title: Relation between language, audio-vocal psycholinguistic abilities and P300 in children having specific language impairment.
abstract: Specific language impairment is a relatively common developmental condition in which a child fails to develop language at the typical rate despite normal general intellectual abilities, adequate exposure to language, and in the absence of hearing impairments, or neurological or psychiatric disorders. There is much controversy about the extent to which the auditory processing deficits are important in the genesis specific language impairment. The objective of this paper is to assess the higher cortical functions in children with specific language impairment, through assessing neurophysiological changes in order to correlate the results with the clinical picture of the patients to choose the proper rehabilitation training program.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was carried out on 40 children diagnosed to have specific language impairment and 20 normal children as a control group. All children were subjected to the assessment protocol applied in Kasr El-Aini hospital. They were also subjected to a language test (receptive, expressive and total language items), the audio-vocal items of Illinois test of psycholinguistic (auditory reception, auditory association, verbal expression, grammatical closure, auditory sequential memory and sound blending) as well as audiological assessment that included peripheral audiological and P300 amplitude and latency assessment. The results revealed a highly significant difference in P300 amplitude and latency between specific language impairment group and control group. There is also strong correlations between P300 latency and the grammatical closure, auditory sequential memory and sound blending, while significant correlation between the P300 amplitude and auditory association and verbal expression.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Children with specific language impairment, in spite of the normal peripheral hearing, have evidence of cognitive and central auditory processing defects as evidenced by P300 auditory event related potential in the form of prolonged latency which indicate a slow rate of processing and defective memory as evidenced by small amplitude. These findings affect cognitive and language development in specific language impairment children and should be considered during planning the intervention program.
authors: ENT Department, Phoniatric Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt. drelhsh54@hotmail.com
authors: Elham Ahmed
authors: EA
authors: Shaheen
authors: Sahar Saad
authors: SS
authors: Shohdy
authors: Mahmoud
authors: M
authors: Abd Al Raouf
authors: Shereen
authors: S
authors: Mohamed El Abd
authors: Asmss
authors: A
authors: Abd Elhamid
mesh_terms: D017677:Age Distribution; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001306:Auditory Pathways; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004534:Egypt / Q000453:epidemiology; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007804:Language Development; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011578:Psycholinguistics / Q000379:methods*; D012016:Reference Values; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution