Deficits in auditory brainstem pathway encoding of speech sounds in children with learning problems

• Published in: Neuroscience letters Vol. 319; no. 2; pp. 111 - 115
• Main Authors: King, Cynthia, Warrier, Catherine M, Hayes, Erin, Kraus, Nina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shannon Elsevier Ireland Ltd 15.02.2002; Elsevier
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Auditory; Auditory brainstem response; Auditory Diseases, Central - physiopathology; Auditory Pathways - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Stem - physiopathology; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Child; Child clinical studies; Development; Developmental disorders; Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem - physiology; Female; Humans; Language Development Disorders - physiopathology; Learning disorders; Learning Disorders - physiopathology; Learning impairment; Male; Medical sciences; Neural encoding; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reaction Time - physiology; Recovery of Function - physiology; Speech; Speech Perception - physiology; Speech Therapy; Training; Training; Auditory brainstem response; Auditory; Learning impairment; Development; Speech; Neural encoding; Human; Cognitive disorder; Brain stem; Central nervous system; Electrophysiology; Verbal perception; Preadolescent; Hearing; School age; Coding; Learning disability; Auditory pathway; Child; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0304-3940; 1872-7972
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3940(01)02556-3

Auditory brainstem responses were recorded in normal children (NL) and children clinically diagnosed with a learning problem (LP). These responses were recorded to both a click stimulus and the formant transition portion of a speech syllable /da/. While no latency differences between the NL and LP populations were seen in responses to the click stimuli, the syllable /da/ did elicit latency differences between these two groups. Deficits in cortical processing of signals in noise were seen for those LP subjects with delayed brainstem responses to the /da/, but not for LPs with normal brainstem measures. Preliminary findings indicate that training may be beneficial to LP subjects with brainstem processing delays.