title: Impaired duration mismatch negativity in developmental dyslexia.
abstract: A mismatch negativity event-related potential protocol was administered to dyslexic children and their respective controls to test whether a specific auditory deficit concerning phonetic processing or a lower level auditory processing deficit was present in developmental dyslexia. Three different contrast conditions were explored, including nonphonological sounds, contrasted in pitch and duration, and phonemes. Mismatch negativity amplitudes differed significantly between groups in the duration condition, whereas no differences were found in the frequency and phoneme conditions. Moreover, the dyslexic children had delayed mismatch negativity latencies in the three contrast conditions. Our results suggest a deficit in low-level auditory discrimination in dyslexic children, in particular when detecting stimulus duration, and support the rapid auditory processing theory of dyslexia.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sílvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Corbera
authors.forename: Carles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Escera
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Artigas
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000293:Adolescent; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology*; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000150:complications*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male