Kids Use Both Brain Hemispheres to Process Language, Unlike Adults

Infants and young kids have brains with a superpower, of sorts, say neuroscientists. Whereas grownups process most discrete neural tasks in distinct areas in one or the other of their brain's two hemispheres, children use both the right and left hemispheres to do the same task. This finding suggests a potential reason why kids appear to recover from neural injury much easier than adults. The findings of the study are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study focuses on one task, language, and finds that kids use both hemispheres to understand language. This finding matches previous and ongoing research, led by Georgetown neurology professor Elissa L. Newport, Ph.D.

‘Children use both the brain hemisphere to understand language- more specifically, processing spoken sentences. ’

The use of both hemispheres can provide a mechanism to compensate after a neural injury. For example, if the left hemisphere is injured from a perinatal stroke, a child will learn a language with the right hemisphere. A kid born with cerebral palsy that damages only one hemisphere can develop required cognitive skills in the other hemisphere.

This study solves a mystery that has baffled clinicians and neuroscientists for a long time, says Newport.

Source: Medindia