Tag Archives: brain lateralization

Traditionally, we think of the “speech center” for the brain as being located in the left hemisphere. In fact, over ninety-five percent of people who are right handed have dominant left hemispheres when it comes to speech (Kalat, 2013). It is thought that the hippocampal formation in the left hemisphere in the left medial temporal lobe plays a critical role in the lateralization of language. When a brain is young, the synaptic density is greater than it is in the adult brain. Progressive localization of function occurs throughout development as neural nets constrict, the number of synapses declines, and processing becomes more efficient (Knecht, 2004).