Auditory discrimination profiles of speech sound changes in 6-year-old children as determined with the multi-feature MMN paradigm.
OBJECTIVE
A linguistic multi-feature mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm with five types of changes (vowel, vowel-duration, consonant, frequency (F0), and intensity) in Finnish syllables was used to determine speech-sound discrimination in 17 normally-developing 6-year-old children. The MMNs for vowel and vowel-duration were also recorded in an oddball condition in order to compare the two paradigms. Similar MMNs in the two paradigms would suggest that they tap the same processes. This would promote the usefulness of the more time-efficient multi-feature paradigm for future studies in children.


METHODS
MMNs to five deviant types were recorded in the multi-feature paradigm in which these deviants (total of 50%) were presented in an alternating fashion with standards (50%). An oddball condition with vowel and vowel-duration deviants served as a control.


RESULTS
The linguistic multi-feature paradigm elicited significant MMN responses to all changes used and the responses were comparable to the ones recorded with the traditional oddball paradigm. Compared to a previous adult study (Pakarinen S, Lovio R, Huotilainen M, Alku P, Näätänen R, Kujala T. Fast multi-feature paradigm for recording several mismatch negativities (MMNs) to phonetic and acoustic changes in speech sounds. Biol Psychol, submitted for publication), the MMN amplitudes seemed to be smaller and of longer latencies in general in children than in adults.


CONCLUSIONS
The new time-efficient paradigm can be used in studies addressing cortical speech-sound discrimination in young children.


CONCLUSIONS
The multi-feature paradigm enables fast (20 min) recording of MMNs for five speech-sound features. In future, it might be useful in detecting abnormalities in speech discrimination profiles of children with possible language-related disorders.
Lovio
Riikka
R
Department of Psychology, Cognitive Brain Research Unit, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, Helsinki 00014, Finland. riikka.lovio@helsinki.fi
Pakarinen
Satu
S
Huotilainen
Minna
M
Alku
Paavo
P
Silvennoinen
Salla
S
Näätänen
Risto
R
Kujala
Teija
T
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000254:growth & development*; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*