Vocabulary growth rate from preschool to school-age years is reflected in the connectivity of the arcuate fasciculus in 14-year-old children.

Mengmeng Su, Michel Thiebaut de Schotten, Jingjing Zhao, Shuang Song, Wei Zhou, Gaolang Gong, Catherine McBride, Franck Ramus, Hua Shu
Dev Sci. 2018-02-06; 21(5): e12647
DOI: 10.1111/desc.12647

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1. Dev Sci. 2018 Sep;21(5):e12647. doi: 10.1111/desc.12647. Epub 2018 Feb 6.

Vocabulary growth rate from preschool to school-age years is reflected in the
connectivity of the arcuate fasciculus in 14-year-old children.

Su M(1)(2)(3), Thiebaut de Schotten M(4), Zhao J(5), Song S(1)(6), Zhou W(7),
Gong G(1), McBride C(8), Ramus F(2), Shu H(1).

Author information:
(1)State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern
Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
(2)Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (ENS, CNRS, EHESS),
Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Paris, France.
(3)College of Elementary Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China.
(4)Brain Connectivity and Behaviour Group, Brain and Spine Institute (ICM), CNRS,
UMR 7225, INSERM-UPMC, UMRS 1127, Paris, France.
(5)School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University and Key Laboratory for
Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience of Shaanxi Province, Xi’an, China.
(6)College of Teacher Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China.
(7)Beijing Key Lab of Learning and Cognition, School of Psychology, Capital
Normal University, Beijing, China.
(8)Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
China.

The acquisition of language involves the functional specialization of several
cortical regions. Connectivity between these brain regions may also change with
the development of language. Various studies have demonstrated that the arcuate
fasciculus was essential for language function. Vocabulary learning is one of the
most important skills in language acquisition. In the present longitudinal study,
we explored the influence of vocabulary development on the anatomical properties
of the arcuate fasciculus. Seventy-nine Chinese children participated in this
study. Between age 4 and age 10, they were administered the same vocabulary task
repeatedly. Following a previous study, children’s vocabulary developmental
trajectories were clustered into three subgroups (consistently good, catch-up,
consistently poor). At age 14, diffusion tensor imaging data were collected.
Using ROI-based tractography, the anterior, posterior and direct segments of the
bilateral arcuate fasciculus were delineated in each child’s native space. Group
comparisons showed a significantly reduced fractional anisotropy in the left
arcuate fasciculus of children in the consistently poor group, in particular in
the posterior and direct segments of the arcuate fasciculus. No group differences
were observed in the right hemisphere, nor in the left anterior segment. Further
regression analyses showed that the rate of vocabulary development, rather than
the initial vocabulary size, was a specific predictor of the left arcuate
fasciculus connectivity.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

DOI: 10.1111/desc.12647
PMID: 29411464 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Auteurs Bordeaux Neurocampus