Right-hemisphere responses from preschool children to temporal cues to speech and nonspeech materials: electrophysiological correlates.

Auditory-evoked responses (AERs) were recorded from scalp electrodes placed over the left and right temporal hemisphere regions of 12 preschool children while they listened to a series of velar stop consonants which varied in voice onset time (VOT) and to two-formant tone stimuli with temporal lags comparable to the speech materials. A late occurring negative peak (N400) in the right hemisphere AERs discriminated between both the speech and nonspeech materials in a categorical-like manner. Sex-related hemisphere differences were also noted in response to the two different stimulus types. These results replicate earlier work with speech materials and suggest that temporal delays for both speech and nonspeech auditory materials are processed in the right hemisphere.