Infants reacting to their given name

[Alex Housen]

Dear colleagues,

This is a request on behalf of a friend and colleague, who is a neuro-surgeon.

He and his team are measuring the brain activity of comatose,
minimally conscious and locked-in patients by exposing them to their
given names (as opposed to other first names).  The aim is to develop
a diagnostic for level of consciousness and a prognosis procedure for
recovery.
My colleague's assumption is that a person's given name is the most
'ingrained' of all linguistic stimuli.  He has references indicating
that the given name is retained the longest in the case of dementia,
and that it is the first stimulus to which patients react after total
anesthesia.
He is now looking for references that show (or suggest) that the
given name is the first specific 'word' or self-contained linguistic
unit which infants recognize or somehow react to.  He suspects that
this capacity develops before the age of 7 months.

Please send any references or comments to me.  I will pass them on
and summarize for the list.

Thanks for your help.

--
Alex HOUSEN
Germanic Languages Dept. &  Centre for Linguistics
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Alex.Housen at vub.ac.be