Gender Difference in Grammar
Most children
make adorable slip-ups in grammar when they’re learning
to speak. Now scientists say the mistakes could vary by gender.
Boys and
girls tend to use different parts of their brain to learn some fundamental
parts of grammar, according to a new study.
“Sex has
been virtually ignored in studies of the learning, representation, processing
and neural bases of language,” said lead author Michael Ullman, a
neuroscientist at Georgetown University. “This study shows that differences
between males and females may be an important factor in these cognitive
processes.”
For the
study, published in Developmental Science, researchers investigated the
different brain systems that children used when they made mistakes like
“Yesterday I holded the bunny.” They found that girls tended to use a process that
dealt with memorizing words and associations between them, whereas boys used a
process governing the rules of language.
Research
has shown that women tend to be better at tasks that employ what is called
declarative memory, such as
memorizing word lists. They use what is called a “mental lexicon” to memorize
and remember words. Procedural memory, controlled by a different part of the
brain, is used to combine words in sentences—research has shown both genders
may use this process equally well.
“Although
the two sexes seem to be doing the same thing, and doing it equally well, they
are using two different neurocognitive brain processes to do it,” Ullman said.
Men and
women may process words differently because of different levels of the
hormone estrogen,
which is much higher in females and affects brain
processing, according to Ullman. 
clipped from: www.livescience.com