LE3 .A278 2013

2013

Newman, Randy Lynn

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology

Psychology

The current study examined the language abilities of a child, RS, who has Congenital Disorder of Glycosylation (CDG). Due to severe verbal and motor impairments, event-related potentials provide the only suitable means to assess her cognitive functioning. Typically developing children served as a comparison group in two experiments. In the first, participants heard their own names interspersed with seven others. Both RS and the comparison group displayed a larger negativity to their own names compared to other names. The second experiment had two conditions. In the word condition, a standard word was replaced on some trials by a second word, the deviant. In the pseudoword condition, a standard word was replaced by a pseudoword deviant. While the comparison group elicited a mismatch negativity (MMN) to word and pseudoword deviants, RS elicited an MMN-like response to pseudoword deviants only. Overall, RS appears to recognize her own name and distinguish words from pseudowords. Keywords: language, children, Congenital Disorder of Glycosylation (CDG), event-related potentials (ERP), mismatch negativity (MMN), P300, name recognition, auditory.

The author retains copyright in this thesis. Any substantial copying or any other actions that exceed fair dealing or other exceptions in the Copyright Act require the permission of the author.

https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:995