Phonological Abilities in Literacy-impaired Children: Brain Potentials Reveal Deficient Phoneme Discrimination, but Intact Prosodic Processing

Overview

Journal Dev Cogn Neurosci

Publisher Elsevier

Specialties Neurology
Psychiatry

Date 2016 Dec 25

PMID 28011436

Citations 7

Authors

Claudia Mannel

Gesa Schaadt

Franziska K Illner

Elke van der Meer

Angela D Friederici

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Intact phonological processing is crucial for successful literacy acquisition. While individuals with difficulties in reading and spelling (i.e., developmental dyslexia) are known to experience deficient phoneme discrimination (i.e., segmental phonology), findings concerning their prosodic processing (i.e., suprasegmental phonology) are controversial. Because there are no behavior-independent studies on the underlying neural correlates of prosodic processing in dyslexia, these controversial findings might be explained by different task demands. To provide an objective behavior-independent picture of segmental and suprasegmental phonological processing in impaired literacy acquisition, we investigated event-related brain potentials during passive listening in typically and poor-spelling German school children. For segmental phonology, we analyzed the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) during vowel length discrimination, capturing automatic auditory deviancy detection in repetitive contexts. For suprasegmental phonology, we analyzed the Closure Positive Shift (CPS) that automatically occurs in response to prosodic boundaries. Our results revealed spelling group differences for the MMN, but not for the CPS, indicating deficient segmental, but intact suprasegmental phonological processing in poor spellers. The present findings point towards a differential role of segmental and suprasegmental phonology in literacy disorders and call for interventions that invigorate impaired literacy by utilizing intact prosody in addition to training deficient phonemic awareness.

Citing Articles

Spelling Proficiency of Children with a Resolved Phonological Speech Sound Disorder Treated with an Integrated Approach-A Long-Term Follow-Up Randomized Controlled Trial.

Siemons-Luhring D, Hesping A, Euler H, Meyer L, Gietmann C, Suchan B Children (Basel). 2023; 10(7).

PMID: 37508650 PMC: 10378544. DOI: 10.3390/children10071154.

ERP Indicators of Phonological Awareness Development in Children: A Systematic Review.

Stekic K, Ilic O, Kovic V, Savic A Brain Sci. 2023; 13(2).

PMID: 36831833 PMC: 9954228. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13020290.

Association of Postpartum Maternal Mood With Infant Speech Perception at 2 and 6.5 Months of Age.

Schaadt G, Zsido R, Villringer A, Obrig H, Mannel C, Sacher J JAMA Netw Open. 2022; 5(9):e2232672.

PMID: 36129707 PMC: 9494190. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.32672.

Longitudinal trajectories of electrophysiological mismatch responses in infant speech discrimination differ across speech features.

Werwach A, Mannel C, Obrig H, Friederici A, Schaadt G Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022; 56:101127.

PMID: 35763917 PMC: 9250001. DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101127.

Aberrant Prestimulus Oscillations in Developmental Dyslexia Support an Underlying Attention Shifting Deficit.

Meyer L, Schaadt G Cereb Cortex Commun. 2021; 1(1):tgaa006.

PMID: 34296087 PMC: 8152944. DOI: 10.1093/texcom/tgaa006.

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