This study investigates language use by three-year-old children during peer interaction. The subjects were five children ranging in age from three years, three months to three years, nine months. Five episodes of their interaction were studied and analyzed. As a control, thirteen episodes of interaction among three children and their nursery school teacher were used. The results of the analysis are as follows. 1) In terms of communication skills, most of the interaction consisted of parallel use of utterances and non-linguistic action. 2) In terms of conversation rules, turn-taking was rapid, diversified, and unsettled. 3) Language functions were composed of requests for a single action and responses. There was a wider range of language functions in the control group. 4) Conversation rules for marking the end of a conversation were not used. This study suggests the need for classifying in more detail language functions from the developmental viewpoint.

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Following a discussion of the structure and function of DNA and how the mutation of DNA causes disease, this paper presents genetic analyses of three different kinds of developmental disabilities. In Lesch-Nyhan syndrome or HPRT deficiency, mutations linked to this syndrome were found to occur randomly throughout the HPRT gene. The genetic analyses of a very rare female case, first found in our institution, is also presented here. With erythrocyte AMP deaminase deficiency, 75% of the mutations were of the same type and 25% of various types. In the third case, over 99% of FGFR3 mutations, which causes achondroplasia, were found at the specific transmembrane domain. This paper thus illustrates how three developmental disabilities can be correlated with different types of genetic mutations.

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Three different types of research have been carried out on brain-mind relationships: 1) research on the anatomical correlates of special talents (for example, perfect pitch) or deficits (for example, dyslexia), 2) research on the relationship between a given cognitive syndrome and the site of brain damage, and 3) research on localizing cognitive functions in vivo brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and position emission tomography (PET). fMRI is a technique of unparalleled importance because it is non-invasive. This paper presents a tutorial covering basic aspects of this technique as well as a report on recent research results from our laboratory concerning fMRI data related to language and emotion.

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