6533b851fe1ef96bd12a9916

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Children's brain responses to sound changes in pseudo words in a multifeature paradigm.

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description

Abstract Objective The multifeature mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm has previously been used to study MMN responses to changes in tones or isolated syllables. We tested 4–12year old children's MMNs to changes in a naturally produced pseudo word context. Methods We studied preschoolers' (under the age of 7years, N =15, mean age 5years 4months) and school childrens' (over the age of 7years, N =15, mean age 9years 3months) MMNs to five types of changes (vowel duration, fundamental frequency, gap, intensity, vowel identity) in the middle syllable of a pseudo word [tɑtɑtɑ] using a multifeature paradigm. Results Vowel duration and gap changes elicited larger frontocentral MMN responses than other change types and the vowel identity change also produced an early positive p-MMR. The presence of the MMN was also determined at the individual level, and it was found that vowel duration and gap deviants produced MMNs in most of the participants. Conclusions The current study shows that children's neural speech sound discrimination can be assessed in a word context in a short recording time (30min) by using the multifeature paradigm. Significance A paradigm which can be used to investigate the discrimination of several change types of speech-sounds in a natural context can be useful for investigating speech development and deficits.