Biological and social factors in psycholinguistics

Biological and social factors in psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes that make it possible for humans to master and use language. Psycholinguists conduct research on speech development and language development and how individuals of all ages comprehend and produce language. For descriptions of language, the field relies on the findings of linguistics, which is the discipline that describes the structure of language. Although the acquisition, comprehension, and production of language have been at the core of psycholinguistic research, the field has expanded considerably since its inception: The neurology of language functioning is of current interest to psycholinguists, particularly to those studying sex differences, aphasia, language after congenital or acquired injury to the immature brain, and developmental disorders of language (dysphasia). Some psycholinguists have also extended their interests to experiments in nonhuman language learning (e.g., gorillas and chimpanzees) to discover if language as we know it is a uniquely human phenomenon.

Psycholinguistic Training

Psycholinguistic training is an approach to training people in processes that they are believed to be deficit in. It was at one time a major intervention approach for students with learning disabilities. Training approaches were often based on results from a very popular test called the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). This test measured integrative, receptive, and expressive linguistic abilities through presenting test subjects with information through visual and auditory channels. The assumption was made in this treatment approach, as in others, that discrete psycholinguistic abilities can be measured directly and then remediated. This assumption has been the subject of intense research scrutiny throughout the 1970s and 1980s. There were those who claimed with data that psycholinguistic training was generally not effective, and others with data who refuted these claims, stating that psycholinguistic training provided discrete benefits. The claims and counterclaims become a bit confusing. However, based on a review of the existing literature by this author, it appears that at least some of the areas measured by psycholinguistic assessments can be enhanced by psycholinguistic training. Particularly in the “expressive” areas of manual expression and verbal expression, evidence appears to confirm that these areas can be improved moderately through direct training. In the other 10 subareas measured by the ITPA, it appears that the effects of training are more modest.