Developmental dysphasia: Relation between acoustic processing deficits and verbal processing

doi:10.1016/0028-3932(80)90123-2

Neuropsychologia

Volume 18, Issue 3, 1980, Pages 273-284

https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(80)90123-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

Two syllable words were presented at various rates to 5–9-year old developmentally dysphasic and normal children. In one condition the words comprised two 250 msec duration syllables separated by a 500 msec interval. In a second condition disyllabic words were presented in which syllables were 150 msec in duration and were separated by a 50 msec interval. Subjects were operantly trained to indicate nonverbally the two syllables that formed each word. Whereas there was no significant difference between groups when the syllables were presented slowly, when the same syllables were presented more rapidly as words the dysphasics' performance was significantly poorer than that of the controls.

Résumé

On a présenté à des enfants normaux et à des dysphasiques d'évolution, âgés de 5 à 9 ans, des mots de 2 syllabes à différente's vitesses. Dans une des conditions, les mots comprenaient 2 syllabes d'une durée de 250 msec séparés par un intervalle de 500 msec. Dans la seconde condition, les mots étaient présentés avec une durée de 150 msec pour l'une et l'autre syllabe, elles-mêmes séparées par un intervalle de 50 msec. Les sujets subissaient un conditionnement opérant pour indiquer de façon non verbale les 2 syllabes qui formaient chaque mot. Tandis qu'il n'existait pas de différence significative entre les groupes lorsque les syllables étaient présentées lentement, avec une présentation plus rapide la performance des dysphasiques était significativement inférieure à celle des contrôles.

Zusammenfassung

zweisilbige Wörter wurden in verschiedenen Geschwindigkeiten 5 bis 9 Jahre alten Kindern mit Entwicklungsaphasie und gesunden Kindern dargeboten. In der einen Untersuchungsbedingung bestanden die Wörter aus Silben von 250 msec Länge, die durch Intervalle von 500 msec getrennt waren. In einer anderenUntersuchungsbedingung wurden zweisilbige Wörter dargeboten, in denen die Silben 150 msec lang waren, getrennt durch ein Intervall von 50 msec. Die Versuchspersonen wurden operant darauf geübt, nicht verbal die zwei Silben anzuzeigen, die jedes Wort bildeten. Zwischen den beiden Gruppen von Versuchspersonen gab es keinen Unterschied, wenn die Silben langsam dargeboten wurden. Wenn dieselben Silben aber schneller dargeboten wurden, war die Leistung der Kinder mit Entwicklungsaphasie signifikant schlechter als die der Kontrollpersonen.

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Children with language processing deficits have various learning impairments and poor scholastic performance. In 3-10% of all children a specific language processing deficit can be identified by the Sound Connecting Sub-Test of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic-Abilities (SC-ITPA). These children among which we drew our index group (AS-Group) suffer from the disability to recognize isolated sounds as parts of words. Following linguistic terminology this is known as an auditory sequential sound processing deficit (ASSPD) Eighteen children (AS-Group) and 21 controls (C-Group) were subjected to mapped P300 evoked potential analyses of cortical response to acoustic stimulation in the oddball paradigm. The data presented here show that there exists significant relation between the P300 amplitude reduction and ASSPD. The P300 amplitude decrease measured in the AS-Group is due to a reduced information transmission in accordance with Johnson's Triarchic Model of the P300 Amplitude. The cerebral structures involved in poor language processing are localized at the left temporo-parietal cortex. This supports the hypothesis that the underlying neuronal defect of ASSPD is localized in the language center and not in the auditory pathway. The P300 amplitude may serve as electrophysiological tool to identify ASSPD and to quantify the degree of improvement in the course of specific therapy.
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Objective: Impulsivity is a hallmark of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Various auditory masking procedures can quantify the impulsivity caused by distracting background sounds. This study compares the impulsiveness and distraction caused by informational masking (unpredictable tones) with previously published data on central masking (contralateral noise) in children with and without ADHD. Methods: Twenty-six normal and 14 children diagnosed as having ADHD (combined type), all between the ages of 7 and 13, indicated whether they heard a 512-ms, 500-Hz pure tone in a single-interval task under conditions of informational masking and in quiet. The masker consisted of 10 randomly selected frequencies between 1000 and 2500 Hz presented simultaneously at an overall level of 60 dB SPL. A maximum-likelihood method estimated thresholds and false alarm rates. Results: There were no differences due to ADHD in thresholds or false alarm rates either with informational masking or in quiet. With informational masking, normal children had high false alarm rates, similar to those from children with ADHD under central masking. With informational masking, all children tended to say a stimulus was present when it was not. Conclusions: All children behave impulsively under some conditions. Pediatric patients with attention disorders can thus be reassured that impulsiveness with unpredictable background sounds is normal, to some extent. Response biases of children with ADHD may only diverge from normal in situations where distracting external stimuli have an intermediate level of predictability. A previous study showed that with central masking, children with ADHD are more impulsive than normal. There appears to be a limit to the uncertainty in auditory masking that can be tolerated by children. Children with ADHD become impulsive at lower levels of uncertainty than normal. Increasing the predictability of distracting background sounds may thus improve the performance of children with ADHD. Informational masking may, for normal listeners, mimic something of what it is like to have an attention deficit. ADHD can be profitably studied with auditory tasks.
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The auditory temporal deficit hypothesis predicts that children with reading disability (RD) will exhibit deficits in the perception of speech and nonspeech acoustic stimuli in discrimination and temporal ordering tasks when the interstimulus interval (ISI) is short. Initial studies testing this hypothesis did not account for the potential presence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Temporal order judgment and discrimination tasks were administered to children with (1) RD/no-ADHD (n=38), (2) ADHD (n=29), (3) RD and ADHD (RD/ADHD; n=32), and (4) no impairment (NI; n=43). Contrary to predictions, children with RD showed no specific sensitivity to ISI and performed worse relative to children without RD on speech but not nonspeech tasks. Relationships between perceptual tasks and phonological processing measures were stronger and more consistent for speech than nonspeech stimuli. These results were independent of the presence of ADHD and suggest that children with RD have a deficit in phoneme perception that correlates with reading and phonological processing ability.
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Developmental dyslexics, individuals with an unexplained difficulty reading, have been shown to have deficits in phonological processing — the awareness of the sound structure of words — and, in some cases, a more fundamental deficit in rapid auditory processing. In addition, dyslexics show a disruption in white matter connectivity between posterior and frontal regions. These results give continued support for a neurobiological etiology of developmental dyslexia. However, more research will be required to determine the possible causal relationships between these neurobiological disruptions and dyslexia.

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Developmental dysphasia: Relation between acoustic processing deficits and verbal processing

Abstract

Résumé

Zusammenfassung

Brain & Language

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Brain & Language

Cortex

Auditory threshold-duration functions in aphasic subjects: Implications for the interaction of linguistic and auditory processing in aphasia

Defects of non-verbal auditory perception in children with developmental aphasia

Nature

Temporal discrimination in aphasoid and normal children

J. Speech Hearing Res.

Performance of auditory processing disordered and control subjects in simultaneous and onset-asynchrony dichotic presentations

J. Speech Hearing Res.

Auditory processing factors in language disorders: the view from procrustes bed

J. Speech Hearing Res.

The basis of childhood dysphasia: a linguistic approach