Campos Ana, Tuomainen Jyrki, Tuomainen Outi
UCL Ear Institute, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, London WC1N 1PF, UK.
Brain Sci. 2023 Dec 31;14(1):42. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14010042.
This study compared cortical responses to speech in preschoolers with typical language development (TLD) and with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). We investigated whether top-down language effects modulate speech perception in young children in an adult-like manner. We compared cortical mismatch responses (MMRs) during the passive perception of speech contrasts in three groups of participants: preschoolers with TLD (n = 11), preschoolers with DLD (n = 16), and adults (n = 20). We also measured children's phonological skills and investigated whether they are associated with the cortical discrimination of phonemic changes involving different linguistic complexities. The results indicated top-down language effects in adults, with enhanced cortical discrimination of lexical stimuli but not of non-words. In preschoolers, the TLD and DLD groups did not differ in the MMR measures, and no top-down effects were detected. Moreover, we found no association between MMRs and phonological skills, even though the DLD group's phonological skills were significantly lower. Our findings suggest that top-down language modulations in speech discrimination may not be present during early childhood, and that children with DLD may not exhibit cortical speech perception deficits. The lack of association between phonological and MMR measures indicates that further research is needed to understand the link between language skills and cortical activity in preschoolers.
本研究比较了具有典型语言发展（TLD）的学龄前儿童和患有发育性语言障碍（DLD）的学龄前儿童对语音的皮层反应。我们调查了自上而下的语言效应是否以类似成人的方式调节幼儿的语音感知。我们比较了三组参与者在被动感知语音对比时的皮层失配反应（MMR）：具有TLD的学龄前儿童（n = 11）、患有DLD的学龄前儿童（n = 16）和成年人（n = 20）。我们还测量了儿童的语音技能，并调查了它们是否与涉及不同语言复杂性的音位变化的皮层辨别有关。结果表明，成年人存在自上而下的语言效应，对词汇刺激的皮层辨别增强，但对非单词的辨别没有增强。在学龄前儿童中，TLD组和DLD组在MMR测量上没有差异，也未检测到自上而下的效应。此外，我们发现MMR与语音技能之间没有关联，尽管DLD组的语音技能明显较低。我们的研究结果表明，幼儿期可能不存在语音辨别中自上而下的语言调节，患有DLD的儿童可能不会表现出皮层语音感知缺陷。语音和MMR测量之间缺乏关联表明，需要进一步研究以了解学龄前儿童语言技能与皮层活动之间的联系。
