Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2020 Apr 27;63(4):1053-1070. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00260. Epub 2020 Apr 17.
Purpose Previous studies of neural processing of rhyme discrimination in 7- to 8-year-old children who stutter (CWS) distinguished children who had recovered, children who had persisted, and children who did not stutter (CWNS; Mohan & Weber, 2015). Here, we investigate neural processing mediating rhyme discrimination for early acquired real words in younger CWS and CWNS (4;1-6;0 years;months), when rhyming abilities are newly emerging, to examine possible relationships to recovery (CWS-eRec) and persistence in stuttering (CWS-ePer). Method Children performed a rhyme discrimination task while their event-related brain potentials were recorded. CWNS, CWS-eRec, and CWS-ePer had similar speech and language abilities. Inclusionary criteria incorporated at least 70% accuracy for rhyme discrimination. Analyses focused on the mean amplitude of the N400 component elicited by rhyming and nonrhyming words in anterior and posterior regions of interest. Results CWNS, CWS-eRec, and CWS-ePer displayed a classic event-related potential rhyme effect for rhyme discrimination characterized by larger amplitude, posteriorly distributed N400s elicited by nonrhyming targets compared to rhyming targets. CWNS displayed a more robust anterior rhyme effect compared to the CWS groups with a larger amplitude N400 anteriorly for the rhyming targets. This effect was more consistent across individual CWNS than CWS. Conclusions The groups of CWNS, CWS-eRec, and CWS-ePer, who had all developed rhyming discrimination abilities, exhibited similar underlying neural processes mediating phonological processing of early acquired words for the classic central-parietal rhyme effect. However, individual variability of the anterior rhyme effect suggested differences in specific aspects of phonological processing for some CWS-eRec and CWS-ePer compared to CWNS.
目的 之前对 7-8 岁口吃儿童（CWS）的押韵辨别神经加工的研究区分了已经康复、持续存在和不口吃的儿童（CWNS；Mohan & Weber，2015）。在这里，我们研究了年幼的 CWS 和 CWNS（4；1-6；0 岁；月）中早期习得的真实单词的押韵辨别所介导的神经加工，以检查与康复（CWS-eRec）和口吃持续（CWS-ePer）的可能关系。方法 孩子们在执行押韵辨别任务时记录了他们的事件相关脑电位。CWNS、CWS-eRec 和 CWS-ePer 的言语和语言能力相似。纳入标准包括押韵辨别准确率至少为 70%。分析重点是在额区和后区感兴趣区域内由押韵和非押韵单词引发的 N400 成分的平均振幅。结果 CWNS、CWS-eRec 和 CWS-ePer 显示了经典的事件相关电位押韵效应，表现为非押韵目标引起的 N400 振幅较大，分布在后区，与押韵目标相比。CWNS 在前区表现出更强的押韵效应，与 CWS 组相比，前区的 N400 振幅更大。与 CWS 相比，这种效应在个体 CWNS 中更为一致。结论 所有发展出押韵辨别能力的 CWNS、CWS-eRec 和 CWS-ePer 组，在介导早期习得单词的语音处理时，表现出相似的潜在神经过程，表现为经典的中央-顶叶押韵效应。然而，前区押韵效应的个体差异表明，与 CWNS 相比，一些 CWS-eRec 和 CWS-ePer 在语音处理的某些特定方面存在差异。
