title: Electrophysiological and phonological change detection measures of auditory word processing in normal Persian-speaking children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Auditory phoneme discrimination is a basic and important prerequisite for acquiring speech, reading, and spelling skills. Children, who are unable to perceive auditory phoneme discrimination, cannot develop phonemic representations. Therefore, the early identification of these deficits and application of effective therapeutic approaches is a necessity. We need to assess appropriately word or sound discrimination in normal populations using an objective passive task such as mismatch negativity (MMN). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate MMN responses using speech stimuli (words) in 6-7 year-old normal Persian-speaking children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten right-handed Persian-speaking children with normal visual and auditory acuity, aged from 6 to 7 years, participated in the study. Recording of electroencephalography (EEG) was done by 64 A g/AgCl electrodes. A new auditory paradigm was used with three deviant stimuli (/gam/,/jam/, and/tam/) which differed in the first consonant from a repeated standard word (/dam/). A total of 1500 stimuli, 750 standards and 750 deviants (250 each deviant), were presented by Cogent 2000 running in MATLAB software using two loud speakers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  MMN peaked over the fronto-central sites at around 380-424 ms after the onset of the stimulus. The comparison of the MMN amplitudes elicited by three deviants revealed a significant "initial phoneme type" effect in Fz and Cz (p < 0.05). This negativity was found to be larger for manner and voicing deviants compared with that of the place of articulation (p < 0.001) on midline scalps. The comparison of the MMN latencies revealed no significant main effect of all variables (p > 0.05). Also, the results revealed that only the MMN amplitude for the/gam/deviant correlated with the percentage of correct responses (R = -0.86, p < 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current study showed that words can elicit MMN responses in ∼200 ms after the onset of changes. We can objectively evaluate children's neural speech sound discrimination using the developed paradigm in a natural word context. This paradigm can be useful objectively for investigating distinctive features of sounds and phonological discrimination development in normal children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech & Language Pathology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: Ziatabar.ahmadi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Seyyede Zohreh
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Ziatabar Ahmadi
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Auditory Neuroscience, ENT and Head & Neck Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: mahmoudian.s@iums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Saeid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mahmoudian
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Basic Sciences, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: hassanasha@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Hasan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ashayeri
authors.affiliation: ENT and Head & Neck Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: falaedini@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Farshid
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Allaeddini
authors.affiliation: ENT and Head & Neck Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: Farhadi@ent-hns.org.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Farhadi
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Children; Event-related potential (ERP); Language; Mismatch negativity (MMN); Speech discrimination