Functional MRI of language lateralization during development in children

Changes in the distribution of language function in the brain have been documented from infancy through adulthood. Even macroscopic measures of language lateralization reflect a dynamic process of language development. In this review, we summarize a series of functional MRI studies of language skills in children ages of five to 18 years,both typically-developing children and children with brain injuries or neurological disorders that occur at different developmental stages with different degrees of severity. These studies used a battery of fMRI-compatible language tasks designed to tap sentential and lexical language skills that develop early and later in childhood.