Visual, auditory, and tactile temporal processing in children with oral clefts.
Neurocognitive disorders may compromise the outcome of surgical cleft lip palate repair and thus need to be identified. Processing of rapidly changing sequential information (temporal processing) is a fundamental neurocognitive capacity that may contribute to various communication functions and has been found impaired in several developmental disorders. The occurrence of temporal processing difficulties in the cleft population is not known, however. We investigated the relation between oral clefting and temporal estimations of simultaneity/nonsimultaneity in visual, auditory, and tactile modalities. Subjects were 10-year-old controls and children with oral clefts of various types [i.e., cleft lip (alveolar), cleft lip and palate, cleft palate, and cleft palate submucous]. The visual and tactile tasks but not so clearly the auditory task differentiated the groups. Further, paralleling previous findings, the patients with cleft lip and palate outperformed the others, whereas the cognitive temporal processing acuity of the cleft palate and cleft palate submucous children was worse.
Laasonen
Marja
M
Department of Psychology, PO Box 9, University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Siltavuorenpenger 20 C, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland. Marja.Laasonen@helsinki.fi
Haapanen
Marja-Leena
ML
Mäenpää
Pia
P
Pulkkinen
Joonas
J
Ranta
Reijo
R
Virsu
Veijo
V
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002971:Cleft Lip / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002972:Cleft Palate / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*