Auditory temporal processing in children with specific reading disability with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
The auditory temporal deficit hypothesis predicts that children with specific reading disability (RD) will exhibit a deficit in the perception of auditory temporal cues in nonspeech stimuli. Tasks assessing perception of auditory temporal and nontemporal cues were administered to children with (a) RD without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (RD/no-ADHD, n = 40), (b) ADHD alone (ADHD/no-RD, n = 33), (c) RD and ADHD (RD/ADHD, n = 36), and (d) no impairment (NI, n = 41). The presence of RD was associated with a specific deficit in detection of a tone onset time asynchrony, but no reduction in performance on other tasks assessing perception of temporal or nontemporal acoustic cues. The presence of ADHD was associated with a general reduction in performance across tasks. The pattern of results did not indicate a pervasive deficit in auditory temporal function in children with RD, but did suggest a possible sensitivity to backward masking in this group. Results also indicated that the comorbid presence of ADHD is a significant factor in the performance of children with RD on psychoacoustic tasks.
Breier
Joshua I
JI
Department of Neurosurgery, University of Texas, Houston 77030, USA. Joshua.I.Breier@uth.tmc.edu
Fletcher
Jack M
JM
Foorman
Barbara R
BR
Klaas
Patricia
P
Gray
Lincoln C
LC
D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000150:complications*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D003463:Cues; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D013998:Time Perception