Ladányi Enikő, Novakovic Michaela, Boorom Olivia A, Aaron Allison S, Scartozzi Alyssa C, Gustavson Daniel E, Nitin Rachana, Bamikole Peter O, Vaughan Chloe, Fromboluti Elisa Kim, Schuele C Melanie, Camarata Stephen M, McAuley J Devin, Gordon Reyna L
Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.
Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
Neurobiol Lang (Camb). 2023;4(1):1-28. doi: 10.1162/nol_a_00082. Epub 2023 Jan 18.
Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show relative weaknesses on rhythm tasks beyond their characteristic linguistic impairments. The current study compares preferred tempo and the width of an entrainment region for 5- to 7-year-old typically developing (TD) children and children with DLD and considers the associations with rhythm aptitude and expressive grammar skills in the two populations. Preferred tempo was measured with a spontaneous motor tempo task (tapping tempo at a comfortable speed), and the width (range) of an entrainment region was measured by the difference between the upper (slow) and lower (fast) limits of tapping a rhythm normalized by an individual's spontaneous motor tempo. Data from = 16 children with DLD and = 114 TD children showed that whereas entrainment-region width did not differ across the two groups, slowest motor tempo, the determinant of the upper (slow) limit of the entrainment region, was at a faster tempo in children with DLD vs. TD. In other words, the DLD group could not pace their slow tapping as slowly as the TD group. Entrainment-region width was positively associated with rhythm aptitude and receptive grammar even after taking into account potential confounding factors, whereas expressive grammar did not show an association with any of the tapping measures. Preferred tempo was not associated with any study variables after including covariates in the analyses. These results motivate future neuroscientific studies of low-frequency neural oscillatory mechanisms as the potential neural correlates of entrainment-region width and their associations with musical rhythm and spoken language processing in children with typical and atypical language development.
患有发育性语言障碍（DLD）的儿童除了有其典型的语言损伤外，在节奏任务上也表现出相对劣势。本研究比较了5至7岁发育正常（TD）儿童和患有DLD的儿童的偏好节奏速度以及同步区域的宽度，并探讨了这两个人群中节奏能力和表达性语法技能之间的关联。偏好节奏速度通过自发运动节奏任务（以舒适的速度敲击节奏）来测量，同步区域的宽度则通过个体自发运动节奏归一化后的节奏敲击上限（较慢）和下限（较快）之间的差值来测量。来自16名患有DLD的儿童和114名TD儿童的数据表明，虽然两组之间的同步区域宽度没有差异，但同步区域上限（较慢）的决定因素——最慢运动节奏，在患有DLD的儿童中比TD儿童更快。换句话说，DLD组无法像TD组那样缓慢地进行慢速敲击。即使考虑了潜在的混杂因素，同步区域宽度与节奏能力和接受性语法呈正相关，而表达性语法与任何敲击测量指标均无关联。在分析中纳入协变量后，偏好节奏速度与任何研究变量均无关联。这些结果促使未来开展神经科学研究，探究低频神经振荡机制作为同步区域宽度的潜在神经关联，以及它们与典型和非典型语言发育儿童的音乐节奏和口语处理之间的关系。
