Using language to parse the young damaged brain.

Functional distinctions within the language domain can be used to parse the young damaged brain. Parsing means resolving something into its component parts and describing them; parsing the young damaged brain with language involves selecting and grouping features of early brain damage according to how they sustain or disrupt the language performance of brain-injured children and adolescents. And the nature of neural representation for language can be inferred from such brain parsing. Three language factors concerned with lexical access were identified as discrete, that is, as isolable from other language functions in a brain-damaged population, and also as distinct, that is, as having a characteristic set of brain damage features that sustain or disrupt them. Criteria were also outlined for judging the lexical access factors as autonomous, that is, as able to maintain their boundaries with other language functions in the face of brain damage.