locus, and this has been the explanation to some nonparallel recovery patterns. based on further studies with communication deficits associated with right hemisphere lesions, it can be safely assumed that the right hemisphere is crucial to processing the pragmatics of using languages. with bilinguals, they are likely to compensate for their gaps in linguistic understandings in their weaker language by increasing reliance on their pragmatics. therefore, it is highly expect that they will be involving the use of the right hemisphere to allow this process, and thus further supporting the notion of lateralization of multiple languages. there are two proposed theoretical views generally taken to approach bilingual aphasia. the more traditional localizationist view, states that the loss of one language occurs because the patient's languages are represented in different brain areas or in different hemispheres. thus, if one area is damaged, only the language represented there would suffer, and the others would not. the second view is the dynamic view of selective language recovery, which proposes that the language system of representation and control is compromised as a result of damage. this theory is supported by the functional imaging data of normal bilinguals and holds that fluency in a language is lost because of an increase in the activation threshold. the dynamic view offers an explanation for selective recovery of language and many reported recovery patterns in bilingual aphasia (see recovery) there is much debate over which hemisphere supports the languages and which intrahemispheric neural regions represent each language within a bilingual individual. most neuroimaging studies show no laterality differences between monolingual and bilingual speakers, supporting the hypothesis that languages share some areas of the brain, but also have some separate neural areas. right hemisphere damage has been shown to result in the same patterns of cognitive-communication deficits in monolinguals and bilinguals; however, bilingual speakers who have left hemisphere damage are shown to be at risk for aphasia while monolingual individuals are not. bilingual aphasia test in the past, the assessment of aphasia in bilinguals or multilinguals was only available in the language of the hospital. this was problematic because the professionals performing these assessments often misjudged the patient's recovery progress in the non native languages of the professional. to solve this issue, the bilingual aphasia test (bat) was developed by michel paradis and associates. the test was developed as an instrument to assess aphasia with more accuracy. the test is available in many different languages and is designed to be equivalent in its content, and not merely translations of each other. components of linguistic construction of some languages do not directly translate to other languages (i.e. passive in english). therefore, the tests are designed to be culturally and linguistically equivalent. the goal of the tests is to tap into the same information in different languages with respect to the rationale that motivated the constructions. the bat consists of 3 major sections, each listed as part a, part b, and part c. patients are required to take each section accordingly. part b examines language performance in 4 modalities: hearing, speaking, reading, and writing. at the word, sentence, and paragraph level, the patient is tested on level of linguistic skill (phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic). part c is used to assess the ability of the subject to translate material between given pairs of their known languages. there are currently 65 available languages for part b and 160 language pairs available for part c. the specifics and associated cultures of each languages were accounted for and the materials of these sections were adapted accordingly rather than being directly translated. an example follows where, in a friulian and english pair, the english stimuli included “mat, cat, bat, hat” and the friulian counterpart (which included 4 words that differed solely by one initial phoneme) was represented as “‘cjoc, c¸oc, poc, toc’ (drunk, log, chicory, piece).” the response of the patients are recorded and processed with computer programs that indicate the percentage of correct answers for each linguistic skill. thus, with the bat, the assessment of bilingual aphasia allows a direct comparison of the knowledge and performance of each of the patient’s languages to determine the severity of the aphasia. recovery the concept of different recovery patterns was first noted by albert pitres in 1895. since then, seven patterns have been outlined, where differential recovery, alternating recovery, alternating antagonistic recovery, and blended recovery were additionally noted by michel paradis: selective recovery – one language remains impaired and the other recovers; the activation threshold for the impaired language is permanently increased parallel recovery of both languages (i.e., when both impaired languages improve to a similar extent and concurrently); successive recovery (i.e., when complete recovery of one language precedes the recovery of the other); differential recovery – occurs when there is greater inhibition of one language than of another alternating recovery (i.e., the language that was first recovered will be lost again due to the recovery of the language that was not first recovered); alternating antagonistic recovery – in which the language that was not used for a time becomes the currently used language (i.e., on one day the patient is able to speak in one language while the next day only in the other); and blended recovery – pathological mixing of two languages (i.e., the elements of the two languages are involuntarily mixed during language production) these patterns arise due to the state of the cerebral substrate. research has proposed that it is not due to the cerebral substrate being physically destroyed, but due to its weakened state that has led to the different forms of inhibition. this weakening of the system has been tied to the idea of increased inhibition, which is when the threshold in activation for that system rises unnaturally due to damage. this leads to languages being inhibited in various was, and thus, resulting in variations in the recovery, and sometimes non-recovery, of the languages. research that compares the prevalence of the different recovery patterns generally shows that the most common pattern of recovery is parallel recovery, followed by differential, blended, selective, and successive. in regards to differential recovery, better recovery