Kautto Anna, Railo Henry, Mainela-Arnold Elina
Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
Neurobiol Lang (Camb). 2024 Jun 3;5(2):341-359. doi: 10.1162/nol_a_00129. eCollection 2024.
Auditory processing and procedural learning deficits have been associated with language learning difficulties. We investigated the relationship of these skills and school-age language abilities in children with and without a history of late talking using auditory event related potentials (ERPs). Late talking (i.e., slow early language development) increases the risk of persistent language difficulties, but its causes remain unknown. Participants in this study were children with varying language abilities ( = 60). Half of the participants ( = 30) had a history of late talking. We measured procedural learning by manipulating the predictability of sine tone stimuli in a passive auditory ERP paradigm. Auditory processing was tested by examining how the presence of noise (increasing perceptual demands) affected the ERPs. Contrary to our hypotheses on auditory processing and language development, the effect of noise on ERPs did not correlate with school-age language abilities in children with or without a history of late talking. Our paradigm failed to reveal interpretable effects of predictability leaving us unable to assess the effects of procedural learning. However, better language abilities were related to weaker responses in a 75-175 ms time window, and stronger responses in a 150-250 ms time window. We suggest that the weak early responses in children with better language ability reflect efficient processing of low-level auditory information, allowing deeper processing of later, high-level auditory information. We assume that these differences reflect variation in brain maturation between individuals with varying language abilities.
听觉加工和程序性学习缺陷与语言学习困难有关。我们使用听觉事件相关电位（ERP）研究了有或无晚说话史的儿童中这些技能与学龄期语言能力之间的关系。晚说话（即早期语言发展缓慢）会增加持续存在语言困难的风险，但其原因尚不清楚。本研究的参与者是具有不同语言能力的儿童（n = 60）。一半的参与者（n = 30）有晚说话史。我们通过在被动听觉ERP范式中操纵正弦音调刺激的可预测性来测量程序性学习。通过检查噪声的存在（增加感知需求）如何影响ERP来测试听觉加工。与我们关于听觉加工和语言发展的假设相反，噪声对ERP的影响与有或无晚说话史的儿童的学龄期语言能力无关。我们的范式未能揭示可预测性的可解释效应，使我们无法评估程序性学习的效果。然而，更好的语言能力与75 - 175毫秒时间窗口内较弱的反应以及150 - 250毫秒时间窗口内较强的反应有关。我们认为，语言能力较好的儿童早期反应较弱反映了对低水平听觉信息的有效加工，从而允许对后期高水平听觉信息进行更深入的加工。我们假设这些差异反映了不同语言能力个体之间大脑成熟度的差异。
