title: Present and past: Can writing abilities in school children be associated with their auditory discrimination capacities in infancy?
abstract: Literacy acquisition is highly associated with auditory processing abilities, such as auditory discrimination. The event-related potential Mismatch Response (MMR) is an indicator for cortical auditory discrimination abilities and it has been found to be reduced in individuals with reading and writing impairments and also in infants at risk for these impairments. The goal of the present study was to analyze the relationship between auditory speech discrimination in infancy and writing abilities at school age within subjects, and to determine when auditory speech discrimination differences, relevant for later writing abilities, start to develop. We analyzed the MMR registered in response to natural syllables in German children with and without writing problems at two points during development, that is, at school age and at infancy, namely at age 1 month and 5 months. We observed MMR related auditory discrimination differences between infants with and without later writing problems, starting to develop at age 5 months-an age when infants begin to establish language-specific phoneme representations. At school age, these children with and without writing problems also showed auditory discrimination differences, reflected in the MMR, confirming a relationship between writing and auditory speech processing skills. Thus, writing problems at school age are, at least, partly grounded in auditory discrimination problems developing already during the first months of life.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstr. 1a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: gesa.schaadt@hu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Gesa
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schaadt
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstr. 1a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Männel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany; Graduate School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van der Meer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pannekamp
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstr. 1a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Regine
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oberecker
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Stephanstr. 1a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Angela D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Friederici
mesh_terms: D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D000067010:Literacy; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014956:Writing
keywords: Auditory discrimination; Infants; Longitudinal; Mismatch response; School children; Writing abilities