Browsing by Subject "LDN"
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(2016)Objectives. The aim of the current study was to explore whether there is an association between phonological processing and neural auditory discrimination in 5–6-years-old children. Phonological processing is defined by the ability to recognize and modulate small units of words, like phonemes. Neural auditory discrimination is defined by brain's automatic and preconscious ability to discriminate changes in auditory stimuli. Both phonological processing and neural auditory discrimination are important factors in the language development and deficits in those factors are known to be related to many language impairments. Single studies have reported an association between phonological processing and neural auditory discrimination but this theme is not well studied. In addition to group differences, we also studied differences in the ability to discriminate different sound deviants. Methods. The sample consisted of 38 children, whose mean age was 5 years and 10 months. The study was executed by dividing children into two groups by Nepsy-II phonological processing scores and comparing these two groups with the amplitudes of the brain's mismatch negativities (MMN) and late discriminative negativities (LDN). The comparison was made with repeated measures analysis of variance. Brain's event-related potentials were recorded with multifeature-paradigm in which the stimuli were modulated by vowel, consonant, duration of the vowel, intensity and frequency. Results and conclusions. The results of this current study demonstrate that differences in the phonological processing can be seen in the neural auditory discrimination. Both MMN- and LDN-potentials were stronger in those children, whose ability to process phonemes was better. In MMN-potentials the group difference was only seen in frequency, vowel and consonant deviants, whereas in LDN-potentials group differences were seen across all deviant types. In this study the phonological processing seems to be associated particularly to stronger LDN-potentials, which can provide information about the cognitive processes related to LDN-potentials. No previous studies about the association between phonological processing and LDN-potentials are known to be done.
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(2021)Objectives. Formal musical training has shown promising effects on auditory discrimination in children, but it is not within reach of every family as it is time-consuming and costly. This study aimed to determine whether at-home musical intervention and activities enhance neural auditory speech sound discrimination accuracy in children with or without a familial dyslexia risk. Methods. A follow-up sample of 113 children with or without risk of dyslexia participated. During the first six months of infancy, 57 of the children with a familial risk participated in at-home music listening intervention, including vocal or instrumental music. Musical activities at home were assessed with a questionnaire at 24 months of age. Speech sound discrimination accuracy was assessed at 28 months, with change-elicited responses derived from EEG. Linear mixed-effects (LME) models were applied to study the association between neural responses and musical enrichment. Results. The LME models showed that the association between speech sound discrimination accuracy and musical activities differed between the groups. In post-hoc comparisons, this association differed between the vocal intervention group and the other risk groups. The group without the familial risk did not differ from the risk groups. Conclusions. The observed bidirectional associations of musical activities and vocal listening intervention with change-related cortical processing potentially reflect two separate mechanisms of neural maturation and compensatory activation. Hence, vocal intervention and musical activities might promote specific aspects of auditory neural development. Understanding these associations is relevant in both guiding future research and in preventing language disorders.
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(2023)Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate how parent’s dyslexia and the severity of it affect the neural speech-sound discrimination of preschool-age children. The second aim is to study whether children’s pre-reading skills combined with familial dyslexia risk are associated with neural speech-sound discrimination. The association between dyslexia and speech-sound discrimination has been found in many studies before, but there is conflicting evidence regarding dyslexia risk, especially in preschool-age children. The hypotheses are that 1) more severe dyslexia of a parent and 2) familial dyslexia risk combined with weak pre-reading skills are both associated with smaller and less left lateralized mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN) responses. Methods: The sample of this study was a subsample (n = 94) of the DyslexiaBaby follow-up study. The children were 4–5 years old and 19 of them were controls that did not have dyslexia in the family. The severity of parent’s dyslexia was categorized to compensated, mild or moderate/severe. The pre-reading skills of children were assessed with the Finnish Lukiva test. The experimental setup was an oddball paradigm of /tata/ standard stimulus and five deviant stimuli that was presented during an electroencephalography (EEG) recording. The deviance in the stimuli was either in the vowel duration, consonant duration, latter vowel identity, or small or big change in the frequency of the second syllable. Results: The moderate/severe dyslexia group had smaller MMN amplitudes than the controls. Also, the moderate/severe dyslexia group had smaller LDN amplitudes only on the left hemisphere compared to the controls. There were preliminary, but not significant results of very weak pre-reading skills combined with familial dyslexia risk being associated with right-lateralized MMN and LDN responses. Conclusions: Children with familial dyslexia risk have difficulties in neural speech-sound discrimination especially in the left hemisphere compared to controls. However, no evidence was found of parent’s mild or compensated dyslexia being associated with weaker speech-sound discrimination. Therefore, moderate or severe dyslexia of a parent seems to be a higher risk for a child’s difficulties in speech-sound discrimination and targeting this group with interventions seems beneficial.
