Deficit of temporal auditory processing in dyslexic adults

doi:10.1016/0304-3940(96)12393-4

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 205, Issue 2, 23 February 1996, Pages 138-140

https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3940(96)12393-4 Get rights and content

Abstract

Dyslexia is a common disorder with largely unknown pathophysiology. We tested ten dyslexic adults and 20 control subjects with trains of binaural clicks which led to illusory sound movements at short click intervals. In controls, the illusion disappeared at intervals exceeding 90–120 ms while in the dyslexics it persisted up to intervals of 250–500 ms. Dyslexic adults thus seem to have a deficit in the processing of rapid sound sequences, which is also manifested in significant delays in their conscious auditory percepts. This pathophysiological abnormality seems to persist throughout life.

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Developmental Dyslexia (DD) is often attributed to phonological processing deficits. Recent evidence, however, indicates the need for a more general explanatory framework to account for DD’s range of deficits. The current study examined the specificity versus domain generality of DD by comparing the recognition and discrimination of three visual categories (faces and words with cars as control stimuli) in typical and dyslexic readers. Relative to controls, not only did dyslexic individuals perform more poorly on word recognition, but they also matched faces more slowly, especially when the faces differed in viewpoint, and discriminated between similar faces (but not cars) more poorly. Additionally, dyslexics showed reduced hemispheric lateralization for words and faces. These results reveal that DD affects both word and face, but not car, processing, implicating a partial domain general basis of DD. We offer a theoretical proposal to account for the multifaceted findings and suggestions for further, longitudinal studies.
The effect of spatio-temporal distance between visual stimuli on information processing in children with Specific Language Impairment
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The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have a deficit in processing a sequence of two visual stimuli (S1 and S2) presented at different inter-stimulus intervals and in different spatial locations. In particular, the core of this study is to investigate whether S1 identification is disrupted due to a retroactive interference of S2.
To this aim, two experiments were planned in which children with SLI and children with typical development (TD), matched by age and non-verbal IQ, were compared (Experiment 1: SLI n = 19; TD n = 19; Experiment 2: SLI n = 16; TD n = 16).
Results show group differences in the ability to identify a single stimulus surrounded by flankers (Baseline level). Moreover, children with SLI show a stronger negative interference of S2, both for temporal and spatial modulation.
These results are discussed in the light of an attentional processing limitation in children with SLI.
Audiovisual perception of natural speech is impaired in adult dyslexics: An ERP study
2015, Neuroscience
The present study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate audiovisual integration processes in the perception of natural speech in a group of German adult developmental dyslexic readers. Twelve dyslexic and twelve non-dyslexic adults viewed short videos of a male German speaker. Disyllabic German nouns served as stimulus material. The auditory and the visual stimulus streams were segregated to create four conditions: in the congruent condition, the spoken word and the auditory word were identical. In the incongruent condition, the auditory and the visual word (i.e., the lip movements of the utterance) were different. Furthermore, on half of the trials, white noise (45 dB SPL) was superimposed on the auditory trace. Subjects had to say aloud the word they understood after they viewed the video.
Behavioral data. Dyslexic readers committed more errors compared to normal readers in the noise conditions, and this effect was particularly present for congruent trials. ERPs showed a distinct N170 component at temporo-parietal electrodes that was smaller in amplitude for dyslexic readers. Both, normal and dyslexic readers, showed a clear effect of noise at centro-parietal electrodes between 300 and 600 ms. An analysis of error trials reflecting audiovisual integration (verbal responses in the incongruent noise condition that are a mix of the visual and the auditory word) revealed more positive ERPs for dyslexic readers at temporo-parietal electrodes 200–500 ms poststimulus. For normal readers, no such effect was present.
These findings are discussed as reflecting increased effort in dyslexics under circumstances of distorted acoustic input. The superimposition of noise leads dyslexics to rely more on the integration of auditory and visual input (lip reading). Furthermore, the smaller N170-amplitudes indicate deficits in the processing of moving faces in dyslexic adults.
Visual and auditory perception in preschool children at risk for dyslexia
2014, Research in Developmental Disabilities
