An investigation of prototypical and atypical within-category vowels and non-speech analogues on cortical auditory evoked related potentials (AERPs) in 9 year old children

The present study examined cortical auditory evoked related potentials (AERPs) for the P1-N250 and MMN components in children 9 years of age. The first goal was to investigate whether AERPs respond differentially to vowels and complex tones, and the second goal was to explore how prototypical language formant structures might be reflected in these early auditory processing stages. Stimuli were two synthetic within-category vowels (/y/), one of which was preferred by adult German listeners ("prototypical-vowel"), and analogous complex tones. P1 strongly distinguished vowels from tones, revealing larger amplitudes for the more difficult to discriminate but phonetically richer vowel stimuli. P…

Support Systems for Poor Readers: Empirical Data From Six EU Member States

International audience; This study surveyed and compared support systems for poor readers in six member states of the European Union (EU). The goal was to identify features of effective support systems. A large-scale questionnaire survey was conducted among mainstream teachers (n = 4,210) and remedial teachers (n = 2,395). Results indicate that the six support systems differed substantially, with effective support systems showing high performance on all variables measured. More specifically, effective support systems were characterized by (a) high levels of both teacher and student support and (b) frequent interactions between teachers and remedial teachers as well as between remedial teach…

ERP correlates of the processing of speech sound prototipicality in Hungarian dyslexic and normal readers

Genome-wide association study reveals new insights into the heritability and genetic correlates of developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to read, with a heritability of 40–60%. A notable part of this heritability remains unexplained, and large genetic studies are warranted to identify new susceptibility genes and clarify the genetic bases of dyslexia. We carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 2274 dyslexia cases and 6272 controls, testing associations at the single variant, gene, and pathway level, and estimating heritability using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. We also calculated polygenic scores (PGSs) based on large-scale GWAS data for different neuropsychiatric disorders and cortical brain measures, educational attainment,…

Processing of word stress related acoustic information : A multi-feature MMN study

In the present study, we investigated the processing of word stress related acoustic features in a word context. In a passive oddball multi-feature MMN experiment, we presented a disyllabic pseudo-word with two acoustically similar syllables as standard stimulus, and five contrasting deviants that differed from the standard in that they were either stressed on the first syllable or contained a vowel change. Stress was realized by an increase of f0, intensity, vowel duration or consonant duration. The vowel change was used to investigate if phonemic and prosodic changes elicit different MMN components. As a control condition, we presented non-speech counterparts of the speech stimuli. Result…

Language-specific effects on auditory brain responses in children with dyslexia in four European countries

Predictors of developmental dyslexia in European orthographies with varying complexity

Background: The relationship between phoneme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short-term/working memory (ST/WM) and diagnostic category is investigated in control and dyslexic children, and the extent to which this depends on orthographic complexity. Methods: General cognitive, phonological and literacy skills were tested in 1,138 control and 1,114 dyslexic children speaking six different languages spanning a large range of orthographic complexity (Finnish, Hungarian, German, Dutch, French, English). Results: Phoneme deletion and RAN were strong concurrent predictors of developmental dyslexia, while verbal ST/WM and general verbal abilities played a comparatively minor role…

Separating mismatch negativity (MMN) response from auditory obligatory brain responses in school-aged children

Mismatch negativity (MMN) overlaps with other auditory event-related potential (ERP) components. We examined the ERPs of 50 9- to 11-year-old children for vowels /i/, /y/ and equivalent complex tones. The goal was to separate MMN from obligatory ERP components using principal component analysis and equal probability control condition. In addition to the contrast of the deviant minus standard response, we employed the contrast of the deviant minus control response, to see whether the obligatory processing contributes to MMN in children. When looking for differences in speech deviant minus standard contrast, MMN starts around 112 ms. However, when both contrasts are examined, MMN emerges for …

Cognitive mechanisms underlying reading and spelling development in five European orthographies

This paper addresses the question whether the cognitive underpinnings of reading and spelling are universal or language/orthography-specific. We analyzed concurrent predictions of phonological processing (awareness and memory) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) for literacy development in a

Children with dyslexia reveal abnormal native language representations: Evidence from a study of mismatch negativity

Although a deficit perceiving phonemes, as indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN), is apparent in developmental dyslexia (DD), studies have not yet addressed whether this deficit might be a result of deficient native language speech representations. The present study examines how a native-vowel prototype and an atypical vowel are discriminated by 9-year-old children with (n 5 14) and without (n 5 12) DD. MMN was elicited in all conditions in both groups. The control group revealed enhanced MMN to the native-vowel prototype in comparison to the atypical vowel. Children with DD did not show enhanced MMN amplitude to the native-vowel prototype, suggesting impaired tuning to native language s…

