LURIAS LANGUAGE THEORY WITHIN A COGNITIVE THEORY - A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

Luria's functional organization of the brain, and views on language, h ave influenced major developments in conceptualizing cognitive process es and linguistic abilities; research by a Canadian group in these are as is presented in this paper. Aspects of language such as paradigmati c and syntagmatic associations, and the failure to acquire phonologica l coding, are considered in several empirical studies. The theoretical context for them is provided by a theory that considers four primary cognitive processes: planning, arousal-attention, simultaneous and suc cessive processing. The theory provides an understanding for linguisti c development in children which is a significant extension of Luria's clinical work. It confirms the validity of the four cognitive processe s outside the clinical population.