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Embodied language and early motor restriction: evidence from children with obstetric brachial plexus palsy and arthrogryposis
Embodied and embedded cognition (EEC) theory proposes that language and cognitive development emerge from bodily interactions with the environment, yet empirical tests of this claim in clinical developmental populations remain rare. This mini-review synthesizes behavioral, electrophysiological, and structural neuroimaging evidence from children with serious early motor disorders—obstetric brachial plexus palsy and arthrogryposis multiplex congenita—which restrict upper limb movement from birth or before, providing a unique opportunity to test EEC predictions in a motor-restricted population. The results reveal a gradient of cognitive and linguistic alterations: from domain-specific deficits in action-verb semantics and verbal fluency, to broader impairments in memory, categorical reasoning, and naturalistic neural processing. Based on these multimodal findings, we propose that early sensorimotor restriction does not only affect motor systems but may shape the neurodevelopmental trajectory of language and other distributed cognitive architectures through mechanisms of embodied grounding.