Auditory Event-Related Potentials in the Assessment of Auditory Processing Disorders: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The aim of this pilot study was to investigate whether children with a suspected auditory processing disorder (sAPD) in the presence of normal hearing, differ significantly from normal age-matched controls on particular parameters of auditory event-related potentials. We assessed nine children (mean age 9.5 years) in whom the clinical profile and the results in a screening test for auditory processing disorder (SCAN/SCAN-A) suggested the presence of an auditory processing disorder, and nine age-matched normal control subjects, using auditory event-related potentials (ERP) to phonemes/ba/(standard) and/da/(deviant). Analysis of the auditory ERP recordings revealed an enlarged P85 - 120 and attenuated N1 and P2 in all sAPD children compared to controls. We also found significantly increased N1 peak latency, and a larger peak to peak amplitude of the P85 - 120-N1 and P2-N2 and smaller peak to peak amplitude of the N1-P2 in the sAPD children. Subtraction of the standard auditory ERP from the deviant revealed a mismatch negativity with no significant differences in duration, peak or onset latency between the control subjects and sAPD. Our results indicate that neurophysiological measures may identify a group of children with specific problems suggestive of an auditory processing disorder in the absence of an obvious structural or functional lesion who warrant further study in order to assess whether these findings reflect delayed CNS myelination.

The use of event-related potentials in the study of early cognitive development

“…A progressive modification of babies' peak latencies with age could relate either to supplementary myelination processes intervening after birth (e.g. Parazzini et al, 2002, see also Ceponiene et al, 2002aLiasis et al, 2003), to the progressive superposition of peaks due to increases in synaptic density (Ponton et al, 2000), or to a combination of these factors. In the same vein, the longitudinal strengthening of peak amplitude with development may relate to the increasing participation of some additional neural generators with maturation (Kushnerenko et al, 2002b) and/or the overlap of positive and negative discriminative components (Ponton et al, 2000;Morr et al, 2002).…”

O Mismatch Negativity em pacientes com distúrbios do processamento auditivo (central)

“…Another study 18 also investigated MMN in patients with suspected (C)APD; these subjects had been identified in screening tests for (C)AP although a diagnosis had not been confirmed by behavioral assessments. In this study, MMN was normal for speech stimuli deviating in terms of the articulation point.…”

“…In this study, MMN was normal for speech stimuli deviating in terms of the articulation point. 18 The investigation of MMN in (C)APD patients with associated comorbidities due to other diseases shows that MMN was altered for speech stimuli but normal for pure tone stimuli in some studies, [19][20][21][22] that MMN was altered for verbal and non-verbal stimuli in other studies, 23 still others in which MMN was altered for pure tone stimuli with frequency deviations, [24][25] studies in which MMN was altered for pure tones with frequency but not duration deviations, [26][27] studies in which MMN was normal for pure tones with frequency deviations but altered for different compound tone patters, 28 and in studies in which MMN was unchanged for frequency and duration stimuli. [29][30][31][32] Our study aimed to investigate MMN in (C)APD patients, considering the diversity of results in studies of MMN in these patients, as well as the importance of undertaking the electrophysiological evaluation of auditory processing studies.…”

Clinical use of AEVP‐ and AERP‐measures in childhood speech disorders

“…An example of such a study is Liasis et al (2003). In this study 8-12-year-old children (mean age 9;6) with suspected auditory processing disorder (sAPD) were tested.…”