Illiteracy and brain damage

Right unilateral spatial neglect in aphasic patients

“…The findings of the present study are similar to those of Lecours et al (1987) in which USN more often appeared during the presentation of complex sentences than during simple sentences in the LBD group, while no such difference was observed in the RBD group. However, these authors did not provide information regarding the number of aphasics in the LBD group.…”

“…However, these authors did not provide information regarding the number of aphasics in the LBD group. Lecours et al (1987) suggested that the right USN observed in LBD patients might appear only when the linguistic level of the task is beyond the decoding ability preserved in the left hemisphere.…”

“…To date, only a few studies have investigated USN in aphasics using language tasks. Lecours et al (1987) investigated the difference in responses between LBD and RBD patients using auditory comprehension tasks that required them to match verbal stimuli consisting of simple and complex sentences with line-drawn pictures. These authors reported that right USN in LBD subjects primarily manifested with complex sentences whereas left USN in RBD subjects manifested regardless of the complexity of the target sentences.…”

The Attention System of the Human Brain

“…It seems likely that these hemispheric specializations are neither absolute nor innate, but may instead develop over time, perhaps in conjunction with the development of literacy. Although the role of literacy in lateralization is not clear, there is some evidence that the degree of lateralization found in nonliterate normals and patients differs from that found in literate populations (Lecours et al 1988).…”

Developmental instability and cerebral lateralization.

“…These results suggest that developmental instability influences variation in the lateralization of cognitive skills as well as handedness.What determines individual variation in cerebral lateralization? Though nongenetic factors, such as acquired brain damage (Satz, 1972) or environmental influences (Laland, Kumm, Van Horn, & Feldman, 1995;Lecours, Mehler, & Parente, 1989), may well affect patterns of cerebral lateralization, genetic influences may also play a substantial role. Genetic theories have focused on two particular manifestations of cerebral lateralization, handedness and language production skill, to the relative neglect of other functional asymmetries (e.g., spatial and emotional processing).…”