Masters Thesis

Language Impairment Differences Between Bilinguals and Monolinguals with Right Hemisphere Brain Injuries

The right hemisphere (RH) plays a significant role in language and communication (Brookshire, 2007). However, its contributions are often overshadowed by those of its counterpart, the left hemisphere (LH). An acquired language disorder, or aphasia, occurs when a language area of the brain has been damaged (Darley, 1975). For most all monolinguals, aphasia occurs as a result of injury to the LH (Knecht et al., 2008). However, the organization of bilingual’s two languages is thought to not always mirror that of monolinguals. Bilinguals have been shown to have greater RH involvement in the processing of their second language (L2) than in their first language (L1), or than is seen for monolinguals (Ding, 2003). Given that there is greater RH participation for language in bilinguals, this study attempted to see if there were significant differences between the pattern of language deficit profiles in bilinguals compared to monolinguals following RH brain injury. And, subsequently, if injury to the RH caused different degrees of language impairment for bilinguals between their L1 and L2. The results demonstrated that bilinguals had greater language impairments in their L2 following RH injuries. Further, overall bilingual language deficits could not be predicted based on cognitive deficits and/or time since injury to the same degree of accuracy as monolinguals with RH injuries. These findings support the need to view bilinguals with RH brain injuries as distinct from monolinguals in order to best evaluate and treat the differences in etiology and impairment of their two languages.

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