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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 31, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
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Splenium development and early spoken language in human infants.

Meghan R Swanson1, Jason J Wolff1,2, Jed T Elison3

  • 1The Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Developmental Science
|October 23, 2015
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Summary

Infant brain development shows that changes in the splenium of the corpus callosum from 6 to 24 months predict later language production. Other language pathways did not show this early association.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Radiology

Background:

  • Language acquisition is a complex process influenced by the development of white matter fiber pathways in the brain.
  • Understanding early brain development is crucial for identifying the neural underpinnings of language skills.
  • Previous research often focused on older children and adults, leaving a gap in infant developmental trajectory studies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the association between the developmental trajectories of language-related white matter pathways in infants and their language production abilities.
  • To examine the role of specific white matter tracts, including the splenium of the corpus callosum and pathways like the arcuate fasciculi, in early language development.
  • To test the hypothesis that neural circuitry development related to orienting skills influences later language performance.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) scans from 77 typically developing infants at 6, 12, and 24 months of age.
  • Assessed language production in the infants at 24 months of age.
  • Analyzed the rate of change in fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of white matter integrity, in specific brain regions.

Main Results:

  • A significant association was found between the rate of change in splenium of the corpus callosum development (FA) and language production at 24 months.
  • Infants with greater increases in splenium FA from 6 to 24 months produced more words at 24 months.
  • No significant associations were observed between language production and FA in the arcuate fasciculi, uncinate fasciculi, or left inferior longitudinal fasciculi in this infant sample.

Conclusions:

  • The study highlights the critical role of tracing brain development trajectories from infancy to understand emerging brain-behavior associations.
  • The splenium of the corpus callosum emerges as a key structural network node supporting spoken language acquisition in early development.
  • Early white matter development, particularly in the splenium, is a significant predictor of subsequent language production skills.