Objective Specific language impairment (SLI) is a developmental disorder when a child has difficulty in producing or understanding spoken language for no apparent reason. The study attempts to carry out an in-depth review of electrphysiological findings in individuals with SLI. Study design Review of literature was carried out to review and critical analyse the electrophysiological findings in individuals with SLI. Results The results of the review showed contradicting results in this population. Some studies have reported a statistically significant difference in morphology, latency and amplitude of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) between the children with SLI and the control group. This suggests that children with SLI may have auditory processing problems at the level of brainstem, sub-cortical and cortical areas. While few other studies showed no abnormalities in auditory processing in children with SLI, with intact waveform morphology, latency and amplitude of AEPs. Conclusion AEPs were observed to be more variable lacking uniformity because of the heterogeneous nature of SLI. However, further studies need to be conducted to evaluate the auditory processing abilities using auditory evoked potentials in children with SLI.

In the context of language descriptions, the terms oral and verbal praxis refer to volitional movements for performing oral gestures and movements for speech. These movements involve programming articulators and rapid sequences of muscle firings that are required for speech sound productions. A growing body of research has highlighted the links between oral motor kinematics and language production skills in both typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental language disorders, including Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Yet, there have been limited attempts to assess the link between non-linguistic and linguistic development. In the present study, we investigated oral and verbal praxis behaviors in children with SLI. Fifteen children with SLI formed a clinical group and 15 children with typical development who were matched to the clinical group for chronological age, gender, and socio-economic status formed the TD group. We assessed participants in both groups for their language abilities with age-appropriate standardized language tests. To investigate oral and verbal praxis behaviors, we administered the Assessment Protocol for Oral Motor, Oral Praxis and Verbal Praxis Skills to the two groups. We used the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test to compare the two groups with respect to oral and verbal praxis measures; and we found a significant difference between isolated and sequential movements in the oral praxis section in two age subgroups of these groups ( p ≤ .05). Spearman’s correlations revealed a strong correlation between core language scores and sequential movements in the younger children with SLI and in TD children. These results showed co-morbidity between SLI and poor oral motor skills, suggesting that SLI is not just a language disorder, but a group of co-morbid conditions that include oral motor and verbal praxis difficulties.

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Introduction:Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have poorer language ability and have difficulties understanding complex sentences even though they have no clear sensory, motor, or neurological abnormalities. Nevertheless, they may exhibit auditory processing deficits. Hence the present study was conducted to provide an overview of endogenous auditory evoked potentials in this population, potentials which may help in early identification of subtle auditory processing deficits.Material and methods: Relevant articles were included from searches of two electronic data sources, Google Scholar and PubMed. Articles on endogenous potentials in children with SLI were included, but studies on exogenous potentials in children with SLI were excluded. Results:The results of the review showed contradictory findings in terms of mismatch negativity. Some studies report a statistically significant difference in waveform morphology, latency, and amplitude of mismatch negativity between children with SLI and a control group. This suggests that these children might have auditory processing problems at higher auditory centers. A few other studies find no difference in evoked potentials, pointing to intact auditory processing abilities in children with SLI. Conclusion:The study helps us understand auditory processing abilities at the level of the higher auditory areas. Endogenous potentials may be included in a battery of tests for identifying children with SLI.

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