Recently, there has been renewed interest in perceptive problems of dyslexics. A polemic research issue in this area has been the nature of the perception deficit. Another issue is the causal role of this deficit in dyslexia. Most studies have been carried out in adult and child literates; consequently, the observed deficits may be the result rather than the cause of dyslexia. This study addresses these issues by examining visual and auditory perception in children at risk for dyslexia. We compared children from preschool with and without risk for dyslexia in auditory and visual temporal order judgment tasks and same–different discrimination tasks. Identical visual and auditory, linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli were presented in both tasks. The results revealed that the visual as well as the auditory perception of children at risk for dyslexia is impaired. The comparison between groups in auditory and visual perception shows that the achievement of children at risk was lower than children without risk for dyslexia in the temporal tasks. There were no differences between groups in auditory discrimination tasks. The difficulties of children at risk in visual and auditory perceptive processing affected both linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. Our conclusions are that children at risk for dyslexia show auditory and visual perceptive deficits for linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. The auditory impairment may be explained by temporal processing problems and these problems are more serious for processing language than for processing other auditory stimuli. These visual and auditory perceptive deficits are not the consequence of failing to learn to read, thus, these findings support the theory of temporal processing deficit.
Cell size anomalies in the auditory thalamus of rats with hypoxic-ischemic injury on postnatal day 3 or 7
2014, International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience
Citation Excerpt :
Full term infants diagnosed with moderate to severe HIE also show receptive language, reading and spelling deficits compared to healthy controls (Badawi et al., 2001), and degree of HIE injury was found to correlate significantly with verbal IQ scores (Steinman et al., 2009). Previous research has suggested that deficits in rapid auditory processing (RAP; processing mechanisms required to distinguish phonemes) may underlie later disruptions in development of complex language and reading (Bradley and Bryant, 1983; Farmer and Klein, 1995; Hari and Kiesla, 1996; Hari and Renvall, 2001; Kraus et al., 1996; McAnally and Stein, 1996; McCrosky and Kidder, 1980; Stein, 1993; Neville et al., 1993; Robin et al., 1989; Paterson et al., 2006; Tallal, 1980; Tallal et al., 1985, 1993; Witton et al., 1998; Wright et al., 1997; Benasich and Tallal, 2002; Choudhury et al., 2007). Specifically regarding HI injured populations, VLBW children diagnosed with severe PVL scored significantly lower on auditory temporal processing tasks, with path analysis supporting a relationship between auditory temporal processing and later reading ability (Downie et al., 2002).
Children born prematurely (<37 weeks gestational age) or at very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500 g) are at increased risk for hypoxic ischemic (HI) brain injuries. Term infants can also suffer HI from birth complications. In both groups, blood/oxygen delivery to the brain is compromised, often resulting in brain damage and later cognitive delays (e.g., language deficits). Literature suggests that language delays in a variety of developmentally impaired populations (including specific language impairment (SLI), dyslexia, and early HI-injury) may be associated with underlying deficits in rapid auditory processing (RAP; the ability to process and discriminate brief acoustic cues). Data supporting a relationship between RAP deficits and poor language outcomes is consistent with the “magnocellular theory,” which purports that damage to or loss of large (magnocellular) cells in thalamic nuclei could underlie disruptions in temporal processing of sensory input, possibly including auditory (medial geniculate nucleus; MGN) information This theory could be applied to neonatal HI populations that show subsequent RAP deficits. In animal models of neonatal HI, persistent RAP deficits are seen in postnatal (P)7 HI injured rats (who exhibit neuropathology comparable to term birth injury), but not in P1-3 HI injured rodents (who exhibit neuropathology comparable to human pre-term injury). The current study sought to investigate the mean cell size, cell number, and cumulative probability of cell size in the MGN of P3 HI and P7 HI injured male rats that had previously demonstrated behavioral RAP deficits. Pilot data from our lab (Alexander, 2011) previously revealed cell size abnormalities (a shift toward smaller cells) in P7 but not P1 HI injured animals when compared to shams. Our current finding support this result, with evidence of a significant shift to smaller cells in the experimental MGN of P7 HI but not P3 HI subjects. P7 HI animals also showed significantly fewer cells in the affected (right) MGN as compared P3 HI and shams animals. Moreover, cell number in the right hemisphere was found to correlate with gap detection (fewer cells = worse performance) in P7 HI injured subjects. These findings could be applied to clinical populations, providing an anatomic marker that may index potential long-term language disabilities in HI injured infants and possibly other at-risk populations.
Language Impairment
2013, Neural Circuit Development and Function in the Healthy and Diseased Brain: Comprehensive Developmental Neuroscience

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^☆: This study was supported by the Academy of Finland.

^∗∗: We thank N. Loveless, R. Salmelin, E. Service, and S. Vanni for comments on the manuscript.

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Deficit of temporal auditory processing in dyslexic adults☆

Abstract

Neurosci. Lett.

Brain Lang.

Neuropsychology

Brain Lang.