The capability to change and adapt, known as plasticity, is one of the most impressive features of the human brain. It is most pronounced during childhood development. While a child acquires various cognitive skills, the brain matures alongside. Language learning is such a process that occurs naturally across childhood development, supposedly within a sensitive period. Originally, the sensitive period for language acquisition was thought to close at puberty, after which language learning was believed to be near impossible. This view has since been challenged and it is now suggested that there are multiple sensitive periods for various aspects of language acquisition. Some aspects are rather well established, e.g. the vocabulary spurt, while others, e.g. comprehension of complex sentences, are not yet fully understood. I was interested in whether and how these two aspects of language learning could be ad- vanced through training within the framework of sensitive periods and how this related to structural plasticity in the healthy developing brain. First, natural gray matter maturation was examined. The results support the existing literature of different trajectories for each gray matter mea- sure and provide new evidence for the widespread maturational process of cortical thinning to be in progress already at four years of age. Second, a word learning training was applied to investigate underlying plastic changes during an ongoing sensitive period of word learning. I found that language-specific inferior frontal areas, as well as domain-general parietal regions, responded to training with gray matter changes. Third, training-induced plasticity was examined at the onset of a sensitive period for complex syntax comprehension. Here, frontal domain-general regions showed plastic changes, but no language-specific regions were engaged. This study underlines the importance of task demands and the crucial role of general processes (e. g. attention and memory) under- lying higher-order tasks such as language learning. The changes to the gray matter structure as a function of language training during specific points in sensitive periods of language acquisition are discussed and I point out how these findings compliment and extend the current literature on brain plasticity in childhood development in the context of cognitive training.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:76884 |
| Date | 07 December 2021 |
| Creators | Kühn, Clara |
| Contributors | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/updatedVersion, doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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