Genome-wide association scan identifies new variants associated with a cognitive predictor of dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most prevalent learning disorders, with high impact on school and psychosocial development and high comorbidity with conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and anxiety. DD is characterized by deficits in different cognitive skills, including word reading, spelling, rapid naming, and phonology. To investigate the genetic basis of DD, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of these skills within one of the largest studies available, including nine cohorts of reading-impaired and typically developing children of European ancestry (N = 2562–3468). We observed a genome-wide significant effect (p < 1 × 10…

Cross-linguistic study of brain responses to vowel differences in children with dyslexia in four European countries

The neural prerequisites of reading

Reproducibility of Brain Responses: High for Speech Perception, Low for Reading Difficulties

Neuroscience findings have recently received critique on the lack of replications. To examine the reproducibility of brain indices of speech sound discrimination and their role in dyslexia, a specific reading difficulty, brain event-related potentials using EEG were measured using the same cross-linguistic passive oddball paradigm in about 200 dyslexics and 200 typically reading 8–12-year-old children from four countries with different native languages. Brain responses indexing speech and non-speech sound discrimination were extremely reproducible, supporting the validity and reliability of cognitive neuroscience methods. Significant differences between typical and dyslexic readers were fou…

Typical and Atypical Development of Visual Expertise for Print as Indexed by the Visual Word N1 (N170w) : A Systematic Review

The visual word N1 (N170w) is an early brain ERP component that has been found to be a neurophysiological marker for print expertise, which is a prelexical requirement associated with reading development. To date, no other review has assimilated existing research on reading difficulties and atypical development of processes reflected in the N170w response. Hence, this systematic review synthesized results and evaluated neurophysiological and experimental procedures across different studies about visual print expertise in reading development. Literature databases were examined for relevant studies from 1995 to 2020 investigating the N170w response in individuals with or without reading disor…

Processing of word stress related acoustic information : A multi-feature MMN study

In the present study, we investigated the processing of word stress related acoustic features in a word context. In a passive oddball multi-feature MMN experiment, we presented a disyllabic pseudo-word with two acoustically similar syllables as standard stimulus, and five contrasting deviants that differed from the standard in that they were either stressed on the first syllable or contained a vowel change. Stress was realized by an increase of f0, intensity, vowel duration or consonant duration. The vowel change was used to investigate if phonemic and prosodic changes elicit different MMN components. As a control condition, we presented non-speech counterparts of the speech stimuli. Result…

Orthographic depth and its impact on universal predictors of reading: a cross-language investigation

Alphabetic orthographies differ in the transparency of their letter-sound mappings, with English orthography being less transparent than other alphabetic scripts. The outlier status of English has led scientists to question the generality of findings based on English-language studies. We investigated the role of phonological awareness, memory, vocabulary, rapid naming, and nonverbal intelligence in reading performance across five languages lying at differing positions along a transparency continuum (Finnish, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, and French). Results from a sample of 1,265 children in Grade 2 showed that phonological awareness was the main factor associated with reading performance…

Separating mismatch negativity (MMN) from obligatory brain responses for speech and non-speech sounds in school-aged children

Genetic analysis of dyslexia candidate genes in the European cross-linguistic NeuroDys cohort

The work conducted at the WTCHG was supported by Wellcome Trust grants [076566/Z/05/Z] and [075491/Z/04]; the work in Zurich partly by an SNSF grant [32-108130]. We also thank MAF (Mutation Analysis core Facility) at the Karolinska Institute, Novum, Huddinge. The French part of the project was funded by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-06-NEURO-019-01 GENEDYS) and Ville de Paris. S Paracchini is a Royal Society University Research Fellow. D Czamara was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) within the framework of the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (EXC 1010 SyNergy). Dyslexia is one of the most common childhood disorders with a prevalence o…

ERP correlates of within-category vowel comparisons between prototypical and atypical vowel sounds in children with and without aphasia

Genome Wide Association Scan identifies new variants associated with a cognitive predictor of dyslexia

AbstractDevelopmental dyslexia (DD) is one of the most prevalent learning disorders among children and is characterized by deficits in different cognitive skills, including reading, spelling, short term memory and others. To help unravel the genetic basis of these skills, we conducted a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS), including nine cohorts of reading-impaired and typically developing children of European ancestry, recruited across different countries (N=2,562-3,468).We observed a genome-wide significant effect (p&lt;1×10−8) on rapid automatized naming of letters (RANlet) for variants on 18q12.2 withinMIR924HG (micro-RNA 924 host gene;p= 4.73×10−9), and a suggestive association on 8q1…

Genome-wide association study reveals new insights into the heritability and genetic correlates of developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a learning disorder affecting the ability to read, with a heritability of 40–60%. A notable part of this heritability remains unexplained, and large genetic studies are warranted to identify new susceptibility genes and clarify the genetic bases of dyslexia. We carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 2274 dyslexia cases and 6272 controls, testing associations at the single variant, gene, and pathway level, and estimating heritability using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. We also calculated polygenic scores (PGSs) based on large-scale GWAS data for different neuropsychiatric disorders and cortical brain measures, educational attainment,…