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(2021)Objectives. The aim of this study was to examine with electroencephalography (EEG) the associations between speech-sound elicited mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN) and pre-reading skills. Exploring the neural base of pre-reading skills will benefit the development of interventions for reading difficulties. It was hypothesized that left-lateralized MMNs and LDNs are elicited by all changes and larger and left-lateralized responses are linked with better pre-reading skills. Children with dyslexia risk were assumed to have poorer pre-reading skills and their responses were assumed to be smaller and more right-lateralized than in controls. Methods. Twenty-three children (of whom 16 with dyslexia risk) participated in an assessment of language abilities and EEG recording around the age of four years seven months. MMN and LDN were recorded for vowel, phoneme duration and frequency changes occurring in the second syllable of the standard stimulus (/tata/). The Repeated-measures analyses of covariance and the correlation analyses were applied to examine the relationship between MMN and LDN amplitudes, scalp distributions and phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short-term memory, letter knowledge and a parent’s evaluation of pre-reading skills. The effects of risk status on MMN and LDN responses and pre-reading skills were investigated with the Repeated-measures and the One-way analyses of variance. Results. MMNs in the right hemisphere for consonant duration and vowel change and LDNs for all changes were statistically significant. LDN for vowel duration change was associated with RAN, and LDN for large frequency change was associated with letter knowledge so that the responses were larger in children performing better. LDN for vowel change was larger in children with poor letter knowledge and RAN, and LDN for small frequency change was larger in children performing poorly in RAN. Children performing poorly in RAN had right-lateralized MMNs, whereas children performing better had larger amplitudes mainly in the left hemisphere. Dyslexia risk had no effect on MMNs, LDNs or pre-reading skills. Conclusions. Right-lateralized speech processing and possibly also difficulties of discriminating vowel and frequency changes are associated with poor reading skills. Strengthening the ability to discriminate and manipulate phonemes may be important when supporting reading skills, however this should be investigated with an intervention study.
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(2021)Objectives. The aim of this study was to examine with electroencephalography (EEG) the associations between speech-sound elicited mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN) and pre-reading skills. Exploring the neural base of pre-reading skills will benefit the development of interventions for reading difficulties. It was hypothesized that left-lateralized MMNs and LDNs are elicited by all changes and larger and left-lateralized responses are linked with better pre-reading skills. Children with dyslexia risk were assumed to have poorer pre-reading skills and their responses were assumed to be smaller and more right-lateralized than in controls. Methods. Twenty-three children (of whom 16 with dyslexia risk) participated in an assessment of language abilities and EEG recording around the age of four years seven months. MMN and LDN were recorded for vowel, phoneme duration and frequency changes occurring in the second syllable of the standard stimulus (/tata/). The Repeated-measures analyses of covariance and the correlation analyses were applied to examine the relationship between MMN and LDN amplitudes, scalp distributions and phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short-term memory, letter knowledge and a parent’s evaluation of pre-reading skills. The effects of risk status on MMN and LDN responses and pre-reading skills were investigated with the Repeated-measures and the One-way analyses of variance. Results. MMNs in the right hemisphere for consonant duration and vowel change and LDNs for all changes were statistically significant. LDN for vowel duration change was associated with RAN, and LDN for large frequency change was associated with letter knowledge so that the responses were larger in children performing better. LDN for vowel change was larger in children with poor letter knowledge and RAN, and LDN for small frequency change was larger in children performing poorly in RAN. Children performing poorly in RAN had right-lateralized MMNs, whereas children performing better had larger amplitudes mainly in the left hemisphere. Dyslexia risk had no effect on MMNs, LDNs or pre-reading skills. Conclusions. Right-lateralized speech processing and possibly also difficulties of discriminating vowel and frequency changes are associated with poor reading skills. Strengthening the ability to discriminate and manipulate phonemes may be important when supporting reading skills, however this should be investigated with an intervention study.
Now showing items 1-5 of 5