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From: Pat Roberts
Date: 06 Oct 2010
Time: 20:29:27 -0500
Remote Name: 74.198.12.5
Hi Rosalee, Your reply to this post and one other both mention neural plasticity as a key factor to explain why speech improves with treatment (and improves more with treatment than without). I agree. There is more and more evidence, even in older adults, that speech and language therapy changes patterns of brain activation. In young children, whose brains are still building many of the connections and activation patterns, it is reasonable to expect that treatment will have an even stronger impact than it does in adults. This neural plasticity in young brains is one of the arguments in favour of early treatment. As you say, we need fMRI and other types of scans to confrim this, once the scanning methods are deemed safe enough for young children. I wonder ... what is the youngest age at which different types of studies of brain activation have been done (whether fMRI, or ERPs or other types)?