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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Language and cognition in a bilingual child after traumatic brain injury in infancy: long-term plasticity and
Alessandro Tavano1, Susanna Galbiati, Monica Recla
1Neurolinguistics Unit, Scientific Institute E. Medea, Via Cialdini 29, Pasian di Prato (UD), Italy. alessandro.tavano@pp.Lnf.it
Primary Objective:
This study aimed at investigating the long-term effects of the combination of severity of injury and time of injury in a 6-year-old bilingual Arabic-Italian child who sustained a severe left traumatic brain injury at the age of 7 months.
Methods And Procedures:
Standard neurological, cognitive and neuropsychological assessments were administered at 40 days after surgery and again at 18, 31, 62 and 73 months.
Main Outcomes And Results:
The child presented with developmental arrest at 18 and 31 months. Later on, right hemiparetic and oculomotor signs gradually improved to a significant extent, as well as dysexecutive, visuospatial and praxic deficits. At present, persistent language disorders in a fluent speech characterize the child's profile to a similar extent and type in both languages, suggesting common underlying learning strategies which are ineffective for procedurally acquiring language.
Conclusions:
This case confirms that children who sustain severe left hemisphere traumatic brain injury in infancy present with increased vulnerability to linguistic deficits. Left frontotemporal, cortical-subcortical lesions which occur during very early language development may permanently disrupt the procedural language acquisition network required for first language acquisition.
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