of l1 is shown to be slightly more common than better recovery of l2. in 1977, it was proposed that when the effects of age, proficiency, context of acquisition, and type of bilingualism are combined, the recovery pattern of a bilingual aphasic can be properly predicted. it has recently been reported that language status (how frequently the language is used in comparison to other languages), lesion type or site, the context in which the languages were used, the type of aphasia, and the manner in which the language could not reliably predict recovery patterns. in comparison to monolinguals, bilinguals have shown to have a better recovery after stroke. as with alzheimer's patients, bilingual patients who have suffered an ischemic stroke have shown to have a better cognitive outcome which researchers believe is due to a higher cognitive reserve. this increase of cognitive reserve might be attributed to the increase of grey matter in bilingual individuals. since bilingual individuals have to constantly change and inhibit a language, the brain is more used to brain training and has been able to optimize better the space it uses. brain training has led researchers to believe is a factor that helps stroke patients recover faster and better. bilingual individuals then are able to benefit more from rehabilitation after stroke compared to monolingual patients because the brain has a higher plasticity ability that allows for a better remodeling of the brain after stroke. stroke patients (bilinguals) with aphasia also perform better in other cognitive tasks that measure attention and ability to organize and retrieve information. this is attributed again to the increase of grey matter since it is involved in cognitive control and higher cognitive functions that are more present in bilinguals. this is relevant since in some patients the automatization of language is impaired, highly correlated to basal ganglia lesions and anterior parietal cortex. although it is uncommon for patients to lose automatization of the first language, basal ganglia lesions have been correlated to loss of automatization of language, which fits with the role of basal ganglia in automatized motor and cognitive performance. this is more evident with patients who have acquired a second language at a later age since studies suggest that late bilingual aphasics' syntactic judgment abilities may be more impaired for the second language. acquisition of language at a later age changes the mapping of language in the brain since the languages do not overlap. this difference in mapping seems to be a contributing factor in recovery for patients with bilingual aphasia since there are second language-restricted zones that are dedicated to the first language. nonetheless, age of acquisition also shows to be a factor in the degree of recovery of stroke patients due to differences in language mapping and the amount of grey matter developed. studies have shown stroke patients are able to benefit more from rehabilitation and recover faster if they have acquired a new skill that requires high cognitive ability due to more extensive brain training. this is true also for patients who have acquired a new skill at a later age. nonetheless, stroke patients who have acquired a skill (second language in this case) early on have a higher chance of recovery than those who acquired i.e. language later on. this is again attributed to the higher grey matter area that those with early acquisition have developed. the bimodal bilingual brain bimodal bilinguals are individuals who are fluent in both sign language and oral language. the effect of this language experience on the brain compared to brain regions in monolinguals or bilinguals of oral languages has only recently become a research interest, but is now used to provide insight on syntactic integration and language control of bilinguals. pet scans of a 37-year-old, right handed, bilingual (english and american sign language) male with left frontal lobe damage revealed evidence of increased right hemisphere activity compared to normal controls during spontaneous generation of narrative in both english and american sign language (asl). research with fmri has found that showing sign language to deaf and hearing signers and showing written english to hearing non-signers activates the classical language areas of the left hemisphere in both cases. studies in this area generally compare the behaviour or brain activity in normally hearing monolingual speakers of an oral language, genetically deaf, native signers, and normally hearing bimodal bilinguals. with the use of functional near-infrared imaging (fnir), kovelman (2009) compared the performance and brain activity of these three groups in picture-naming tasks. these researchers found that, although performance in all groups was similar, neuroimaging revealed that bilinguals showed greater signal intensity within the posterior temporal regions (wernicke's area) while using both languages in rapid alternation than when they were only using one language. working memory pet studies have revealed a language modality-specific working memory neural region for sign language (which relies on a network of bilateral temporal, bilateral parietal, and left premotor activation), as well as a difference in activation of the right cerebellum in bimodal bilinguals between when they are signing or speaking. similarities of activation have been found in broca's area and semantic retrieval causes similar patterns of activation in the anterior left inferior frontal lobe. the bilateral parietal activation pattern for sign language is similar to neural activity during nonverbal visuospatial tasks. face recognition sign language and oral language experience in bimodal bilinguals are shown to have separate effects on activation patterns within the superior temporal sulcus when recognizing facial expressions. the superior temporal sulcus, located in the temporal lobe of the brain, serves a variety of social processes. some of these social processes include language perception or the ability to mimick the mental progressions of others (theory of mind). an fmri study conducted by deen b, koldewyn k, kanwisher n, sax r concluded that the first cognitive function attributed to the superior temporal sulcus was language comprehension. additionally, hearing signers (individuals who can hear and also speak sign language) do not show the strong left-lateralized activation for facial expression recognition that has been found within deaf signers. a potential reason for this is most facial processing studies done on humans show a stronger stimulation in the right hemisphere than