title: Auditory word perception in sentence context in reading-disabled children.
abstract: Reading difficulties seem to be related to a phonological deficit that has its origin in poor speech perception. As such, disabled readers may use contextual cues to compensate for their weak speech perception abilities. We compared good and poor readers, 7-13 years old, on auditory perception of words varying in phonological contrast, in congruent versus incongruent sentence contexts. Both groups did worse in the phonologically similar than in the phonologically dissimilar incongruent condition. Magnetoencephalography revealed differential activation between the groups as a function of phonological contrast in left superior temporal gyrus between 200 and 300 ms, suggesting that poor readers may have processed phonologically similar incongruent stimuli as congruent. The results are consistent with a phonological account of reading disability.
authors.affiliation: Athinoula A.Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, 14913th Street, Rm 2301, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA. maria@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mody
authors.forename: Daniel T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wehner
authors.forename: Seppo P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Ahlfors
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D015225:Magnetoencephalography / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology