title: Event-related potentials and consonant differentiation in newborns with familial risk for dyslexia.
abstract: We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to synthetic consonant-vowel syllables (/ba/, /da/, /ga/) from 26 newborns with familial risk for dyslexia and 23 control infants participating in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia. The syllables were presented with equal probability and with interstimulus intervals ranging from 3,010 to 7,285 ms. Analyses of averaged ERPs from the latencies identified on the basis of principal component analysis (PCA) revealed significant group differences in stop-consonant processing in several latency ranges. At the latencies of 50-170 ms and 540-630 ms, the responses to /ga/ were larger and more positive than those to /ba/ and /da/ in the right hemisphere in the at-risk group. Between 740 and 940 ms, the responses to /ba/ and /da/ differed between anterior and posterior electrode sites in the control group. These results indicate that the cortical electric activation evoked by speech elements differs between children with and without risk for dyslexia even immediately after birth. Group-related effects at early and late latency ranges of ERPs suggest differences both in the early sound processing based on activation of afferent elements and in later phases of syllable encoding.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. tguttorm@psyka.jyu.fi
authors.forename: T K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Guttorm
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Leppänen
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lyytinen
mesh_terms: D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*