Neural Encoding of Consonant–vowel Transition in Children With Central Auditory Processing Disorder

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have used the acoustic change complex (ACC) as a tool to investigate the perception of acoustic changes in an ongoing signal in various populations. However, there is no study that has explored the usefulness of ACC to objectively study the neural representation of CV transition in children with CAPD. The present study aims to investigate the utility of ACC as an objective tool to study neural representation of a CV transition in children with CAPD.Material and methods: There were 40 children aged 8 to 14 years in this study. They were divided into 2 groups of 20 children each based on the outcomes of audiological tests: a clinical group (CAPD) and a comparison group. A diagnosis of CAPD was made for 20 children after completion of a two-stage evaluation process (screening and diagnosis). The ACC was acquired using Neuro Scan Syn (v. 4.4) for the naturally produced CV stimulus /sa/ which had a total duration of 380 ms.Results: A Mann-Whitney U-test revealed significantly delayed latency of N1′ and P2′ in children with CAPD compared to healthy children. However, there was no significant difference in peak-to-peak amplitude of N1′-P2′ between children with CAPD and normal children. Conclusions:The prolonged latencies of ACC indicated poor encoding of the CV transition in children with CAPD. It is suggested that poor temporal processing of CV transitions in these children might be the reason for poor speech perception in the CAPD population.