Further differences have been observed in the grey-matter density of the posterior parietal cortex, as well as in right-hemisphere involvement (Wattendorf & Festman, 2008). There are differences in the physiological brain function of early and late bilinguals, for example in the left inferior frontal gyrus, which modulates syntactic processing, word generation and sentence generation. This phenomenon was highlighted in a survey of bilingual aphasic patients who had suffered from asymmetrical language impairment, with preservation of their first acquired language (Paradis, 1997). the earliest acquired language) (Mendez et al, 1999). In dementia, new information is retained the least well and older information is preserved for longer this is similar to what is observed in multilingual patients who revert to their mother tongue (i.e. The language first recovered may be the one acquired earliest, the predominant one or the one spoken in the patient’s environment. In aphasic multilingual patients, recovery in one language is usually accompanied by recovery in another, but non-parallel recovery is also seen (Mendez et al, 1999). In sub-coordinate bilingualism, one language dominates.įindings in aphasic multilinguals or polyglots A coordinate bilingual person acquires the two languages in different contexts, say in home and in school, so that the words of two languages belong to separate and independent systems. Individuals who learn two languages in the same environment so that they acquire one notion with two verbal expressions are compound bilinguals. D’Acierno also noted three types of bilingualism: compound bilingualism, coordinate bilingualism and sub-coordinate bilingualism. By definition ‘monolingual’ means the ability to speak only one language, ‘bilingual’ two languages and ‘multilingual’ several languages.ĭ’Acierno ( 1990) describes the acquisition of a first language as an intrinsic component of a child’s overall social and cognitive development, whereas the learning of a second language need not be so. Language has been described as comprising symbols that convey meaning and also the rules for combining those symbols. A more comprehensive understanding of this group of patients could be achieved if professionals were aware of some of the implications of multi lingualism for their patients. There is an increasing need to understand the linguistic changes faced by multilingual patients from ethnic minorities who suffer from dementia. It highlights the needs of dementia patients who belong to ethnic minorities and tries to predict what problems may arise if services are not appropriately geared to managing this particular group. The National Dementia Strategy was launched in the UK in 2009.
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