To show the organization of the course that includes this module, follow this link:  Course organization

Learning outcomes

Provide students general principles of brain development, child development, and language development. Describe major disorders of child development associated with impaired language development. Discuss treatment opportunities (either speech therapy or physical therapy related to oral functions) according to major neurodevelopmental disorders and diseases affecting such functions.

Program

Development: Definition
1. A-Principles of Development: a. determinism in development: genetic determination and species-specificity; b. factors influencing developmental trajectories: intrinsic factors (e.g. CNS structures organization and connectivity) vs extrinsic factors (pre- and post-natal enviromental cues).
B-Development of CNS Structures as Biological Foundation of Neurological and Psychological functions; Role of the Environment-development of neuromuscular structures, of sensory organs, of CNS;-pre- and post-natal development of functions;-relationship between CNS development, functional activities and enviroment as to the maturation of competences -the mature brain from functional standpoints: the cognitive brain, the social brain, the emotional brain.
2. Timeline of Child Development and Onset of Functions: Pre-Natal period; Early Post-Natal period; The First and Second year: organizers of intra-psychic life; the individualization/separation; the attachment; Pre-School age and onset of social activities; School age and learning abilities. Definition of Function as compared to Competence: Movement, Cognition, Social Activities and Communication; Emotion and their recognition, Play abilities.
3. Language: speech and language definitions; principles of neurobiology; development of language: universal speech production vs language-specific speech production; speech perception; timeline of language and speech progression; speech disorders vs language disorders: primary (genetically determined) language disorders; speech disorders (speech production and reception); speech regression in infancy.
4. Neurodevelopmental Disorders: language and speech-related issues. Intellectual Disability; Autistic Spectrum Disorder; Specific Language Impairment.
5. Neurological Disorders in Childhood and related isssues: speech function, oral praxias (chewing, swallowing, drooling, etc). Static Encephalopathies; Progressive Encephalopathies; Neuromuscular Disorders.
6. Childhood Psychopathology

Examination Methods

Multiple-choice test (18 items); 2 short assays related to 2 specific issues. Duration: 90 minutes

Scoring:
multiple-choice test: correct answer: score 1; partially correct answer: score fractions of 1; invalid answer: score 0;
the score obtained by the sum of the answers is normalized according to a correction factor.
short assay: score 1 (or fractions) to according to the quality and appropriateness of the assay