A. Caramazza, PARALLELS AND DIVERGENCES IN THE ACQUISITION AND DISSOLUTION OF LANGUAGE, Philosophical transactions-Royal Society of London. Biological sciences, 346(1315), 1994, pp. 121-127
Analyses of the relation between the acquisition and dissolution of la
nguage have typically focused on whether or not the forms of language
dysfunction that result from brain damage correspond to specific stage
s of language acquisition: the Regression Hypothesis. These analyses h
ave not met with great success: although there are a number of superfi
cial similarities between aphasic disorders and different stages of th
e immature linguistic system, there are also important differences. I
will suggest that a focus on the behavioral similarities between langu
age acquisition and dissolution is unlikely to be productive. A more p
roductive course would be to focus, instead, on the general principles
that constrain the acquisition and dissolution of language.