Speech and non-speech processing in children with phonological disorders: an electrophysiological study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:To determine whether neurophysiological auditory brainstem responses to clicks and repeated speech stimuli differ between typically developing children and children with phonological disorders.INTRODUCTION:Phonological disorders are language impairments resulting from inadequate use of adult phonological language rules and are among the most common speech and language disorders in children (prevalence: 8 ‐ 9%). Our hypothesis is that children with phonological disorders have basic differences in the way that their brains encode acoustic signals at brainstem level when compared to normal counterparts.METHODS:We recorded click and speech evoked auditory brainstem responses in 18 typically developing children (control group) and in 18 children who were clinically diagnosed with phonological disorders (research group). The age range of the children was from 7‐11 years.RESULTS: The research group exhibited significantly longer latency responses to click stimuli (waves I, III and V) and speech stimuli (waves V and A) when compared to the control group.DISCUSSION:These results suggest that the abnormal encoding of speech sounds may be a biological marker of phonological disorders. However, these results cannot define the biological origins of phonological problems. We also observed that speech‐evoked auditory brainstem responses had a higher specificity/sensitivity for identifying phonological disorders than click‐evoked auditory brainstem responses.CONCLUSIONS:Early stages of the auditory pathway processing of an acoustic stimulus are not similar in typically developing children and those with phonological disorders. These findings suggest that there are brainstem auditory pathway abnormalities in children with phonological disorders.

Auditory evoked potentials: predicting speech therapy outcomes in children with phonological disorders

“…These results corroborate previous literature findings that demonstrated that children with phonological disorders have longer ABR wave latencies (waves I, III, and V) compared with typically developing individuals (2). This observation supports our hypothesis that these subjects present abnormal neural synchrony at the brainstem level.…”

“…Auditory evoked potential (AEP) investigations in children with phonological disorders have shown that these children have altered auditory brainstem responses (ABR) (2) and P300 potentials (3), suggesting the involvement of the central auditory pathway.…”

O Potencial Evocado Auditivo com estímulo de fala pode ser uma ferramenta útil na prática clínica?

“…In Brazil, speechevoked ABR has been studied for approximately 10 years, and has only a few publications (2)(3)(4)(5)(6) .…”

Structural brain differences in school-age children with residual speech sound errors

“…Cognitive-linguistic theories of speech sound disorders often focus on auditory perceptual influences (Rvachew & Grawburg, 2006; Shuster, 1998), and recent studies investigating the neural bases of speech sound disorders have provided preliminary support for theories of auditory perceptual mechanisms (Gonçalves, Wertzner, Samelli, & Matas, 2011; Preston et al, 2012). Recent models of the neurobiological components of normal speech production and perception also offer brain regions for focusing our exploration of hypothesized differences in the brain structures of children with SSEs.…”