospatial information. Also, the left frontal lobe becomes engaged and is associated with reading fluency, which can be affected by frontal lobe immaturity.

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philosophy.hku.hk/courses/cogsci/ncc.php

What about the Right Hemisphere?

Dorsal and ventral streams follow a similar pathway in the right hemisphere, but because there is complementary communication between hemispheres, some psychologists prefer to think of only dorsal and ventral streams as the basis for reading. Nonetheless, the brain is lateralized for speech/language in the left hemisphere and spatial processing in the right hemisphere. In the right hemisphere: dorsal stream: discrimination of spatial location (includes where the item is located in space). ventral stream: discrimination of form (includes how to interact with an item) and is actively involved in early reading. Mathematics involves these spatial properties of the right hemisphere and later merges with left hemisphere language areas (i.e., math develops language components). Early reading involves the spatial components of the right hemisphere as well, until it becomes more lateralized to the left.