Language Stimuli Screening in Children

This study will determine baseline language skills in children 4 to 8 years old. The data will be used to design studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify what areas of the brain in children are involved in understanding language. This information is important for children who require brain surgery to control seizures. Healthy normal volunteers between the ages of 4 and 8 years who have an IQ of 70 or more; who have no history of neurologic, psychiatric or language disorder; who are performing at or above grade level, and who are native English speakers may be eligible for this study. Participants will be asked to do the following: name pictures or read words that appear on a computer screen listen to stories and answer questions about them match pictures to a spoken word The children's responses will be recorded.

We propose to study normal children to establish baseline data to use to develop novel sets of stimuli for functional imaging paradigms. Tasks using these stimuli will include object naming, sentence comprehension, and single word reading.

INCLUSION CRITERIA: Children will be between the ages 4 and 8 are eligible. EXCLUSION CRITERIA: Children who meet one of the following criteria are not eligible: IQ below 70; History of neurologic or psychiatric disorders; History of an language disorder; Performing below grade-level; Non-native English speaker.

Hertz-Pannier L, Gaillard WD, Mott SH, Cuenod CA, Bookheimer SY, Weinstein S, Conry J, Papero PH, Schiff SJ, Le Bihan D, Theodore WH. Noninvasive assessment of language dominance in children and adolescents with functional MRI: a preliminary study. Neurology. 1997 Apr;48(4):1003-12. doi: 10.1212/wnl.48.4.1003.

Devinsky O, Perrine K, Llinas R, Luciano DJ, Dogali M. Anterior temporal language areas in patients with early onset of temporal lobe epilepsy. Ann Neurol. 1993 Nov;34(5):727-32. doi: 10.1002/ana.410340517.

Cycowicz YM, Friedman D, Rothstein M, Snodgrass JG. Picture naming by young children: norms for name agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. J Exp Child Psychol. 1997 May;65(2):171-237. doi: 10.1006/jecp.1996.2356.