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A role for putamen in phonological processing in children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2016

SARIKA CHERODATH ,
CHAITRA RAO ,
RASHI MIDHA ,
SUMATHI T A  and
NANDINI C SINGH
SARIKA CHERODATH
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, India
CHAITRA RAO
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, India
RASHI MIDHA
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, India
SUMATHI T A
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, India
NANDINI C SINGH*
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, India
*
Address for correspondence: Nandini C Singh, National Brain Research Centre, Manesar, India – 122051nandini@nbrc.ac.in
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Abstract

Bilingual children are required to successfully develop phonological skills in two languages, yet little is known about the neural correlates associated with them. We obtained structural imaging data from 30 Hindi–English children aged between 8 and 10 years and used voxel based morphometry to explore neuroanatomical correlates of behavioural measures of phonological awareness. Our results showed that phonological skills in English are predicted by grey matter volume of bilateral putamen, but solely by right putamen in Hindi. Post-hoc analysis revealed that English nonword reading correlates with grey matter volume in bilateral putamen while in Hindi nonword reading it correlates only with right putamen. These differences in putamen-based mechanisms indicate that syllable level awareness sufficiently supports early literacy in the transparent, alphasyllabic Hindi orthography whereas that in English requires both phonemic and syllabic level awareness. Our findings point towards a key role for putamen in mediating phonological and reading skills in children.

Keywords

Bilingualismphonological awarenessvoxel-based morphometryreading
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 20 , Special Issue 2: Cross-linguistic Priming in Bilinguals: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Language Processing, Acquisition and Change , March 2017 , pp. 318 - 326
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and National Brain Research Centre. We would like to thank Mr. Jitender Ahlawat for assistance in MRI data acquisition and Dr. Megha Sharda and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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