The aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical model and a set of terms for understanding and discussing how we recognize familiar faces, and the relationship between recognition and other aspects of face processing. It is suggested that there are seven distinct types of information that we derive from seen faces; these are labelled pictorial, structural, visually derived semantic, identity-specific semantic, name, expression and facial speech codes. A functional model is proposed in which structural encoding processes provide descriptions suitable for the analysis of facial speech, for analysis of expression and for face recognition units. Recognition of familiar faces involves a match between the products of structural encoding and previously stored structural codes describing the appearance of familiar faces, held in face recognition units. Identity-specific semantic codes are then accessed from person identity nodes, and subsequently name codes are retrieved. It is also proposed that the cognitive system plays an active role in deciding whether or not the initial match is sufficiently close to indicate true recognition or merely a ‘resemblance’; several factors are seen as influencing such decisions.

This functional model is used to draw together data from diverse sources including laboratory experiments, studies of everyday errors, and studies of patients with different types of cerebral injury. It is also used to clarify similarities and differences between processes responsible for object, word and face recognition.

Understanding face recognition

This article describes the Dual Route Cascaded (DRC) model, a computational model of visual word recognition and reading aloud. The DRC is a computational realization of the dual-route theory of reading, and is the only computational model of reading that can perform the 2 tasks most commonly used to study reading: lexical decision and reading aloud. For both tasks, the authors show that a wide variety of variables that influence human latencies influence the DRC model's latencies in exactly the same way. The DRC model simulates a number of such effects that other computational models of reading do not, but there appear to be no effects that any other current computational model of reading can simulate but that the DRC model cannot. The authors conclude that the DRC model is the most successful of the existing computational models of reading.

DRC: a dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud.

Social perception from visual cues : role of the STS region

Child psychiatrists, pediatricians, and other child clinicians need to have a solid understanding of child language development. There are at least four important reasons that make this necessary. First, slowing, arrest, and deviation of language development are highly associated with, and complicate the course of, child psychopathology. Second, language competence plays a crucial role in emotional and mood regulation, evaluation, and therapy. Third, language deficits are the most frequent underpinning of the learning disorders, ubiquitous in our clinical populations. Fourth, clinicians should not confuse the rich linguistic and dialectal diversity of our clinical populations with abnormalities in child language development. The challenge for the clinician becomes, then, how to get immersed in the captivating field of child language acquisition without getting overwhelmed by its conceptual and empirical complexity. In the past 50 years and since the seminal works of Roger Brown, Jerome Bruner, and Catherine Snow, child language researchers (often known as developmental psycholinguists) have produced a remarkable body of knowledge. Linguists such as Chomsky and philosophers such as Grice have strongly influenced the science of child language. One of the major tenets of Chomskian linguistics (known as generative grammar) is that children’s capacity to acquire language is “hardwired” with “universal grammar”—an innate language acquisition device (LAD), a language “instinct”—at its core. This view is in part supported by the assertion that the linguistic input that children receive is relatively dismal and of poor quality relative to the high quantity and quality of output that they manage to produce after age 2 and that only an advanced, innate capacity to decode and organize linguistic input can enable them to “get from here (prelinguistic infant) to there (linguistic child).” In “Constructing a Language,” Tomasello presents a contrasting theory of how the child acquires language: It is not a universal grammar that allows for language development. Rather, human cognition universals of communicative needs and vocal-auditory processing result in some language universals, such as nouns and verbs as expressions of reference and predication (p. 19). The author proposes that two sets of cognitive skills resulting from biological/phylogenetic adaptations are fundamental to the ontogenetic origins of language. These sets of inherited cognitive skills are intentionreading on the one hand and pattern-finding, on the other. Intention-reading skills encompass the prelinguistic infant’s capacities to share attention to outside events with other persons, establishing joint attentional frames, to understand other people’s communicative intentions, and to imitate the adult’s communicative intentions (an intersubjective form of imitation that requires symbolic understanding and perspective-taking). Pattern-finding skills include the ability of infants as young as 7 months old to analyze concepts and percepts (most relevant here, auditory or speech percepts) and create concrete or abstract categories that contain analogous items. Tomasello, a most prominent developmental scientist with research foci on child language acquisition and on social cognition and social learning in children and primates, succinctly and clearly introduces the major points of his theory and his views on the origins of language in the initial chapters. In subsequent chapters, he delves into the details by covering most language acquisition domains, namely, word (lexical) learning, syntax, and morphology and conversation, narrative, and extended discourse. Although one of the remaining domains (pragmatics) is at the core of his theory and permeates the text throughout, the relative paucity of passages explicitly devoted to discussing acquisition and proBOOK REVIEWS

Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition

This study examined code-related and oral language precursors to reading in a longitudinal study of 626 children from preschool through 4th grade. Code-related precursors, including print concepts and phonological awareness, and oral language were assessed in preschool and kindergarten. Reading accuracy and reading comprehension skills were examined in 1st through 4th grades. Results demonstrated that (a) the relationship between code-related precursors and oral language is strong during preschool; (b) there is a high degree of continuity over time of both code-related and oral language abilities; (c) during early elementary school, reading ability is predominantly determined by the level of print knowledge and phonological awareness a child brings from kindergarten; and (d) in later elementary school, reading accuracy and reading comprehension appear to be 2 separate abilities that are influenced by different sets of skills.

Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: Evidence from a longitudinal structural model.

The Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology, (DEAP) is a comprehensive, individually administered, norm-referenced battery designed to provide differential diagnoses of speech disorders in children ages 3.0-8.11 years. Five tests (two screens and three assessments) comprise the DEAP assessment process. Although you are not required to administer all test components, each screen can be administered in 5 minutes and each assessment in 15 minutes.

From the Diagnostic Screen results, you can determine if additional testing is needed and, if so, the appropriate DEAP test to administer. The Articulation, Phonology, and Word Inconsistency Assessments then help clinicians differentiate between disorders of articulation; delayed phonological development and consistent phonological disorders; and inconsistent phonological disorders, respectively. If there are concerns about a possible oral motor disorder, the Oral Motor Screen may be administered to determine if an in-depth assessment of oral motor skills is warranted.

Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology

This paper reports a normative study on the phonological development of British English-speaking children. Speech samples of 684 children, aged between 3;0 and 6;11 years, randomly selected from nurseries and schools in eight different areas throughout the UK, were collected and analysed to obtain normative data. This paper reports on two aspects of speech development: the age of acquisition of sounds (phonetic acquisition) and the age that error patterns were suppressed (phonemic acquisition). It discusses the effects of age, gender and socio-economic status on speech sound development. The study found that older children had more accurate production and fewer error patterns in their speech. It found no gender differences in the younger age groups. However, in the oldest age group, it found the phonological accuracy measures of girls' better than boys. It found no significant effects of socio-economic status on any of the phonological accuracy measures.

Phonological development: A normative study of British English-speaking children

Preface. General Preface. Contributors. Acknowledgements. PART I: UNDERSTANDING SPEECH-DISORDERED CHILDREN. Chapter 1. Children with speech disorder: defining the problem. Chapter 2. Children's quisition of phonology. Chapter 3. Differential diagnosis of phonological disorders. Chapter 4. Childhood apraxia of speech. Chapter 5. Epidemiology of speech disorders. Chapter 6. The relationship between specch disorder and language. PART II: TREATMENT OF PHONOLOGICAL DISORDER. Chapter 7. A problem-solving approach to clinical management. Chapter 8. A procedure for classification of speech disoder. Chapter 9. Phonological approaches to intervention. Chapter 10. Treating inconsistent speech disorders. Chapter 11. Childhood apraxia of speech: treatment case studies. Chapter 12. Clinical differences. PART III: SPEECH DISORDERS IN SPECIAL POPULATIONS. Chapter 13. Phonological abilities of children with cognitive impairment. Chapter 14. Hearing impairment. Chapter 15. The relationship between auditory processing and phonological impairment. Chapter 16. Bilingual children with phonological disorders: identification and intervention. Chapter 17. Understanding the relationship between speech and language impairment and literacy difficulties: the central role of phonology. Appendices. References. Index.

Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of Children with Speech Disorder

The phonological acquisition of 129 monolingual Putonghua-speaking children, aged 1;6 to 4;6, is described. Putonghua (Modern Standard Chinese) syllables have four possible elements: tone, syllable-initial consonant, vowel, and syllable-final consonant. The children's errors suggested that Putonghua-speaking children mastered these elements in the following order: tones were acquired first; then syllable-final consonants and vowels; and syllable-initial consonants were acquired last. Phonetic acquisition of the 21 syllable-initial consonants was complete by 3;6 for 75% of children. By 4;6 the children were using the syllable-initial consonants correctly on two thirds of occasions (with the exception of four affricates). Simple vowels emerged early in development. However, triphthongs and diphthongs were prone to systematic errors. Tone errors were rare, perhaps because of their role in distinguishing lexical meaning. In contrast, acquisition of 'weak stress' and 'rhotacized feature' was incomplete in the oldest children assessed. Phonological processes used by the children were identified. Two of these processes, syllable-initial consonant deletion and backing, would be considered atypical error patterns in English. Existing theories of phonological acquisition (e.g. concepts of markedness, functional load, feature hierarchies) cannot account for some of the patterns revealed. A satisfactory explanation of the findings requires more attention to the specific characteristics of the linguistic system the children are learning. It is proposed that the saliency of the components in the language system determines the order of acquisition.

Barbara Dodd

Papers

Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology

Phonological development: A normative study of British English-speaking children

Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of Children with Speech Disorder

The phonological acquisition of Putonghua (Modern Standard Chinese).

Lip reading in infants: attention to speech presented in- and out-of-synchrony.